Friday, December 11, 2009

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1977)

I remember, when I was a kid, seeing the VHS tape for this film at the local Hastings and it scared the shit out of me. I have no idea why, but that cover combined with the title THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN was just horrifying. I mean, shit, if this guy was so terrifying that the entire fucking town was scared of him, then there's nothing that a little kid like me could do to protect myself!  Turns out my fears were for nothing, because this movie can barely even be categorized horror.  It's more of a crime thriller.

One quite evening in the small Texas town of Texarkana, a dude with a sack over his head attacks two teenagers at a local make-out spot: he beats the shit out of both of them.  He also leaves bite marks on the female. The local cops are dumbfounded, so they call in the Texas Rangers. The attacks continue and it turns out the Rangers are about as useless as the local police. Eventually, the guy kills five folks and then simply disappears. Yawn.

In the right hands, that story could be made into something suspenseful and engaging, but sadly it appears that everybody involved with this turkey had no clue as how to make a good movie. The weirdest thing was how the tone of the movie kept changing from scene to scene. In one scene it's trying to be serious and then 15 seconds later there's some "Dukes of Hazzard" hijinks going on.  There's even a cop car flying in slow motion into a pond!

Lame acting and even lamer script. Also, some of the night scenes were so dark that I could barely even tell what was going on.  Skip it.

[Update 09/26/2016: Just watched the 2014 "meta-sequel" (that shares the same title) and it's so underwhelming that I'm not even going to waste my time writing a review.  The story is set "one year ago" and has some dude who looks just like the dork in the original movie going around semi-copycatting the kills from the original film.  Lame kills, zero gore, zero suspense, horrible lighting, slow pace, stupid ending, zero scares.  The whole thing was a waste of time.  I wished I had never watched it.]