Out of all the classic monsters that pop up in costume shops around the Halloween season, there’s one that I believe has always been criminally underused in scary movies. Unlike witches, vampires and undead ghouls, the lowly Scarecrow is usually relegated to the background of mainstream horror media despite serving as an instantly recognizable (and genuinely eerie) harbinger of Autumn.
That’s not to say that we haven’t seen memorable examples of these ever-watching fiends in scary movies before – I just wish that there were more of them! And now that we’re fast approaching the spookiest night of the year, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six of the scariest scarecrows in horror films in the hopes that future filmmakers will make use of this underrated monster.
As usual, we invite you to comment below with your own favorite scarecrows if you think we missed a particularly frightening one. And before we begin, I’d also like to give a shout-out to Dark Harvest’s Sawtooth Jack as an honorable mention, as this desiccated corpse spends most of the year as a freaky scarecrow before coming to life as a pumpkin-headed monster on Halloween night.
Now, onto the list…
6. The Zombie Scarecrows – Husk (2011)
Based on a short film that wowed Sundance back in 2005, Brett Simmons’ Husk is one of the more interesting films to come out of the After Dark Originals project. Following an ill-fated group of friends as they find themselves trapped in a haunted cornfield after a car accident, the story re-imagines scarecrows as zombie-like predators lurking in the crops.
While the script suffers from two-dimensional characters and a bizarre sub-plot surrounding psychic visions meant to explain the farm’s backstory, there’s no denying that Simmons’ modernized take on scarecrows remains one of the creepiest versions of the monster.
5. The Rollins Scarecrow – Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009)
Neither of the Messengers movies are that great, featuring familiar genre tropes and some questionable scares, but I have a huge soft spot for the prequel starring Norman Reedus as a countryside patriarch trying to keep his family together once their farm starts to fall apart. Based on the script that inspired the original film, the “The Shining on a farm” premise actually works far better here than you might expect.
Obviously, most of the scares here come courtesy of the titular scarecrow that begins to “protect” the Rollins family in the most gruesome ways imaginable. I really dig the creature’s asymmetrical design and plant-like elements, though it’s a shame that the rest of the movie isn’t quite as well-crafted as its demonic villain.
4. Jonathan Crane – Batman Begins (2005)
I know that including a super-hero flick on this list sounds like a cop-out, but I honestly think that this version of DC’s Scarecrow is creepy enough to compete with the other entries. I mean, Cillian Murphy’s unhinged portrayal of the fear-based villain remains one of the highlights of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, even if he only briefly dons a costume meant to resemble his namesake.
Sure, Murphy isn’t quite as intimidating as some other versions of the character (like the slasher-inspired incarnation of the Arkham games or the Jeffrey-Combs-voiced Crane from The New Batman Adventures), but you have to admit that watching maggots squirm around his face while he drugs unsuspecting patients makes for an exceedingly disturbing visual- and that’s not even mentioning the brief moment where he rides a flaming horse while wearing asylum gear.
3. The Kozukata Kakashi – Kakashi/Scarecrow (2001)
Based on a Junji-Ito manga about the ancient Japanese tradition of making and sacrificing scarecrow-like effigies in order to protect rural areas from evil spirits, Tsuruta Norio’s Kakashi follows a young woman as she searches for her missing brother in a mysterious village. Naturally, the film soon bombards audiences with copious amounts of undead scarecrows in a slow-burn thriller that often feels like watching a ghostly nightmare.
The flick may not benefit from some of the gruesome imagery present in more popular Junji Ito adaptations, but Kakashi is still a surprisingly mellow J-horror film that offers a completely different take on a classic countryside monster. Their designs may not be overly creepy, but it’s the added existential context that makes these scarecrows so damned scary.
2. Harold – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
I didn’t really have high hopes for the 2019 adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, especially once it was announced that the film wouldn’t be an anthology adapting a selection of standalone tales. However, André Øvredal really knocked it out of the park with this fun little love-letter to retro horror – especially when it came to adapting the memorable monsters that inhabited Schwartz’s books.
One of the best examples of these iconic creatures is Harold, the lumbering scarecrow who chases after a local bully once he’s summoned by a cursed storybook. I’m not exactly sure how they did it, but the cinematic Harold is a dead ringer for Stephen Gammell’s classic illustration of the monster, and that alone make it one of the creepiest scarecrows on this list.
1. Bubba – Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Despite its sensationalist title, Frank De Felitta’s seminal Dark Night of the Scarecrow is more of a Poe-inspired thriller about a horrible man dealing with guilt than it is a traditional horror flick about a killer scarecrow. However, this made-for-television experience culminates in one of the most haunting finales that genre cinema has ever seen – all thanks an iconic scarecrow who’s been giving folks nightmares for over 40 years.
While I won’t go into detail about the film’s chilling conclusion, as you really owe it to yourself to experience this one the way it was meant to be seen, Felitta’s restraint in showing us exactly how the unfortunate Bubba is going about his revenge only ends up increasing the impact of the inevitable reveal. This flick may not be for everyone, but there’s a reason why many consider Bubba to be the definitive killer scarecrow.
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