Scarecrow (1973)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) The 1973 Scarecrow is probably the only scarecrow-titled film in the history of cinema that’s not actually a horror film. What it is, instead, is a grimy downbeat New Hollywood drama featuring no less than Al Pacino and Gene Hackman when they were the toast of the town as hungry, angry young(er) actors blowing people away with their performances. Scarecrow was filmed soon after Academy Awards nominations for both of them, and so expectations ran high then and maybe even now. (They didn’t get along, though, as the film’s production history tells us that the two actors clashed on their approaches despite admiring and respecting each other.)  For twenty-first century viewers, Scarecrow is less an acting showcase than yet another one of those endless New Hollywood dramas. We follow our two protagonists’ hitch-hiking odyssey throughout the western United States, going from roads to prison to bars along the way. It’s not means to be entertaining or uplifting—one character gets severe brain damage from a beating along the way, and their self-destructiveness remains a constant overt theme throughout. In the end, those who like that kind of stuff will like that kind of stuff—but Scarecrow, perhaps even more so than many of its better-known contemporaries, best exemplifies what I dislike about the New Hollywood era: going overboard on post-Production Code permissiveness and disdain for the audience, no longer caring about narrative or resolution. So, no, Scarecrow is not a horror film—but it’s just as depressing.