NOT Available on DVD: THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN

Have you ever wanted to see Mary Ann from ‘Gilligans Island’ covered in blood and chased through a corn field by a serial killer who wears a potato-sack as a hood and commits murders with a knife strapped to the end of a trombone? If so track THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, a fact-based blend of police procedural, slasher flick, and redneck comedy from 1977. In addition to having one of the great movie titles of the ‘70s, THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is a realistic, chilling, and effective thriller but it’s NOT available on DVD.

‘The Phantom Killer’(aka ‘The Moonlight Murderer’) was a real life fiend who committed a series of murders in Texarkana, a border town between Texas and Arkansas, in 1946. Like the ‘Zodiac’ killer who terrorized San Francisco 25 years later, he was never caught or identified. Stalking couples parked at lovers lanes and striking exactly every 21 days, he killed the young men first then raped and murdered the women. THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN starts off as a docudrama with a sonorous narrator introducing Texarkana as a sleepy town horrified when a young couple is attacked one night while making out in their car by a tall, overalls-clad hooded psycho. They barely survive and the folks of Texarkana, not used to such violence, are terrified that he might strike again. Soon two more sweethearts are attacked in a similar setting, but this time brutally murdered. Fear grips the town of Texarkana so Deputy Sheriff Norman Ramsey (Andrew Prine)  brings in ace Texas ranger Capitan J.D. Morales (Ben Johnson) to lead the manhunt, but will the Phantom be apprehended before he kills again?

Directed by Charles B. Pierce, THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is a fine example of low-budget, regionally-made, B-movie entertainment. Ben Johnson lends credibility and authority as the determined lawman and Andrew Prine is solid as the local officer who works with him. The only other recognizable star is Dawn Wells, strictly a TV actress whose only other theatrical films were this and two others for director Pierce. I was still watching ‘Gilligans Island’ reruns daily in 1977 when I saw  THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN  at the Des Peres 4 Cinema and I can remember how upsetting and shocking it was to see poor Mary Ann shot through the face and crawling through the mud! The Phantom Killer, silently played by stuntman Bud Davis, is a genuinely frightening presence and predates the relentlessly stealth boogiemen of HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13^TH. The close-ups of his heavy dead eyes under his executioners hood that moves in and out with his heavy breathing generate real chills. The central asset of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN lies in its southern gothic atmosphere, and director Charles B. Pierce does a good job illustrating the fear of the locals by showing them boarding up their windows and stockpiling guns (the people of Texarkana must not dread sundown too much as most of the film’s victims are out and about at night). Unfortunately THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is hampered by some ill-advised and ill-executed redneck comedy relief.  The characters speak in too-thick Southern accents and Pierce himself plays the Fifish Deputy Bensen who drives his patrol car into a lake in the middle of a chase scene for no other reason than to step out and mug for the camera like a refugee from “Hee Haw’. These comic scenes are painfully out of place and serve no purpose other than to blunt the facets of the film which do work (and remind me of the similarly inappropriate backwoods humor that marred parts of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT in 1972). As in real life, the mystery of ‘The Phantom Killer’is never solved in THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN. We don’t find out who the killer is, nor is there a climactic moment where the action peaks. There is a brief confrontation between the lawmen and the killer, but nothing comes of it. You see this type of loose end, ambiguous ending in modern horror films but it wasn’t so common in the 1970’s

Charles B. Pierce was an Arkansas-based maker of inexpensive regional films aimed at the small-town and drive-in audiences of rural America. Pierce was a purveyor of the movie marketing art of “Four-walling.”  Four-walling was a technique practiced by many independent filmmakers which consisted of shopping their films not to studios, but to the drive-ins and cinemas themselves, often tossing their cans of film into the trunks of their cars and driving around from town to town.  This practice is all but obsolete now, but director/producer Pierce was successful at it starting with 1972′s LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, his stab at the then-current ‘Bigfoot’ craze. Pierce served as producer, director, screenwriter, actor, and even cinematographer on his films which included RETURN TO BOGGY CREEK(1975) and the American Indian films WINTERHAWK (1975), GRAYEAGLE (1977), and SACRED GROUND (1983). Pierce’s films were all made in an artless, straightforward style that works perfectly for THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN, a fim that made a lot of money for Pierce on its initial release. It had a brief VHS release in the mid-80’s but, much like the Phantom Killer himself, has seemingly vanished.