The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1977)
Posted: 08 May 2010, 16:38
Director:
Charles B. Pierce
Writer:
Earl E. Smith
CAST:
Ben Johnson ... Captain J.D. Morales
Andrew Prine ... Deputy Norman Ramsey
Dawn Wells ... Helen Reed
Jimmy Clem ... Sgt. Mal Griffin
IMDb ocijena : 5.9/10 (909 votes)
Foršpan filma
PLOT:
"- A Texas Ranger hunts for a hooded serial killer terrorizing the residents of a small town, set in 1946 Arkansas. Losely based on a true story - It is based on the Phantom Killer, who murdered five people in the 1940s in the city of Texarkana, Texas, at Spring Lake Park and was never caught.
This movie is a semi-documentary based on the real life string of mysterious killings that terrorized the people of Texarkana Texas in 1946. The murder spree became known as the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders" and ultimately would claim five lives and injure many others, the only description of the killer ever obtained was of a hooded man. To this day no one has been convicted and these murders remain unsolved."
Zanimljivosti:
- The killer in this film wears a white hood, just as Jason Voorhees does four years later in Friday the 13th Part 2.
- This film is referenced in the 1996 movie, Scream.
O FILMU:
- Apparently, this is quite a cult classic. It’s a bizarre little movie. All together it’s a pretty bad movie though. Some of the acting is laughably bad, the pacing lags and it elicits some unintentional laughs from the viewer. The only thing I really liked about it was Ben Johnson’s charismatic performance as the ace police captain who is brought in from the big city to investigate the crimes.
- Another chilling docu-thriller from director Charles B. Pierce (who made The Ledgend of Boggy Creek in 1972), this film being his best!
- An entertaining thriller from its shocking opening to its haunting conclusion, The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a B movie winner
- I saw this movie when it first came out in Miami, Florida. When the 6feet 8inch. psycho killer wearing a potato-sack as a mask with the eyes cut-out, appears, and butchers the lover-lane couple, with his heavy breathing and the potato sack mask going in and out, a young woman in her 20s ran out of the theater hysterical, and a few other women were screaming! Made a few years before the slasher films of the 1980s, this film was way before its time. The killer was brutal, sadistic, and very realistic. The murders were done in a very realistic manner, and with a cast of almost complete unknowns, it had a documentary feeling to it. Veteran character actor Ben Johnson was excellent as usual, and a nervous looking Andrew Perine did a creditable job, but it was the killer who stole the show. Excellent movie, tame by today's standards, but a horror classic never-the-less
- As for the killer himself, he is menacing for a few moments wearing the cloth hood chasing the helpless teenagers. Those few moments are the most effective in the movie. But every time he breaths the hood moves in and out making him look ridiculous. Apparently the real killer had a hole for his mouth. Here the filmmakers choose only to give him holes in the eyes. It ruins the desired effect.
- The only cool scene where was the killer killed a woman using her trombone as a 'weapon'. He attached a knife to it, 'playing' it so it stabbed her 3 times. That was pretty cool