The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014 Sequel to Pierce's 76 film)

Jami must look away as her beau is butchered in The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

****

Decades after director Charles Pierce brought to us a film about a psychopath in sackmask in the "middle town" of Texarkana (between Texas and Arkansas; kind of a bridge), the phantom moonlight murders start up again...but who is behind them? Jami, awaiting response from universities in the hopes of a scholarship to a good college, is out with a jock boyfriend who is soon stabbed to death while the sack-mask killer has her facing away from the horror. This experience urges her to pursue a investigative research into the old murders. Will she be able to unmask the current killer or killers?

 

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is the kind of film I think I will enjoy many summers to come if I’m allowed to remain on this earth in the future. Also, I applaud those who make a film that respects and honors its source the way Town II does Pierce’s 76 classic. Not just Pierce and his film, but old 70s drive-in culture, the filmmaking process of yesteryear, and Southern, small town, laid back life. Sure, some focus on the emphasis of Christianity is identified and mocked to a degree. And the way law enforcement seems a bit out of their league, and even the glorified Texas Rangers (in this film, led by a confident Anthony Anderson) appear to be in a pickle trying to uncover the killer(s). It is actually Jami who stops them, not the police who never quite put two and two together. Jami just has to capitalize on her situation when one phantom decides to turn on the other, and a weapon can be free for her use.

Gomez-Rejon applies a slick style to the slasher parts of the film. The editing style, for instance, at the end when the phantoms decide to try and finish off the final girl, in this case Jami, is a thing of beauty. It looked extremely difficult to me, seeing it play out from a variety of angles, differing placements, close-ups of faces and distance shots, the phantom and Jami, the hunted and prey. What the end sequence does is establish Jami’s life will forever be altered by the phantom(s). It starts with the discovery of her hurt grandmother, which feeds into the chase into a church, soon to led to the train tracks where she finds her current boyfriend (a budding romance during her research for the phantom news story, brought on by her opening harrowing experience) in pieces, mimicking a similar murder in the past in Texarkana, with the final touch being her downed by an arrow, soon meeting two familiar faces under those infamous hooded masks.

The reasoning of the killers and the slasher plot itself is perhaps the film’s most glaring weakness: it is basic and not all that extraordinary. How it is photographed and edited, though, as I have embellished and praised ad nauseum, is what makes the film really hum. It knows when to slow down and when to move like a locomotive. This director and his cinematographer (Michael Goi; director of the unsettling Megan is Missing I was surprised to see a number of photographic work for smut like Nightcap and The Pleasure Zone, which I think is kind of cool actually) should be only going up, up, up after this…no ceiling, from what is seen here in this movie.

While I have actually read some good things about Odd Thomas, I haven’t seen it yet, but I noticed Addison Timlin was in it, so I might give it a gander now that she is on my radar. The camera is in love with her, although she isn’t like this girl with sex symbol looks. She’s like that girl you could fall for, totally and completely; she’s not that girl that you simply want to fuck like any number of slasher fodder in something in the vein of Sorority Row. She’s exactly the kind of lead a movie like this needs when following an amateur detective soon to lose so much for nothing she’s done, but because of having a past with one of the killers.

Marquee for the latest showing in Texarkana of Charles Pierce's The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

 When watching The Town That Dreaded Sundown, a 2014 “sequel” (good decision to be a continuation of the Pierce’s film, instead of a remake or re-imagining), I checked to see what else Alfonso Gomez-Rejon was up to. He had directed Asylum, for American Horror Story, but he has dipped his wick in other genres and television, so Gomez-Rejon isn’t completely tied to horror. I hope he does return to the genre because I was absolutely floored by the presentation of Town, even if the story is rather average. I’m an avid visual fanboy; I love a master aesthetic. This film just won me over. There was one dual kill by the “moonlight phantom” (considered by the son of deceased Pierce’s son (played by Denis O’Hare, a reliable character actor who has cut his teeth in both television and film; he’s reliable and effective in whatever part is given him; here, he makes Pierce, Jr. a bit of an oddball, an eccentric who lives on a boat in the middle of a dustpatch) to be the grandson of a man never considered a suspect) where he shoots a deputy in the middle of getting head by a gal he met in a bar. There’s this incredible overhead shot down at the girl running from the phantom as she moves across the well mowed yard into a cornfield. It is a thing of beauty. Carefully developed and meticulously crafted, almost every scene is designed to raise your eyebrows. It is especially appreciated by me to see such attention to a visual dynamic that wants to leave its impression on you. You see films directed with a camera that doesn’t want to stay still too long or heighten the place and characters, the situation and its ongoing story. The camera can be a tease that doesn’t want to share. But not the case in Town Part II. This is a film that has compositions and an aesthetic that is purposed at drawing attention to the serious talent behind the camera, and those involved in the making of this are quite talented. Maybe that makes the filmmakers “pretentious”. I don’t care. It is nice to see films like this in the horror genre. It gives me hope when I watch this, From the Dark, It Follows, and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night that when it appears as if the horror genre is on a downward spiral, it just returns with a vengeance. 

