Scary Scarecrows: Difference between revisions

''And does a parody of each unconscious thing you do''

''When you turn around to look it's gone behind you''

 

Scarecrows are scary. There's no doubt about it. The fact that they look like corpses propped up, or the vaguely Christ-like looks, or the fact that [[Uncanny Valley|they're meant to be human]] but don't look very human at all. Their faces are also skull-like.

As such, scarecrows are brilliant [[Nightmare Fuel]] fodder, so fiction is littered with examples of evil scarecrows.

 

 

 

 

* ''[[Batman]]'' and ''[[Ghost Rider]]'' both had separate villains called the Scarecrow. The Marvel version sometimes fights ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' as well.

** The Batman version has also been adapted in the film ''[[Batman Begins]]'' (you'd think [[Cillian Murphy]] would be slightly less creepy with a mask, but you'd be wrong), the video game ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'', and various animated TV series.

* ''[[Mickey Mouse Comic Universe|X-Mickey]]'' has an interdimensional sorcerer named Mow that is capable of bringing puppets to life, choosing a small farm town named Gothic Hill's scarecrows to turn into minions to do his bidding. Though defeated and trapped in other dimensions and his scarecrows having long since disappeared, he makes his way back to do the same thing again, only for Mickey to destroy his staff. {{spoiler|Mow's original scarecrows from three centuries earlier have since reformed and lived in hiding in the old village in disguise}}

 

* The underrated, made-for-TV ghost story ''Dark Night of the Scarecrow''.

* The Creeper disguises himself as one at the start of ''[[Jeepers Creepers]] 2''.

* Found around San Monique in ''[[Live and Let Die (film)|Live and Let Die]]''.

* ''[[The Orphanage]]'' has a scary scarecrow ''[[Creepy Child|child]],'' whose sack mask hides a deformed face, {{spoiler|[[Dark Is Not Evil|although he is not evil.]]}}

* See also the low-budget [[Cult Classic]] ''[[Scarecrows]]'' from 1988.

* The [[Direct to DVD]] splatter comedy ''Scarecrow''.

** In addition, [[The Nightmare Before Christmas|Jack Skellington]] first appears dressed as one of these.

* ''[[The Strangers]]'' also utilizes a scarecrow-like sack mask.

* In ''[[Captain Clegg]]'', there are these all around town. The smugglers actually hide inside them to keep their eyes out for the law.

* The short horror film ''[[Husk]]'' and its feature-length adaptation.

 

* One of the ''[[Dresden Files]]'' books involved horror movie monsters coming to life; the biggest and baddest was a scarecrow.

* The short story ''Know All'' by [[Paul Jennings]] featured a scarecrow coming to life after being dressed in a cursed tightrope walker's outfit.

* An unmade ''[[Friday the 13th (film)|Friday the 13 th]]'' novel would've had Jason's spirit possess a scarecrow.

 

* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'', "The Tale of the Silent Servant": Two kids staying at a farm find a magic scarecrow who takes everything they say literally, i.e. the boy says he'd "like to ''kill''" his cousin for taking his baseball glove.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': The "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" two-parter contains animate scarecrows attacking people. (Arguably, however, they're more goofy than scary.)

** At one point [[Creepy Twins|the Denton Twins]] are talking to the scarecrow when the head falls off revealing the bound and gagged man. He tells them he's been tied up and asks them to help him, which they already knew. They then put his gag back in his mouth and replace his head saying they want to stay friends.

* One episode of ''[[One Foot in the Grave]]'' has a surprisingly dark ending, in which Victor takes revenge on some abusive nursing home staff by encasing their feet in cement and disguising them as scarecrows in a field.

* One episode of ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'' called Four-Sided Triangle has shades of this. An abused girl living at a farm is constantly mistreated by the couple living there and the man lusts after her. After she hits her head in an 'escape attempt'' she seems to fall in love with the scarecrow in the field and goes out to visit it every night, and they believe she has gone crazy, making sure she will never leave. {{spoiler|however, one night, the Scarecrow actually DOES come to life - because the farmer was hiding inside it in order to play on her madness and have sex with her. Too bad she had planned it and killed both of them.}}

* One of the cursed antiques in ''[[Friday the 13th: The Series]]'' was this.

 

* [[Boondox]]

* [[Nick Cave]] & the Bad Seeds' titular "Black Crow King" is one of these.

