An action-packed slog

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Texarkana, 1946: a hooded killer is on the prowl, first targeting young couples on lovers' lanes, but eventually attacking people in their own home. While the townsfolk hide away in fear, police deputy Norman Ramsey (Andrew Prine) and Texas ranger Captain J.D. Morales (Ben Johnson) try to track down the killer.Loosely based on a true story, The Town That Dreaded Sundown takes a pseudo-documentary approach, complete with sombre, matter-of-fact voice-over filling in the details, a technique that only serves to detract from the narrative. Also working against the film is some dreadful comic relief in the form of hapless patrolman A.C. Benson (played by the film's director Charles B. Pierce).If only Pierce had done away with the docudrama narration and focused more on the horror and less on police procedure, this could have been a classic of the slasher genre—the deaths are certainly brutal enough. In the end, however, it's nothing more than a unexceptional drive-in B-movie, the only truly memorable moment being the novel use of a trombone as a murder weapon.

Texarkana, 1946 a year that changed it forever. Things were going fine. Soldiers coming back from the war, work is booming, going to college,production is happening there. Texarkana was being like any other small American town. But all of a sudden, things get scary. When the sun goes down. When young people go out to lovers' lane, it ends up being a nightmare. A man in a white hood, terrorizes young lovers. The first victims survive the heinous attacks. But there were others who weren't so fortunate. This acts prompts the local law enforcement to build up the security of the town. Making the citizens very vigilant. The individual is known as "The Phantom" wreaked havoc. No one knows the true identity of him. Many have claimed to be "The Phantom", but they all seem to want the attention for their confessions. So what has become of "The Phantom"? He was shot. Some say that he was doing time. Others claims that the swamps have claimed him. Whatever happened back then, I hope he's gone for good. This is a movie that can be used for crime history. Because it's based on actual events, one much learn. Highly recommended. 4 out of 5 stars.

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.

"The Town That Dreaded Sundown" focuses on the small community of Texarkana, Texas, which was plagued by a series of gruesome murders in the 1940s that are to this day unsolved. Charles B. Pierce's cult classic is an interesting and everlasting piece of cinematic history for two reasons: firstly, it is based on a real life series of crimes; and secondly, the film itself presents the events in a clinical, detached, straightforward manner in the semblance of a true-crime documentary, yet without actually being a true-crime documentary. This unusual narrative approach really sets "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" apart from its peers, and its release in 1976 marks it as one of the prototypes for the slasher film as it's come to be known.The criminal investigation aspect is heavy-handed in the film, which is another unique nuance, as the film manages to balance the investigative side of the story with the outright horror of the crimes committed. On an aesthetic level, the film feels as though it were made in the late 1950s-early 1960s, partly because it's a period piece, but also partly just because of its visual elements, which recall the grit of that era's B-movies. It is stark and colorful, and at times reminded me of a more serious Herschell Gordon Lewis picture, especially with the hackneyed comedy elements that bubble to the surface at times.Overall, it is not hard to see why "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" entered the lexicon of horror, because it is truly a unique piece of film history, bolstered by the meta-fact that it was a film based on history. The clinical documentarian approach is chilling in all the right ways, and the film is engaging in spite of some dragging of its feet. Not a flawless film, but certainly one to be remembered. 7/10.