I remember, when I was a kid, seeing the VHS tape for this film at the local
Hastings and it scared the shit out of me. That cover
combined with the title THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN was just horrifying. I
mean, shit, if this guy was so terrifying that
the entire fucking town was scared of
him, then there's nothing that a sexy little kid like me could do to protect
myself! Turns out my fears were for nothing, because this movie can barely
even be categorized horror. It's more of a crime thriller.
One quite evening in the small Texas town of Texarkana, a dude with a sack over
his head attacks two teenagers at a local make-out spot: he beats the shit out
of both of them. He also leaves bite marks on the female. The local cops
are dumbfounded, so they call in the Texas Rangers. The attacks continue and it
turns out the Rangers are about as useless as the local police. Eventually, the
guy kills five folks and then simply disappears. Yawn.
In the right hands, that story could be made into something suspenseful and
engaging, but sadly it appears that everybody involved with this turkey had no
clue as how to make a good movie. The weirdest thing was how the tone of the
movie kept changing from scene to scene. In one scene it's trying to be serious
and then 15 seconds later there's some "Dukes of Hazzard" hijinks going
on. There's even a cop car flying in slow motion into a pond!
Lame acting and even lamer script. Also, some of the night scenes were so dark
that I could barely even tell what was going on. Skip it.
[Update 09/26/2016: Just watched the 2014 "meta-sequel" (that shares the same
title) and it's so underwhelming that I'm not even going to waste my time
writing a review. The story is set "one year ago" and has some dude
who looks just like the dork in the original movie going around semi-copycatting
the kills from the original film. Lame kills, zero gore, zero suspense,
horrible lighting, slow pace, stupid ending, zero scares. The whole
thing was a waste of time. I wished I had never watched it.]