Addison Timlin, lead of The Town That Dreaded Sundown '14

I hope in the future that The Town That Dreaded Sundown gains such a following that it becomes a necessary film during a specific time of year. I think it is an ideal summer movie, but I couldn't help but also think it could fit quite nicely alongside Halloween in October. I have a blog post designed to elaborate on this. Movies have a tendency (as Halloween did for Jamie Lee Curtis) to build iconic roles for actresses who star in them. Addison is not an actress I'm familiar with, but I loved her face in The Town II. She has this girl-next-door cliche that I honestly like a lot. I want that in a heroine. What I like about this film a lot is that, while there's a sweetness, heart, and vulnerability about her, Addison gives her Jami an inner strength (to go through the ordeal of a boyfriend being stabbed multiple times while she must look in an opposite direction, unable to do anything to help him, it can take a toll on anyone) and eventual toughness that helps to endure a great deal.

incredible overhead shot as one of the phantom killers give chase in The Town That Dreaded Sundown '14

Jami eyes file boxes, looking for info on the Moonlight killings for which Pierce's film was based on.

Wanted to include a distance shot as Jami walks home while a cop car "protects" her in a follow.

Loved the use of sunlight and the large windows in this scene

What it looks like from Jami's point of view as she tries to offer help to the police regarding a possible suspect

I thought this scene has some stunning sunlight hues haloing their features.

The cool "company signs/letters" junk yard provided some memorable (if all too brief) visual gags, particularly this moment.

Sheriff's office as Pierce's film plays on the television.

Same movie. Identical Telly. A diner in Texarkana at the same time the sheriff and Texas Ranger think about their case

I wanted to establish the compositions, and offer some examples from the movie. I can tell you from sun up to sun down that this or that film is well shot and composed, but to show you the honey from the comb is what I think a blog can do sometimes. I like an outlet to pimp out the goodies when I come across them. Town II, I think, is a goodie.

A scarecrow will lose its spot soon to a victim who will hang in The Town That Dreaded Sundown '14

Oh, a blog with Scarecrow in its title isn't about to leave out a shot like this in a film. As one of the Phantom moonlight killers is bent down massacring a town floozy, a shot of a scarecrow emerging from the stalks on its cross catches a moon-lit gaze. Be still my dark heart.

A scarecrow replaced

There's this lovely use of light during a night time dialogue where Jami tells Nick her and grandma (played by Veronica Cartwright) are leaving for California. It is also that moment when the two embrace their feelings. Not only that: Jami uses just an expression to let Nick know she was offering her body to him. I envied him.

 The kids getting a mouthful from the son of the director of the 1976 film, The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Inside a boat of all places!

O'Hare as Charles Pierce's son

There's a scene I certainly find to my liking. Jami and Nick (Travis Tope), who works at the location holding documents and articles the film's heroine uses as research items, talk to the director of the first film's son, Junior. It is another of those scenes that pays homage to the original film while also keeping the case so long ago that Pierce documented relevant to the ongoing plot of this new film. O'Hare is a hoot as the eccentric. "My daddy" this and "my daddy that". Quite amusing how the son keeps his father alive always.

Again, the final reveal sort of lays out the killers as the final girl must try to survive them. Motivations behind the murders emerge and she must calculate a survival plan quickly. It looks like her fate is sealed, but can she make a move off of a mistake (rather convenient, though, as it may be) and get out this sticky situation? The one phantom killer is some random character we see periodically (not without the irony of who is he, regarding profession, and association with Jami; she shares dialogues with him, even), while the other is one of those wild twists slashers are known to produce. The ending allows Jami to circumvent their efforts, and her reaction to the whole nightmare is realistic, not over the top. To wit, this is a film that offers a story that doesn't get in the way of the presentation. Whether or not you like its look and feel will probably determine its effect on you.