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The Town That Dreaded Sundown, 1976
Styled as a documentary-esque reenactment of real events that took place in Texarkana, Arkansas in the 1940s, this film follows the murder spree of a man known only as the Phantom. Targeting couples who are out after nightfall, the Phantom is pursued by the local police, including Deputy Norman Ramsey (Andrew Prine). As the police hit frustrating dead end after dead end, they and the citizens of Texarkana grow more and more desperate.
An oddly flat exercise in true crime horror, notable for a handful of effective moments and a whole lot of inexplicably bad ones.
I don’t have Dan Olson’s soothing Canadian cadences, but you can imagine him saying, “What are you doing? Why . . . are you here?”. I find this film genuinely baffling, and if it weren’t based on actual murders, I’d probably find it rather amusing.
There are a few things that work, outnumbered though they are by the parts that don’t. The Phantom, in his pillowcase mask is a scary character. The low-budget look of him, his uncertain body language at times: it all makes him feel like a regular guy who for whatever reason decided to go out and terrorize people. This isn’t a killer with mythological or supernatural vibes like Jason in his ski mask. You fully believe that by day this guy might be a mechanic or a bank teller, that he might have a family at home, that you might run into him at the grocery store.
I also found some of the attack sequences genuinely suspenseful, such as when the Phantom attacks a couple in their home. The wife, who has been shot in the cheek, stumbles out of the house and tries to make it to a neighbor for help. And while I’ll get to the absurdity of one of the later killings, I did find something poignant in a young woman begging her boyfriend to make a run for it and save himself.
And while it’s not explored well AT ALL, I did think that there was something interesting about the setting of these murders. Texarkana is a small town trying to get back to a place of normalcy after the end of WW2.
Finally, this movie has a great title. Half of a star of my rating is for the title alone.
This could have been a solid little slasher, one that would stand out for the true-crime basis of its story, post-WW2 setting, and the bizarre nature of the crimes. But I would absolutely love to know who looked at this story and thought that what it really needed was to be at least 43% slapstick, B-grade comedy. There are multiple sequences, all involving the police, that beg to be scored with Yakkity Sax. It’s jarring and frustrating, and these additions have no basis in reality. In reality, the police did have teenagers to act as decoys. You know what they didn’t have? Middle-aged police officers dressed in cheap drag. In reality, the police did conduct some traffic stops to question suspects. You know what didn’t happen? Police cars falling into ponds with sad horn noises in the background.
I don’t even know what to say about the infamous sequence where the Phantom attaches a knife to a trombone slide and uses the trombone to stab a woman to death as she’s tied to a tree. If this were a made-up story, then at least there would be a fun camp element. But at the time of this film’s release, several victims of the real attacks were still alive. I know that nothing should be off-limits in art, blah blah blah. But I couldn’t help thinking about how it would feel to see a horrific crime committed against you or a loved one turned into a tasteless joke.
But the worst crime this movie commits is that it’s boring. There are no interesting characters, and the pace absolutely draaaaaaaaaags. The agony of the police would make for an emotional centerpiece, except that any scene involving them is a grab bag of actual plot and terrible comedy bits. The movie looks bad, as well. And while occasionally there’s a creepy home movie energy to it---such as in the scene where the Phantom pursues the woman he just shot--generally it just looks flat and muddy.
Just watchable enough, I guess, but I had a better time and was more thrilled by reading the Wikipedia entry about the actual events.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown, 1976
Styled as a documentary-esque reenactment of real events that took place in Texarkana, Arkansas in the 1940s, this film follows the murder spree of a man known only as the Phantom. Targeting couples who are out after nightfall, the Phantom is pursued by the local police, including Deputy Norman Ramsey (Andrew Prine). As the police hit frustrating dead end after dead end, they and the citizens of Texarkana grow more and more desperate.
An oddly flat exercise in true crime horror, notable for a handful of effective moments and a whole lot of inexplicably bad ones.
I don’t have Dan Olson’s soothing Canadian cadences, but you can imagine him saying, “What are you doing? Why . . . are you here?”. I find this film genuinely baffling, and if it weren’t based on actual murders, I’d probably find it rather amusing.
There are a few things that work, outnumbered though they are by the parts that don’t. The Phantom, in his pillowcase mask is a scary character. The low-budget look of him, his uncertain body language at times: it all makes him feel like a regular guy who for whatever reason decided to go out and terrorize people. This isn’t a killer with mythological or supernatural vibes like Jason in his ski mask. You fully believe that by day this guy might be a mechanic or a bank teller, that he might have a family at home, that you might run into him at the grocery store.
I also found some of the attack sequences genuinely suspenseful, such as when the Phantom attacks a couple in their home. The wife, who has been shot in the cheek, stumbles out of the house and tries to make it to a neighbor for help. And while I’ll get to the absurdity of one of the later killings, I did find something poignant in a young woman begging her boyfriend to make a run for it and save himself.
And while it’s not explored well AT ALL, I did think that there was something interesting about the setting of these murders. Texarkana is a small town trying to get back to a place of normalcy after the end of WW2.
Finally, this movie has a great title. Half of a star of my rating is for the title alone.
This could have been a solid little slasher, one that would stand out for the true-crime basis of its story, post-WW2 setting, and the bizarre nature of the crimes. But I would absolutely love to know who looked at this story and thought that what it really needed was to be at least 43% slapstick, B-grade comedy. There are multiple sequences, all involving the police, that beg to be scored with Yakkity Sax. It’s jarring and frustrating, and these additions have no basis in reality. In reality, the police did have teenagers to act as decoys. You know what they didn’t have? Middle-aged police officers dressed in cheap drag. In reality, the police did conduct some traffic stops to question suspects. You know what didn’t happen? Police cars falling into ponds with sad horn noises in the background.
I don’t even know what to say about the infamous sequence where the Phantom attaches a knife to a trombone slide and uses the trombone to stab a woman to death as she’s tied to a tree. If this were a made-up story, then at least there would be a fun camp element. But at the time of this film’s release, several victims of the real attacks were still alive. I know that nothing should be off-limits in art, blah blah blah. But I couldn’t help thinking about how it would feel to see a horrific crime committed against you or a loved one turned into a tasteless joke.
But the worst crime this movie commits is that it’s boring. There are no interesting characters, and the pace absolutely draaaaaaaaaags. The agony of the police would make for an emotional centerpiece, except that any scene involving them is a grab bag of actual plot and terrible comedy bits. The movie looks bad, as well. And while occasionally there’s a creepy home movie energy to it---such as in the scene where the Phantom pursues the woman he just shot--generally it just looks flat and muddy.
Just watchable enough, I guess, but I had a better time and was more thrilled by reading the Wikipedia entry about the actual events.