Don't listen to the negative reviews

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Not much horror in this would-be slasher, just some hoe-hum kills without any gore to really speak of. It's more of a murder mystery, and pretty dull one. The 'hero' of the story is a Texas Ranger, who looks like he's a few days away from retirement. Outside of him, none of the characters were all that memorable. The only thing remotely interesting is the time period, which is the 1940s...for whatever reason. I'd pass on this one.

I'd never even heard of this case until seeing this film, and from viewing the Wikipedia article they pretty much got the facts straight, down to the name of the legendary Texas Ranger who came in to head the investigation after the local Texarkana police realized they had a serial killer with no motive on their hands.I like how the film in the beginning takes the time to set up the atmosphere in Texarkana - heck, all across America - immediately postwar. There were plenty of jobs, people were optimistic, there was great growth in the need for houses and a marriage boom following the men coming back from overseas, yet Texarkana retained its small town charm.The killer escalates in violence and bravado with each attack until he is almost caught, and then disappears as suddenly as he appeared. When the killer is attacking, you just see a homemade mask made from a sack over his head, and he never speaks, but his heavy breathing is scarier than anything he could say. When the film is insinuating that the killer is around town, hiding in plain sight, just a pair of shoes are shown. He carried a blunt instrument because he seemed to enjoy the act of bludgeoning and causing pain, but he also carried a gun in case he had to kill quickly.Ben Johnson does a great job of portraying legendary Texas Ranger J.D. Morales, but I imagine law enforcement even in a big city would be hard pressed to solve what at that time was such an uncommon crime - a man who killed complete strangers just for the joy of inflicting pain. There were no FBI profilers, no DNA, criminal forensics was in its infancy. Thus nobody knows if the killer died, went to prison, or just "stopped".The one thing I DID notice - and that is completely forgivable given the film's B pedigree - is that the women's hairstyles were often very 70s for this to be 1946. Part documentary, part suspense film, I'd recommend this one.

Following a string of murders, a small-town detective and his staff join forces to find the masked, anonymous killer stalking their small Texas town as he continually stays ahead of their efforts to contain and stop his rampage.This one wasn't all that enjoyable of an effort and had quite a few problems. Among the many problems here is the fact that there's quite a large amount of of absolutely dull and lame pacing that makes this one such a drag to get through. With the main part of the film based around the factual details of the spree and police procedural investigations into the incidents, there's way too much feeling like this one isn't concerned with appearing all that much as a true slasher film. Though it pays attention to the details of the real-life crime spree at the forefront of the film's story, these come at the expense of telling a true slasher story that it really seems to want to be as this one does drop the documentary vibe for the rather fun slasher scenes but once those are finished this one goes back to the rather pedestrian pace featured for the other scenes throughout here is where this one really gets caught up in too many other areas here that put this too much at a documentary-like feeling. As well, that's another factor here where the film's documentary feel is attributed to factors accomplished here that are just plain useless here, eating up time quite often throughout here when it's focusing on the rather lame investigations done by the officers, whether it be the comedy of the officers attempting to catch the killer by dressing in drag or focusing on the citizens out there without any sort of positive proof on them beyond being simply in the vicinity. It's all part of the final half here being so overlong filled with these deviations in the tone causing this one to feel so jarring while it's going away from the slasher-film aesthetics it should've had. On top of these issues, the film also manages to feature a few other problematic areas in that there's some patently ridiculous features that's highly unlikely to be true, as the film's signature highlight kill is not only pure speculation to have actually happened but is so clunky and bizarre it's just awkward, the killer's features are completely guessed at and it's filled with way too many lame gunshot kills that are really holding this one back. Even with these flaws there's a few that are well-done here. What really works nicely here is when the film drops into prominent slasher territory which manages to feature some rather enjoyable and fun slasher scenes. The opening attack on the couple in the car makes for quite a thrilling opening when the killer appears and gains entry into the car in quite aggressive fashion, a later stalking scene out in the woods where he manages two highly-enjoyable kills with the area coming into play, and the finale chase through the sand-pit through the train tracks and the surrounding swamps which is quite a nice finish here. The other of the film's strengths is that the killer is genuinely frightening. Sporting the potato-sack look with icy blue eyes staring out from small peep-holes, sucking the bag in and out as he rapidly breathes and his tense and hulking stance make like for a visually imposing killer whose aggression and mental instability is palpable. Otherwise, this one isn't all that enjoyable.Rated R: Violence and Language.

I'm not really a true crime nut or a fan of blood and gore horror movies. I only tracked this movie down because I have had a 50 year crush on the lovely Dawn Welles. I didn't even expect to last out the entire film. However, I was drawn in from the opening scene to the final scene. I found the appearances of the Phantom Killer to be riveting, as well as truly scary. I jumped out of my seat when the Phantom appeared at the window behind the man sitting and reading the newspaper. The infamous trombone scene really freaked me out. Considering the budget, this movie is exceptional. I knew that the Texarkana murders of 1946 were never officially solved, so the ending was no surprise to me.