Fantastic Fest ’14 Review: THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (2014)

[youtube id=”ziRIF0kWOJs” width=”600″ height=”350″]

I’ve yet to see a Blumhouse production that I’ve felt can really stick a landing. Good set ups and solid tension are staple ingredients, and they’re full of memorable imagery. When it comes to that finale, though? Sinister fizzled  and Insidious took us into what appeared to be the world of Little Monsters for the final act. Instead of being on the edge-of-my-seat all three had me checking my watch. Also producing here is Ryan Murphy, of shows like Nip/Tuck, Glee, and American Horror Story, who knows how to end a story but somewhere in the middle are horribly under-cooked tales which leaves the ending feeling too-little, too-late. With The Town That Dreaded Sundown, they’ve made a re-envisioning/sequel hybrid to a little known 70’s flick. Add a decent TV director in Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and who knows what the hell you’re going to get from all these ingredients.  The results may surprise you…film at 11.  What won’t surprise you is another lackluster ending.

Many years back in the 1940’s in the town of Texarkana, a killer known as The Phantom terrorized and held a town paralyzed in fear with the “moonlight murders.”  His burlap sack and vicious killings were immortalized in 1976 when Charles B Pierce made a film about the series of events that took place.  Every year during Halloween, the town of Texarkana would screen the film at the drive-in to this day.  But art imitates life and in turn life imitates art, when the killings begin again in a copycat fashion.  It’s up to Jami (Addison Timlin), the survivor of one recent attack, to figure out why the death has begun again and who’s behind it.  However, her past has some dark secrets which may be key to the situation, placing her even more in danger.

Gomez-Rejon is responsible for pretty much setting the tone and look of American Horror Story with these convex lenses and a unique, fuzzy look to the lighting, which he uses plenty with Sundown.  The film is stylish as hell and chock full of elaborate crane shots,  unique tracking material, and twisted camera angles.  I learned that Gomez-Rejon was Martin Scorsese’s assistant for a time and it made a lot more sense why his eye is so keen.  There’s also a major influence from David Fincher’s horribly underrated Zodiac, though it could be said that parts of his film were inspired by the original Sundown.  Meanwhile, there’s another influence I just can’t talk about without giving too much away, but the script is a hybrid of Zodiac and that film.  There’s a disconnect in the writing, so you know the problems are like dominoes from there. The most glaring offense to me was how dreadfully slow and boring the film felt.  There’s no suspense to speak of once we hit the mid point of the film and without that tension everything just falls apart.  None of the characters are interesting or well drawn enough to elicit much emotion for them or their fates.  The violence is here in true slasher form, but when we don’t have any sorrow or joy from seeing their demise, who the fuck cares?  The film doesn’t crack a smile but maybe three times with most of the proceedings feeling somber and mean spirited…and not in a fun way, like Cub (reviewed during the fest here) for instance.

In the post-feature Q and A with Gomez-Rejon he made note of a simpler ending, perhaps even further alternates, in test screenings that resulted in the current tripe, which further goes to prove that testing movies is a dumb way of being creative.  You’re never going to please everyone, why does showing it to a few audiences and getting their opinion make any difference toward what the film was originally supposed to be?  I just don’t get it.  I bring this up because the ending is, frankly, terrible and derivative of a certain 90’s film which I still shall not mention.  In fact, it’s almost IDENTICAL to that film’s ending, and while it worked in that movie it certainly doesn’t in this one, especially when you already know who’s behind the murders for half the film.  Sundown isn’t awful, but given the interesting approach to being a pseudo-sequel and the awesome visuals, it could have been something.  Unlike the infamous events in Texarkana and the ’76 film about it, this one will be easily forgotten and hardly dreaded by the end of the year.