2014 Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
A masked maniac terrorizes the same small community where a murderer known as the Phantom Killer struck decades earlier.
Addison Timlin Veronica Cartwright Travis Tope Anthony Anderson Joshua Leonard Denis O'Hare Spencer Treat Clark Andy Abele Gary Cole Edward Herrmann Ed Lauter Arabella Field Wes Chatham Morganna Bridgers Jaren Mitchell Kurt Krause Lance E. Nichols Geraldine Singer Ricky Wayne Lanee Landry Colby Boothman-Shepard Bill Stinchcomb Andrea Cohen John J. Mourain Pam Dougherty Georges Wilson M. Serrano Gerry May Garrett Kruithof Show All…
Warte, bis es dunkel wird, Assassino Invisível
Horror, the undead and monster classics Thrillers and murder mysteries Intense violence and sexual transgression horror, gory, scary, killing or slasher horror, creepy, eerie, blood or gothic scary, horror, creepy, supernatural or frighten cops, murder, thriller, detective or crime mystery, murder, detective, murderer or clues Show All…
The Phantom is back haunting the streets of Texarkana in this reboot of the 70's iconic slasher classic. Drive-in fun. Wooderson's nephew. Peeper creeper. The Phantom speaks, carries a gun, and that makes a creepy deadly combo. If you're wondering if this is a straight up remake, the answer is no. I must applaud director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon for the cleverness of how he incorporated the original into the reboot. I think fans of the original will get a big kick out of the mad homage paid throughout the film. Psychobabble mumbo jumbo. Backwards cowgirl fun. Boobs in a slasher film is always a fantastic thing. The cops are missing the slapstick humor of Patrolman Sparkplug Benson, but they do eat…
#SlasherSaturday
I really loved the look of this film. Camerawork, lighting, kills were captured really well. Had never heard of cinematographer Michael Goi before and he seems to mostly have TV credits, but I thought the film looked great. Some overhead shots in a field looked particularly good. Plus Ludwig Göransson music. Also really dug Anthony Anderson and Gary Cole as partners. Solid slasher that slightly fizzles at the finish, but I still really liked it. Wish I’d seen the 1976 version first, but 🤷🏻♂️ didn’t feel like it was necessarily required viewing in order to enjoy this one.
Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 1
1. Spencer Treat Clark and Kevin Bacon in Mystic River
As someone who didn't like the 1976 proto-slasher that this film is a quasi-reboot/remake/meta-sequel to, The Town That Dreaded Sundown really surprised with how well-made and lean a slasher this is. Being that it only runs a quickfire 86 minutes (barely 81 sans credits), it's obvious that this film needs to be lean and efficient, and it definitely succeeds at that since it's a really effective meta-slasher that feels like a southern Scream without the comedy and movie references. It's certainly a very meta film, incorporating the original movie as an in-universe film and threading in a lot of real-life history but what makes it work is that it's a very brutal slasher too with fast pacing and gnarly kills.…
63
From the director of Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl (??) is a surprisingly vicious meta-slasher. The characters are dreadful but this is nasty in how it discusses the ways that media lives on, or how it can revive fading myths. Having the 1976 work being an existing object in the timeline of the 2014 film is fascinating if competently handled, even if this is old news if we look to Wes Craven's filmography. Offers a lot of dutch angles and vivid colors, and a few kills for good measure. Nice seeing Anthony Anderson as always. A fine character actor.
Blurring the lines between sequel and remake (a requel if you will?) and taking place in a world where Charles B. Pierce’s 1976 Phantom Killer drive-in cult jam exists, 2014’s The Town that Dreaded Sundown really surprised me as both a continuation of the true crime events Pierce’s film is based on couple with a Craven/Williamson-esque twist, and as a moody, small town, modern woodland slasher dripping with a stylized southern-fried death jam atmosphere I go bananas over.
