Review of The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) by Jessica H — 27 Sep 2011

The Town that Dreaded Sundown (Charles B. Pierce, 1976).

The Town that Dreaded Sundown is not classic cinema by any means, but it succeeds in doing most of the things Raw Meat (q.v., elsewhere this ish) tried and failed to do.

Plot: loosely based on the Moonlight Murders case, The Town that Dreaded Sundown details the three-month dance between a hooded serial killer (played by stuntman Bud Davis) and J. D. Morales (Angels in the Outfield's Ben Johnson), a Texas ranger obsessed with hunting him down. But this is not your normal crime film, not by any means. The local sheriff (Jim Citty in his only screen role) understands that he needs outside help on this case, but isn't all too happy about it, so he assigns overeager, bumbling deputy Norman Ramsey (Gettysburg's Andrew Prine) as Morales' escort, providing comic relief throughout.

This movie works a whole lot better if you think of it as a comedy of murders, a subgenre that actually experienced a minor surge in popularity a few years after this came out (Student Bodies, Pandemonium, Saturday the 14th, etc.). Those who go into it expecting a horror movie, or worse yet a slasher film, are bound to be disappointed. Those who expect the modern âwell, we don't know who the killer is, so we'll invent a plausible endingâ? will also be disappointed. The case is still officially listed as unsolved over sixty years later, and the film (made to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the case) wasn't going to make any bones about that. (Note: law enforcement at the time believe they actually had the killer in custody, and most of the evidence pointed to him, a 29-year-old itinerant criminal named Youell Swinney; he was released on a technicality and never actually tried for the Moonlight Murders.) It's a cheaply-made Z-grade piece of silliness that should probably have been a TV movie, but ended up getting a pretty big theatrical release before fading into obscurity. Obscure it still isâ"to this day the film has never had a DVD releaseâ"but low-budget thriller/comedy fans will definitely want to look this one up. ***.