The Town That Dreaded Sundown

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is an early slasher flick based on a real murder spree in the Texas/Arkansas border town of Texarkana in 1946. Despite the voiceover claiming the details were all accurate, many of them were changed for the movie, or even fabricated entirely. It's a weird movie that shifts tones and styles. It starts with a voice over narration very reminiscent of t.v. documentaries. Then there are scenes of slapstick humor invovling a cop nicknamed Sparkplug, complete with silly music to let you know you are supposed to be laughing. The rest of the movie alternates betweem crime thriller and horror movie. It's an obvious precursor to the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises, with the latter even putting Jason Voorhees in a similar mask in the second movie (Jason would obtain his signature hockey mask in part 3). 

The movie was obviously low budget. Sometimes the acting is so wooden it's hard to believe that this was the best take the director could get. There are also weird details like the apparent inability of anyone in the film's version of 1940's Texarkana to drive worth a shit. Seriously, they're all over the road to the point that my wife and I were laughing every time there was a scene involving driving. The movie alludes to some of the real life suspects, merging a couple into one character who is dismissed as being the killer. In reality, one of the people who inspired this car thief character is the most likely suspect, who was only kept from prosecution by the refusal of his wife to testify against him after she had provided police with details of the crime the pubic weren't privy to (even directing them to evidence of the crimes).

I guess the prospect of the killer getting a long jail term for car theft didn't appeal to the film makers, because they made up and ending with cops shooting at the killer across train tracks with a train between them. The killer is struck in the leg but manages to disapear into the swamp. After insinuating that the killer almost certainly doed in these swamps, the movie then suggests that he is alive and well and maybe even standing in lin in Texarkana to watch this movie about his exploits. That was actually a clever little meta twist to the movie, foreshadowing the sequel in which the film and film makers of this movie are part of the plot.  

The murders are filmed brutally, but without much tension. There are some moments where the killer displays the macabre sense of whimsy later shown by screen killers like Jason Voorhees, for instance when he fixes a knife to a trombone slide to murder the girl who owns the instrument. All in all considering the budget I think it's a pretty decent movie. My only really large complaint is "Sparkplug", the inept officer who adds occasional moments of slapstick humor. He can't find the car keys, he srives into a bog, he's in drag to lure the killer and his partner is pretending to put the moves on him,  oh my gosh what are we going to do with ole Sparkplug? Of course, removing his scenes would reduce to movie to just a little over an hour, which I believe is the main reason for his inclusion in the first place. They had to come up wiht something to make the movie run at feature length. Which is weird, because the movie feels so much longer than it's hour and a half running time, mostly because of the tedium of having to watch Sparkplug's antics. The only really great thing about the movie is the iconic poster, which was made by Ralph McQuarrie whose became famous for iconic posters and whose concept art helped George Lucas get Star Wars made. But in the end I say, it's worth a watch, just don't expect great things from it. It's at least as good as most of the 80's slashers that seem to be inspired by it.