Ten Days of Terror!: The Town that Dreaded Sundown

Film: The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

I knew going into the original version of The Town that Dreaded Sundown that I had seen it before. There’s a moment or two that are nearly impossible to forget, not in a good way but in a weird horror/comedy way. What I forgot about this movie was how much of it is ridiculous and odd. I didn’t like the movie the first time I saw it and I didn’t like it this time, either, but this time, I can articulate the reasons I find the film lacking far better. I suppose this is the benefit of having done this for more than a dozen years.

One of those things is being a little more aware of who is making the movies in question. In this case, our auteur is Charles B. Pierce. Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans may remember Pierce as the director and star of Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues. There are a lot of similarities between this film and that one, and since Pierce’s 1985 sasquatch-adjacent film is one that appeared on a show specifically made to mock bad movies, this isn’t a good thing.

One of those things the two films have in common is a setting in Arkansas. The Town that Dreaded Sundown is based on a series of murders in Texarkana that took place just after World War II. In the history as well as in the movie, the killer committed a series of seemingly random murders and was never caught. In the real Texarkana Moonlight Murders, eight people were attacked, five fatally, over the course of about 10 weeks.

What we’re going to get is supposed to feel like a sort of documentary. The film is narrated in large part by Vern Stierman, who also narrated Pierce’s original Boggy Creek film (not the one that appeared on MST3K, but one that I have reviewed elsewhere on this blog). That documentary style is interesting, and offers some difference from the norm in what feels in ways like it could be almost formative for the slasher genre, which the film definitely has in its favor.

What we’re going to see is a highly fictionalized version of the Texarkana Moonlight Murders. What I mean by that is that the specific details of what happened are going to be more or less made up for the film or at least wildly interpreted for the film, even while keeping the main points true—people were attacked, some killed, and some managed to survive. We’re going to see the attacks happen, with the killer wearing a white sack over his head, but most of our time is going to be spent with the police tracking down the murderer.

While there are a few people of note in the film, there are a couple who are going to get most of our attention. The first is Deputy Norman Ramsey (Andrew Prine), the Texarkana officer who more or less took the first case of the attacker. Second is Captain J.D. Morales (Ben Johnson), a Texas Ranger brought in to help solve the crimes, since Texarkana straddles the state line. All of this is well and good; both Ramsey and Morales are depicted as upright, effective lawmen who are dedicated to catching a killer.

No, it’s our third officer who is going to be the issue here. This officer is Patrolman A.C. Benson, played by our director, Charles B. Pierce. Pierce is our comic relief. He’s the type of guy who, when he needs to drive the visiting Texas Ranger, forgets the car keys and then drives as fast as he can to get where they are going, figuring that everybody is in a hurry and wants to get to where they are going and wants to impress the man. Pierce plays Patrolman Benson as a bumbling goober. The issue I have with this is that we are dealing with a real life case of five people being murdered. Maybe, just maybe, watching this guy clowning around in drag isn’t the most appropriate thing to have happen.

This, honestly, is my biggest issue with the film. A lot of what happens feels like it doesn’t really belong here. Humor has its place, of course, but again, it’s a lot easier to take in a film that is fiction than it would be in a film that is based on a true story of people actually dying. This would be like having a clown pop up for a few minutes in the middle of Zodiac.

I said at the top that there’s a scene that is impossible to forget. It’s the trombone murder. At one point, our killer straps a knife to the slide of a trombone and uses it to stab a woman who is tied to a tree. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.

There’s a lot here that could work, but it doesn’t because it feels misfocused. And this is despite Charles B. Pierce having some weird ability to get people in the film. Dawn Wells, best known as Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island, shows up as one of the victims. How the hell did that happen?

Why to watch The Town the Dreaded Sundown (1976): The newsreel/documentary style is interesting for a horror movie.
Why not to watch: The attempts at comedy don’t always work.