The Town that Dreaded Sundown
1976Dir. Charles B. Pierce
Loosely based on the true story of the ‘Moonlight Murders’, this often unnerving creeper follows a gruff Texas Ranger as he attempts to track down the hooded maniac terrorising the residents of a small town in Arkansas, 1946. Director Pierce adopts a documentary style approach to lend proceedings an air of authority and realism. Throughout, a narrator puts things in context for us, and paints a wonderfully vivid picture of post-war American small town life. Newspaper headlines also flash up on screen to keep us abreast of the grisly goings-on.
Just after WWII, the predominantly working class community of Texarkana have welcomed home their soldiers who are trying to return to normalcy and find work. Just as they thought that things couldn’t get anymore downtrodden, a lunatic wearing a sack over his head begins to menace couples on Lover’s Lane, attacking several people and leaving them traumatised. Later on, another unfortunate couple are beaten to death. As events unravel, the killer soon begins to target people in their own homes… Soon, the town is in the icy grip of panic and fear. Paranoia becomes rife as residents don't know who the killer is. It could be anyone.
The bulk of the film follows the underprepared police as they try to track the brutish killer. It’s during these stretches that events become muddled and the tone wildly uneven as Pierce mixes elements of slapstick comedy with tense moments of genuinely gritty violence. This effectively kills the carefully constructed mood of the other scenes where the maniac wrecks bloody mayhem. Too much time is spent following the bumbling, comedic cops whose buffoonery decimates the eerie atmosphere, notably the exploits of deputy ‘Spark Plug’, so called because of his dim-wittedness. He chauffeurs the Ranger around town and generally riles with his idiotic tomfoolery. There is even a scene where he has to dress in women's clothes in an attempt to foil the killer. Hilarious.
A terrific sequence occurs when a number of cops are sitting in a diner discussing the mysterious case. As they ramble on about how they simply have no idea who the killer could be and the very real possibility that it could be anyone living in the town, the camera lowers and treks along the floor of the diner until it comes to a pair of familiar looking boots. The wearer is sitting in the very next booth. Could it be he killer himself? This deceptively simple and understated scene contains a hefty and unshakable impact.
The film's strengths often lie in the eerie scenes featuring the hooded killer stalking his victims. The sight of the hulking brute wearing a burlap sack over his head is rather unnerving and its easy to see where Steve Miner got the inspiration for Jason’s look in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) - pictured above. The tension that stirs up whenever he moves into shot is at times unbearable, particularly in the scene where he bursts his way into a woman’s house after he has appeared at the window and shot her husband dead as he read the evening news. The woman is unceremoniously shot in the face but manages to drag herself, painfully slowly, out of the house and into the corn field that surrounds her home. What follows is a continuation of the tension that was heaped up when the killer invades her home, as he stalks her through the field until she finally manages to get to her neighbours' house and get help. While most of the night scenes are incredibly murky, it sort of adds to the gritty, ‘realist’ feel that Pierce uses to great effect.
In an earlier scene this woman was seen smiling uneasily at someone whose face is never revealed, sitting in a car outside the grocery store she has just exited, again implying that the killer could be someone who lives in town who could easily hide in plain sight and remain undetected. Chilling stuff.
An extremely odd, disturbing moment takes place when the killer, having hauled a young couple from their moving car, beats the young man senseless and then shoots him before turning his attention to the young woman. Lashing her to a tree he proceeds to fix a knife to the end of her trombone. He furiously blow into the instrument, violently extending and retracting the brass tubing so the knife repeatedly stabs her. The close-up shots of his eyes as he blows furiously into the instrument are deeply unsettling.
Despite the comedy killing moments, of which there are plenty, the film still manages to maintain an air of menace and dread, particularly when the police enforce a curfew on the townsfolk. The fact that this case was never solved also hangs heavy throughout the film, and although no one says it, the idea that ‘the killer is still out there’ lurks ominously in the background as the film draws to a close.
A terrific sequence occurs when a number of cops are sitting in a diner discussing the mysterious case. As they ramble on about how they simply have no idea who the killer could be and the very real possibility that it could be anyone living in the town, the camera lowers and treks along the floor of the diner until it comes to a pair of familiar looking boots. The wearer is sitting in the very next booth. Could it be he killer himself? This deceptively simple and understated scene contains a hefty and unshakable impact.
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| Jason in Friday the 13th Part II |
In an earlier scene this woman was seen smiling uneasily at someone whose face is never revealed, sitting in a car outside the grocery store she has just exited, again implying that the killer could be someone who lives in town who could easily hide in plain sight and remain undetected. Chilling stuff.
An extremely odd, disturbing moment takes place when the killer, having hauled a young couple from their moving car, beats the young man senseless and then shoots him before turning his attention to the young woman. Lashing her to a tree he proceeds to fix a knife to the end of her trombone. He furiously blow into the instrument, violently extending and retracting the brass tubing so the knife repeatedly stabs her. The close-up shots of his eyes as he blows furiously into the instrument are deeply unsettling.
Despite the comedy killing moments, of which there are plenty, the film still manages to maintain an air of menace and dread, particularly when the police enforce a curfew on the townsfolk. The fact that this case was never solved also hangs heavy throughout the film, and although no one says it, the idea that ‘the killer is still out there’ lurks ominously in the background as the film draws to a close.