The Phantom Killer looks TERRIFIC here and this is very much a more tonally consistent picture than its predecessor, portraying a once ravaged town still looking over its shoulders like a sack headed maniac might just still be there. The kills are…
Remakes have the potential either to break the original or to make it better. In the end, it all comes down to whether the original film needs to be remade or whether the remake is simply a product of Hollywood's corporate greed. We've had both, so remakes would never be able to go away nor categorised as good or bad, rather it is a case-by-case basis.
Although this movie is far from being a masterpiece and it often falls into the many tropes of the genre, it is definitely a vast improvement over its predecessor, which serves as both a sequel and a reboot of sorts.
There is a big improvement in its tone. As I pointed out on my…
#SlasherSaturday
I’m a little late watching this one, but hey, it’s Saturday somewhere, right? Okay, well maybe not. I do understand timezones. Although, I understand timelines and that time isn’t linear, so let’s just say it’s actually always Saturday. Or I’m just late and apologies to the slasher crew. My bad.
So this was a lover’s lane style slasher (a good follow-up to LOVERS LANE which was the last pic[k] selected) but instead of the kills staying in hidden makeout spots, they found their way into other places where people were getting (or going) down, more in a HALLOWEEN horny kids massacre style - I can remember one kill in a barn in at least one entry in the franchise.…
Hoop-Tober, Film 20 of 31:
I wasn't as much a fan of this as many other seem to be. It was a decent slasher; the killer was pretty nasty, the gore was fantastically done and the murders were brutal. In that sense, and in a stylistic sense, it was a solid homage to the original and to 70s slasher films in general... but overall, it wasn't a satisfying viewing experience for me. In my book, Addison Timlin has yet to sell herself as an actress; she was also my least favorite thing about Odd Thomas, which I thought was a pretty good little film. More than a few reviews have commented on how great the film looks, but I hold…
Daily Horror Scavenger Hunt 2 - August 2018
1/31: Don't think of this month's scavenger hunt as a remake. However, we are watching a horror movie remake today.
The original The Town That Dreaded Sundown is one of my favorite slasher films and regional horror films. Hell, it’s one of my favorite movies. So remaking something I hold close to my heart is a risky move. Luckily Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) infuses this with some damn good talent.
Instead of a straight remake, this is more meta as in the movie takes place in the “real world” and the original movie is watched annually near Halloween in Texarkana (where the real life murders took place).…
Equal parts sequel, reboot, and meta-narrative, this is a solid companion piece to the original, sharing many of its strengths (absolutely petrifying death scenes) and weaknesses (more police presence than a slasher movie ever needs). It shines brightest when Gomez-Rejon uses his boundless technical wizardry to underline how the production is haunted by its predecessor as much as Texarkana is haunted by the Phantom. The smalltown melancholy he captures between the margins feels like an early taste of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
I really loved the way The Town that Dreaded Sundown opens. I actually loved how the OG opened too. This film is a great complement as well as a creative legacy sequel.
The opening has some creative shots. The introduction of the Phantom is actually pretty scary. I can definitely see why this town dreads sundown. I would hate to run into The Phantom at night, even more so than The Phantom from the original.
The original was a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ movie at best until the finale. My appreciation grew as the film rolled on. I ended up rating it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This version was the opposite. It started out really hot before it finishes with a forgettable cliche slasher finale reminiscent of so many other films. I still very much enjoyed this. It makes for a solid Texarkana double feature.
"This is a sinful movie" -Rev. Cartwright,
It's more accurate to say that the town dreaded night time. I know that doesn't sound as cool but yeah... night.
This is a highly stylized film with a knife wielding killer so I'm definitely on board and for the first hour I thought my dreams were coming true, but then the third act took us to derivative horror hell. In The Town That Dreaded Sundown a new phantom killer emerges. This version is a world where the original Texarkana Moonlight Murders took place and the 1976 movie exists as a movie in the world of this movie... it's a tad meta but not too much. I dig the artsy direction and the…
