Terror al anochecer

I never expect too much from a slasher as it's not the most succesful genre but in this case it was a pleasant surprise. I didn't see the original movie from 1976 so I can't compare both of them but this version was certainly good enough to keep me entertained. The acting wasn't bad at all at that from the whole cast. There was a fair amount of decent slashing scenes, all done very professionaly and the mystery keeps you guessing till the end. A good movie for this genre.

Post-modern take on the 1976 film of the same title, which was based on a series of murders that occurred in Texarkana on the Texas/Arkansas border a few decades earlier. The first film is frequently referenced but setting the story aside, the two have little in common. The original could sit comfortably in the video nasty genre, while the 'remake' is a stylistic tour-De-force with sound and photography that give off an art film vibe. The acting is solid in part thanks to veteran character actors Ed Lauter Gary Cole (the arms expert in The Good Wife). Although using a few genre tropes, this is not your average slasher flick. It's a scary movie but not a Scary Movie.

The original true crime slasher flick "Town That Dreaded Sundown"(1976) directed by Charles B.Pierce was based on true story of a mysterious serial killer called the Phantom Killer,who during spring of 1946 killed five people and wounded three in a small border town of Texarkana.The perpetrator of these heinous crimes was never caught.The new "Town That Dreaded Sundown" remake plays more like "Scream" influenced modern teen slasher flick with plenty of references to the original movie and the Phantom Killer unsolved case.Addison Timlin plays teenage girl who after seeing her would-be boyfriend brutally murdered by masked maniac decides to find who really the Phantom Killer AD 2014 is.The movie-within-a-movie premise is certainly well-played and there are some gruesomely bloody kill scenes.Frozen in time Texarkana is also a nice touch.Unfortunately the final reveal of the killer is disappinting.7 trombone deaths out of 10.

Two things they attempted here, one is the usual slasher where a skulking presence moves about in the small town after dark, haunting the whole of space. It offers up the blood sacrifice the genre demands, the Texan locations are nice, a sparse setting for the knife to slash.

But they also had the ambition to not just redo the same horror as every other thing on the shelf but to layer that stage where horror unfolds so that we get the mechanisms that give rise to it. This is a sequel of sorts to the 70s film by the same name that was about the real Texarkana murders that shook the place in the 40s.

So this becomes layered here as events unfolding in a place where gruesome reality of that day is relived each year through fiction, re-entered, thus neutered, through fiction; the original film playing on a drive-in on Halloween night as this one begins. The events aim to relive the original murders so that forgetful spectators will remember again the real impact, this at the behest of a new murderous narrator who fastidiously restages the real thing around town.

The heroine is chosen by him - as the narrative demands - to be the first victim who survives to tell the story, herself an aspiring journalist looking to document truth. So she finds out that it's all happening because a part of the original narrative was omitted in the telling, not given its place in the fiction.

So this is more ambitious than its ilk. One obvious source is Scream. A less obvious is Citizen Kane (don't jeer). The camera tries to swoop into rooms like Welles had it do, there's Kanesque deep focus, even that a journalist is looking to piece together truth from narration we might see as not wholly accidental.

It's not enough to understand Welles as technique he mastered or topics he illustrated though. You must now what for. The filmmaker doesn't so we get obtrusive technique, structure without narrative depth, views without import, in the end it's all strung together in a film schoolish way, and this goes back and even ruins the slasher and sense of place.

It ends with one of the most inane twists.

Well they sure managed to keep that old image from back then, thus giving this movie a more realistic look, helping the viewer connect easily with the story. I for one got to say that I enjoyed it!

Am surprised to see a hand bunch of good actors gathered here, just check out the list, you'll see what I'm talking about, so you can expect good acting. They kept a very realistic portrait of the town, the people, the church, pretty much everything looks old, older than everything else because it is a tired town, one that has been through a lot of terror already and it barely healed properly. The story moves slow, but the killings go on and on, no gore, a little nudity, still powerful images come with every kill. Those looked indeed like authentic psychopath murders with psychopath reason behind them.

I think I said enough, I don't wanna tip you off on anything so I'll just recommend you to try it. It's a good homage of the classic cinema. I haven't seen the original, I hear it is also quite brutal, probably I'll try that one too, soon enough I hope. So without comparing them, my opinion is that The Town That Dreaded Sundown stands tall for a horror/slasher remake.

Cheers!