Review of The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014) by Nader H — 04 Feb 2015

The cool thing about the original movie was how it focused on the town's paranoia (hence the title) through a pseudo-documentary style. This new remake decides to be a fairly straightforward, modern-day slasher and, quite frankly, it sucks.

A better title for this movie would be ADD the movie. It was like the director felt a scene would be too boring if the camera wasn't moving or tilted in some way. Tons of crane jib shots, extreme close-ups with something out of focus in the background, lots of panning, plenty of dutch angles, etc etc. Add to this the several cuts in a single scene and lens flares galore and you're in for a terrible viewing experience. It's not "shaky cam" bad, but it's just as annoying. It didn't make the movie look or feel stylish, it felt more like the movie couldn't figure out its identity. Some of these shots alone would be great, but constantly overdoing it just ruins the effect you're trying to go for. But I digress.

As far as the movie... I have no idea what was going on. Well, to clarify, I didn't get the ending. It made no sense. So they left her alive so she could solve the mystery and they would be famous? Did the boyfriend know she was going to want to leave in the middle of the movie? What if she wanted to go straight home? Their motives are so bafflingly stupid too (one to be infamous and the other to have his dead grandpa who he never met be remembered).

The cast has some fairly noticeable names and faces, which is surprising. They don't really do much though. There were some small things I liked, such as the houses lighting up whenever they would walk down the street. It was a stylistic choice, but it made sense with the narrative. It wasn't just a random "this would be cool!" idea. Overall though, the movie is kind of a mess that is about as generic and similar to all the other slashers that have come out for the past couple decades. I feel they only chose The Town That Dreaded Sundown because they liked the look of the killer and the name. Otherwise, they could have just substituted The Town That Dreaded Sundown for any other slasher from the 70s or 80s.