Town That Dreaded Sundown

Oh boy. Did you ever see Deranged, that Ed Gein movie that came out in the mid-70’s? Remember how it tried to be like a documentary, with it’s voice overs and narrator? Well now try to make the same movie, only with a more ridiculous killer who kills women with a trombone (?) and has the most plain directing in the history of film? Hell, here you have The Town That Dreaded Sundown. More famous for being part of a bad homage in Scream, it deals with the true events of “The Phantom Killer”, a serial killer in Texas that was never caught who killed couples in lover’s lane. When the murders occur, they call on Ben Johnson (Fort Apache, Mighty Joe Young, Terror Train) to catch him. Even with the inspired casting of Johnson and Gilligan’s Island’s Dawn Wells (that’s right, Mary Ann!), it doesn’t save the fact that the movie is slow, boring, and uninteresting. I was surprised this was theatrically released, since it looks and feels like a TV movie all over. But hell, I’ve seen TV movies of the time that were better (Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, Kolchak, Salem’s Lot…). Overrated.