Review #79: The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1978 and 2014)

This review was originally written in October 2019.

October Horror Movie Review #27 - Double Feature Special: The Towns That Dreaded Sundown

Surprise! Today I have a special treat for you: I watched BOTH versions of The Town That Dreaded Sundown- the original, and the sequel/reboot(?). I will be covering both in a sort of tandem-review.

I'll start with a synopsis. The Town The Dreaded Sundown was a 1976 film loosely based on a series of actual serial murders from thirty years prior. I haven't done a ton of research to see how accurate it is (I only just verified that it is, in fact, based on an actual murder case) but the movie mostly follows the law enforcement officials as they attempt and ultimately fail to catch the killer. The sequel/remake(?), which went by the same name but was released in 2014, is about a series of what seem to be copycat murders taking place in the same town, but this one focuses more on one particular would-be victim of the elusive killer.

I'll say that I liked the original; the sequel lacked a lot of the charm and simplicity and was basically just a typical modern slasher (with all the pluses and minuses that come with that). The fact that the second one was clearly not remotely based on anything real made the juxtaposition of the two fairly jarring.

The original is so endearingly old-looking, both with a 70s feel in regards to filmmaking, and also with a 40s setting and style that made it a joy to watch. There were tons of little details of everyday life back then, and although most of the characters are only there for a scene or two (the victims and various townsfolk, mainly) the characters that stick around for the whole film were generally likable and matter-of-fact. The two main problems I had with this film were the tone, and the ending.

I say the tone was a problem because there was some hardcore comic relief and slapstick in this movie about a series of (real-life) grisly murders. One character (one of the officers) exists purely to bumble about and cue the sound designer to start playing Yakety Sax; and then when he waltzes offscreen after hilariously driving a car into a lake, suddenly it's a scene of two teenagers getting brutally beaten and murdered. It's quite bizarre and it happens several times in the film.

The second problem is the ending. I get it, it's based on a real unsolved case; I don't fault them for not having an ending to pull from. It just doesn't make for a satisfying moviegoing experience. I had the same opinion when I saw Zodiac several years back- great film, but it just... ends. They get to the end of the investigation and then you're just left with a brief sequence where they say what happened to every one of the principle figures, and then roll credits. I'm not sure what I would have them do- not make up a false ending, of course- but we as a moviemaking society need to figure out a better way to end movies about unsolved mysteries.

The sequel was a lot less enjoyable for me, even if it appealed more to what I generally look for in movies. It had action, it had suspense, it had famous actors, it didn't take itself too seriously- there isn't really anything specifically "bad" about it. In fact, the premise- taking place in a world where the previous movie exists as a movie, and the protagonists are dealing with the fallout of living in a place where people associate it with this glorified mythology- is also the premise of one of my favorite horror films (Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2). So it had a lot going for it- I just feel like it missed the mark, by a wide margin.

The first one felt real. The second felt like a Hollywood paint-by-numbers. The first one took place over several weeks, with time spent showing the ramifications of living in fear of this killer. The second one had the killer just popping up whenever the story made it convenient. (Was it over days? Weeks? Hours? I don't know.) And speaking of popping up, I spent most of the movie assuming the killer was going to turn out to be supernatural- a ghost of the actual killer, perhaps- yet no, that didn't happen. But then you have to handwave away the fact that he just kind of materializes inside people's houses, in the shadows exactly when they leave their house in the middle of the night, at a gas station when the main character happens to be leaving town on a road trip, and in a junkyard where two teens were going to hook up. None of these instances felt like something the killer would be doing naturally- in the original, he would frequent lovers' lanes and prey on isolated couples (and often struggle to actually succeed at his goal), but in this one, he just pops up in the most unlikely of places, just because, and then flawlessly dispatches whoever he was planning to kill. The killer is also incredibly theatrical (planning out the kills to copy the exact format of the kills from the first movie, and even taking the time to spell out its name in scrap parts in the middle of a murder) which.... sort of is justified by the killer's eventual motivation, but it's kind of a stupid motivation.

Simply put, they took a story that could have been 100% real and replaced the killer with Jason Voorhees. He's wherever the plot needs him to be even if it doesn't make sense. He's instantly lethal to anyone the story calls for except when the main character needs to escape. He can see everything around him despite wearing an incredibly restrictive mask. He's got all of these elaborate kills set up to fulfill some sort of dramatic character goal. It's so over-the-top I was only on board when I assumed it was a teleporting ghost, and once it turns out it's just a dude, the story lost me. The only justification is "Eh, it's a modern slasher, what do you expect" which is always disappointing.

I enjoyed watching both movies, but I would recommend only the first one. If you want to see an ambiguously supernatural slasher movie just watch a Friday or a Halloween.

Overall Rating (1978): 7/10

Overall Rating (2014): 3/10

Favorite Wishful Thinking Cameo: John Krasinski as Deputy Ramsey