The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The list of grindhouse horror classics that were rebooted and worked well is pretty short ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Hills Have Eyes" are two that did work), and this one mostly works and had a clever twist on not simply being a remake or reboot. The premise here is that 65 years after the masked serial killer in Texarkana went on his killing spree, a new copycat killer is now recreating the murders from the 1970s Charles B. Pierce grindhouse film version of the actual murders. This film boasts a producer, director, and writer from the American Horror Story team, so you would expect something clever and this film does deliver. I think I was most excited when this film brought the Pierce film into the story as a major plot point, including creating a creepy fictional son of Pierce played by AHS regular Denis O'Hare, making the film rather meta. Also appearing in the film are Veronica Cartwright, Anthony Anderson, Gary Cole, Edward Herrmann, Ed Lauter, and even Danielle Harris if you look fast. Overall, this was a clever reboot that although it's not as scary or creepy as I'd have hoped, is smart and never boring.

Two thirds of a century after a series of brutal, vicious, and unsolved killings took place in Texarkana, Arkansas, and one film, loosely based on the crimes, was made, another killer begins making the rounds, using the original killer's M.O. Not really a remake, as it does have an original take on the story, and not exactly a sequel, either, as the characters are aware of the previous film's existence, and even turn to it for clues to the killer's next move, this meta-film has an interesting idea, and much more tension and suspense than I had expected. The hooded killer stalking his victims is effectively chilling, and just when it seems to begin copying the cornfield scene from the original, it does something a bit different with it, and gives the audience a creepy scarecrow image, not present in the earlier film.It mixes fact with fiction, as an article is being written about the killer, and a previously unknown victim, which could provide a clue to the killer's identity.But for all those things working in its favour, the characters are mostly dull, bland, and boring, the cinematography is typical high contrast with over saturated colours, and while the final chase is effective, the reveal of the killers' identity was uninspired and unbelievable.

A town that sits between Arkansas and Texas had a spell of killings nearly sixty-six years ago. This town is named Texakana and the killer was known as the Phantom. The Phantom suddenly reappears and vows to make the killings continue until the town remembers his legacy. The movie plays out in grisly fashion and has a few creative deaths along the way (knife attached to a trumpet). The main heroine, or the tormented in this case – watches people around her die as she tries to get to the bottom of things. The killings are so bad that the "Texas Rangers" are called on the scene to investigate. I can't help but thing the heroine is similar to "Cindy" from the "Scream" series, only as more of a token and one shot character. The movie really does center more around the antagonist, "The Phantom" and it is almost too bad that the movie doesn't take place around his point of view instead.The movie is creative, and some of the scenes leading up to, and the deaths themselves, are creative. The movie is worth watching if you are a horror buff – it is typical slasher affair.

I vaguely remember having watched The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) many years ago, but the only things I remember about it are the trombone murder and the absurd sense of humor the films directed by Charles B. Pierce used to employ (my favorite one from his filmography is Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues..., which I remember more clearly, because I have watched it approximately 10 times). So, I started watching The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014) without any nostalgic obstructions... and I liked it pretty much due to its sophisticated manufacture and narrative ingenuity. In fact, I wouldn't consider it a remake, but a kind of post-modern re-imagination which doesn't only recognize the existence of the original film, but also employs its fame and archetypes to enrich the narrative. In order to explain myself better, I will summarize the first scenes: in late- 2013, the main character and her boyfriend are watching the annual exhibition of the film The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) at a Texarkana drive-in cinema, during the anniversary of the real-life murders from 1946. She feels uncomfortable watching the horrors on the screen because she still suffers the consequences of having violently lost her parents while being a child. So, he suggests her to go anywhere else, and she accepts. Unfortunately, that place ends up being a "lovers lane", in which they find a sinister hooded figure, exactly like the one they saw in the film... and well, things quickly get worse. That ingenious combination of fiction, reality and meta-fiction characterizes the creative screenplay, which gets the important aid of the solid direction from Alfonso Gómez-Rejón, who employs a polished visual style supported by an extraordinary cinematography, exotic visual compositions and unusual camera angles. Sure, the style occasionally stands out more than it should, and it's not always compatible with the horror the film pretends to inspire us, but after having watched so many (SO MANY!) horror films which pretend to be rough or "grunge", it was very pleasant to find such a polished and well shot movie. On the other hand, it's possible that all that ornament and artistic chervil will be disliked by the fans of more traditional horror. That's a valid point of view, but personally, I found The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014) quite an interesting alternative which complements its images with a clever screenplay, built around a solid mystery with the obligatory suspects, false clues and unexpected twists (which aren't very original, but are well implemented). And we also have a competent performance from Addison Timlin as the "final girl" (and "initial girl" also, thinking it well), which is well complemented by the credible works from Gary Cole, Veronica Cartwright and the late Edward Herrmann and Ed Lauter. In conclusion, I think I can recommend The Town That Dreaded Sundown even to those who don't usually visit the horror genre, because it feels more like a thriller which occasionally employs the horror tools (bloody murders, masked villains) in order to bring more forcefulness to the experience, without betraying the spirit of both genres.