The Town that Dreaded Sundown
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Cast: Addison Timlin, Veronica Cartwright, Anthony Anderson
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons
Back in 1976 there was a little movie called The Town that Dreaded Sundown, about the real life rash of murders that terrorized the small town of Texarkana in 1946. It was a very…odd movie. It had a sort of documentary feel to it, and yet several major points were changed from the real case for the sake of the movie. Then there was the completely out of place attempts at “wacky” (yes, those are ironic finger quotation marks) humor. A very uneven movie to be sure, the film nonetheless garnered a small but loyal cult following. So when I heard about this movie, I thought it was a very odd choice for the remake treatment, and I stand by that. But this, this new movie with the same name isn’t exactly a remake.
Surprise, surprise, in this day of everything getting remade, what we have here is a sequel of sorts, but a sequel to what, that is the question. To the original murders? Well unless someone else went on a new murder spree in Texarkana, which thankfully hasn’t happened, that’s can’t be it. So it’s a sequel to the movie based on real life events? Well, sort of, as in the world this movie is set in, the original 1976 film also exists as a film. It’s kind of like Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 in that regard, but is it better than that? Well come with me and let’s find out, but if you see a guy in a white hood watching you, run.
What this Town that Dreaded Sundown does so well is blend fact and fiction until it’s hard to tell the two apart. Things start off here at the annual showing of the old 1976 movie to the residents of Texarkana, which is a real tradition. But when a couple leaves the drive-in early they are attacked by the infamous sack-masked killer who murders the boyfriend, but allows the girl to escape. From then on, this new faceless killer makes a special connection with the girl, calling her and taunting the police through her, all the while continuing to kill locals in gruesome and violent ways.
This TtDS is far more slasher than the original, but also far more a mystery, as it has a central protagonist who actively does the Nancy Drew bit and stats to look into the case she’s been dragged into. It is also much better made, as director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon shows real skill and I look forward to seeing what he does next. The kills are nice and bloody, so gore hounds will be happy, and it has plenty us suspense, so horror fans into more than gore will dig it too.
The one part of this movie that falls flat is the ending. It is so “been there, seen that” that it’s a real letdown when compared to just how good the entire movie was before it. I had heard through various sources that the ended suffered from some studio meddling, as I would like to think that the filmmakers of this movie would know better than to use this ending unless it was forced on them, but I don’t know. I was hoping that maybe this would be explained somehow in the specials on this Blu-ray. It was not. In fact, let’s get to this “specials,” shall we?
As good as this movie is, you would think that this new disc from Image Entertainment must come loaded with extras and special features, right? Well if you think a single, solitary, trailer is “loaded” then you would be right. Sadly, this is a bare bones as Blu-rays get, and that’s pretty inexcusable. Come on, no extras could be done for this? Bah.
This new version/sequel of The Town that Dreaded Sundown is still a strong enough movie to overcome the weak ending and even weaker Blu-ray release. It is well made, beautifully shot, bloody, scary, and just plain good. So for those reasons I give this a recommendation.
