The Town That Dreaded Sundown

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Year:	1976
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Charles B. Pierce
Genre:	Influential tedium
Starring:	Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells
Rating:	2/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075342/
Tagline:	In 1946 this man killed five people... Today he still lurks the streets of Texarkana, Ark.
Favourite line:	None worth mentioning

Made in the seventies.
Set in the forties.
Sound good?

The plot:
In 1946, the small town of Texarcana, Arkansas became the centre of a media storm when a man, known locally as The Phantom Killer, slayed five people. Over a period of two months, victims were butchered, always late at night, usually in remote locations.
Never apprehended, the figure became something of a cult mystery, drawing speculation and conspiracies alike.
To this day, some believe he died in the swamps into which he fled the police on the night of his last attempted murder, whilst others believe he continued to live amongst the good, ‘normal’ folk of Arkansas.

Presented as fictionalised reality, this is based, apparently reasonably faithfully, on real life events. Of course, as ever with these things, some artistic license is expected – particularly when one of the main players has never been identified – but, frankly, I wish they’d taken more liberties.
Played dead straight, save the occasional misjudged moment of mirth – the police dress up as women in order to lure the killer. Fair enough, I’m sure that happened, but there can be no excuse for the ludicrous ‘comedy brass’ music playing in the background – this feels like a story dragging its heels.
Truthfully, there is insufficient plot here to fill an average episode of CSI, so dragging it out to near ninety minutes seems a bizarre choice.
Low budget, the director makes the foolish decision to try to incorporate a car chase half way through. Again, something similar probably happened but, really, it seems pretty clear he just felt the whole thing needed lifting. Trouble is, the budget just doesn’t run to filming it effectively and, again, there’s that blasted comedy music blaring, giving the sequence the feel of a Keystone Cops interlude, which is just fucking weird in the middle of a serial killer movie.
Though the film itself is pretty damn tedious, it would go on to have a massive influence on the wave of 80’s slasher movies, particularly Friday the 13th. Indeed, just as in the first couple of Jason movies, here the killer, too, wears not a hockey mask, but a cloth sack with eyes cut out.
Simple.
Anonymous.
Pretty fucking scary.
Other than that, kids, nothing to report.
Only watched this based on a recommendation from a horror forum denizen.
Honestly, don’t know what the fuck she was thinking.
Influential dullness, then.