The Town That Dreaded Sundown (The 1976 Film)

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Charles B. Pierce

Starring: Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells, Jimmy Clem, Jim Citty

From: Charles B. Pierce Film Productions

Last night I watched both this and the 2014 movie of the same name, which I understand takes place in a world where the 1976 film is canon and it's shown in town every October, which is actually the case. First, the original.

For awhile I've been interested in the odd meta sequel/remake/whatever that came out last fall that has the same title as this. But I hadn't seen the cult favorite original yet and I figured that was necessary for me to see first, so via Amazon Instant Video I finally checked it out... and wondered just why exactly this is a cult favorite, aside from it being one of the first American slasher films.

This is a docudrama-style film with occasional narration that loosely tells the real life tale of a serial killer in Texarkana, Arkansas known as The Phantom Killer, who was never caught and his identity is still a mystery today; he murdered or at least attacked several people during the spring of 1946. The movie covers the police (and a Texas Ranger) investigating and attempting to catch the killer, who is seen wearing a white hood and that had to be the inspiration for Jason's look in Friday the 13th, Part 2.

The idea of covering a real life mystery involving a serial killer certainly sounded interesting; the way it's done here, though, I can only rate it as about average at best. It's not the attack scenes that weigh this down. Those are pretty creepy. Unfortunately, it's rather oddly structured and it sort of just ends.

Furthermore, it's things like some hammy acting and as many others have noted, the awful attempts at humor to I guess liven the mood that are like an anchor to my enjoyment of this. I point my finger at director Charles B. Pierce, not just for being the director but also for playing by far the worst source for the “humor” as the bumbling cop known as Benson. He was like one of the cops on The Dukes of Hazzard and it was just quite unfunny, even if the character was minor and wasn't seen too often. It's the fact that it was not needed and it ruins the mood that is the worst aspect of it all.

However, I did laugh at the sheer absurdity of the scene with the trombone...

It's a shame that the overall experience doesn't rise above mediocre as it did sound cool and maybe I'd prefer a TV episode or special which talks about the true life case and such things as what happened with each attack, all the suspects and how people think they do know the real killer (a man named Youell Swinney) but he was never officially charged. Just reading the Wikipedia article about it was quite interesting so seeing a program about it will be more up my alley. Maybe it's that this was hard to track down for years that added to its reputation but I hope that whatever the 2014 movie of the same name is one I can rate higher than the OG property.