** Actually subverted here, as the SCARECROW isn't actually a scarecrow. It's the surveillance unit for the Draculoids, supposedly staffed by real people.

 

* ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' features the Scarecrow Ministry, a [[Prestige Class|noble order]] of the Autumn Court that creates (or reinforces) urban legends so that mortals stay away from the places where the ''really'' bad stuff goes down. As part of their membership, they receive masks that can instill phobias in those who look at them.

* A ''[[Pathfinder]]'' module featured an encounter in a cornfield where ghoul-bitten villagers had been strung up as scarecrows by the ghouls to "ripen." When the party shows up, some "scarecrows" have turned, some are still human, and others...are just normal scarecrows.

* ''[[Deadlands]]'' includes living scarecrows as monsters.

* Pumpkin Jack from the ''[[Champions]]'' supplement ''Enemies: The International File''.

 

* Scarecrows are late game enemies in ''[[Izuna]]''. Considering that they can cut your earned XP in half at will, they are scary indeed.

* Somewhere between scarecrows and pumpkin people are the Fir Bolg in ''[[City of Heroes]]''. They inhabit the Croatoa area among all kinda of supernatural nastiness and appear everywhere else for the annual Halloween event.

* ''[[Adventure Quest]]'' has at least one.

 

* In ''[[Tales of MU]]'', a phantasmal and possibly demonic scarecrow menaces Mackenzie in the campus labyrinth, and gifts her with a pitchfork that turns out to be {{spoiler|demonically possessed}}.

 

* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' kept changing their design for the Scarecrow; his initial appearance wasn't so scary at all, but he got progressively more ghoulish. Their final depiction of him doesn't look all that Scarecrow-y, but looks very much like a corpse, and has a broken noose around his neck. The noose was so popular that many subsequent versions of the Scarecrow have it, including the one played by Cillian Murphy in ''[[Batman Begins]]'' and the freaky gas-mask-faced Scarecrow of the ''Arkham Asylum'' game.

* Lord Pumpkin (see Comics examples) also appeared in the shortlived ''[[Ultraforce]]'' animated series.

* In ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]'', one of the team's nastiest enemies was a [[Forgotten Superweapon]] that took on the appearance of a scarecrow. The Scarecrow ''killed'' a couple of [[Red Shirts]], and ''several'' Tarkonian villages, almost murdered two of the Rangers, and managed to brainwash half the Tarkonian court. Worse, the thing wasn't even killed by being lit on fire! It just ran into the darkness - laughing.

 

* ''[[Naruto]]'' has Team Seven's sensei, Kakashi, whose name means "scarecrow".

 

* There's a [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/strawman.htm really obscure Marvel superhero] called the Strawman (no, not [[Straw Man|that one]]) who is a scarecrow, though he's still pretty scary.

 

** The Scarecrow from ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'', probably the most famous non-Scary Scarecrow.

** A close second would be Jack Pumpkinhead, who first appears in the second Oz book, ''[[The Marvelous Land of Oz]]'', and who is a clumsy, childlike naif.

* [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]]'s "Feathertop" is a scarecrow brought to life by a witch, and made by her power to pass for a living man. He ''does'' frighten a couple of people, but ends as a [[Woobie]] himself.

 

* ''[[Worzel Gummidge]]''

 

* Obscure [[Adventure Game]] ''[[Toonstruck]]'' features a friendly "carecrow" who, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|as its name states]], takes care of the birds instead of scaring them away.

* [[Conkers Bad Fur Day|Conker]] has Birdy, who looks a bit frightening, but he's too drunk to project any real fear.

* Scarecrows are monster-type demons in ''[[Disgaea]]''. Like all demons, they can be both good and evil, and work both for your party or against it.

* In ''[[Hatoful Boyfriend]]'', {{spoiler|a really ''fucking creepy'' scarecrow mecha with more than a passing resemblance to [[Silent Hill|Pyramid Head]] shows up to terrorize the characters in the Bad Boys Love route. It's made even creepier when you take in account that said characters are ''birds'', and then it's taken to new heights of creepy when it's revealed that the scarecrow's head contains the brain of the murdered heroine.}}

 

* Spud from ''[[Bob the Builder]]'' (sort of a [[Tricksters|mischief-maker]], but not scary).

 

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[[Category:Horror Tropes]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]