#the town that dreaded sundown 1976

[weirdlookindog]

Bud Davis and Cindy Butler in The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

[fanofspooky]

Horror movies of 1976

[schlock-luster-video]

On December 24, 1976 The Town That Dreaded Sundown debuted in the United States.

[classichorrorblog]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

SUMMARY: The story of a hooded, berserk killer who terrorized the border town of Texarkana, Arkansas in 1946--leaving no fewer than five murder victims in his wake.

Mod Sus: Jason Voorhees Friday the 13th 2!?!?!?

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Town That Dreaded Sundown (Pierce, 1976)

I don’t inherently have a problem with crude filmmaking in low budget movies, but there’s a dissonance here between the regional ambience and the fact that it stars recognizable actors like Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine and Dawn Wells. And that it’s a low budget affair that happens to be shot in ‘Scope, that frequently feels ungainly in its shot compositions and editing choices yet has moments of disarming visual beauty when filming the Arkansas backwoods.

I guess what I’m saying is that I did find myself at a distance to much of this, especially with the hybrid docudrama approach that Charles B. Pierce repurposes from The Legend of Boggy Creek, even if the true crime-ish subject matter justifies the device better. You can also tell Pierce intended this for the cheap seats because on top of the serial killer procedural elements, he throws in things like car chases and casts himself as a bumbling comic relief character who goes undercover in drag only to get felt up by a fellow police officer. 

All that being said, this won me over on the strength of its murder sequences. The killer is unnerving in his appearance and mannerisms, and Pierce knows how to present him onscreen to capitalize on these qualities. This is also before the formulas of slasher movies were codified, so the way the killer operates with an intelligence and matter of fact efficacy means that the sequences are tense and unpredictable even when the outcomes are already known. The use of guns by slasher villains is not common to my knowledge, and the killer’s use of them here feels like he’s cheating the rules of the genre. Any safety offered by their tropes is gone. 

One particularly chilling scene shows him figuring out how to kill a victim using a trombone and knife through trial and error. He measures the distance wrong and tries again. He feels less like the conscious creations of later slashers than an intelligent being who refuses to be confined by the movie’s conventions. But the most gripping sequence has him target a husband and wife. The killer appears through a window as if emerging from another dimension, fires his gun through it and kills the husband. The camera later switches to low angles as the wife crawls, wounded and bloody. The darkness is impenetrable.

[skayting]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

-

"based on the Texarkana Moonlight Murders"

[askfoxythejokerfox]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) kills

[bringiton]

Horrors Movies Referenced In SCREAM

PSYCHO (1960) I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976) CARRIE (1976) THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) THE EXORCIST (1973) FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) CANDYMAN (1985) THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

[fanofspooky]

“Texarkana looked normal during the daylight hours. But everyone dreaded sundown...”

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

[surfingkaliyuga]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

[animetit]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) | Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

[sculien]

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

In the spring of 1946, in the small town of Texarkana, on the Texas/Arkansas border, a series of horrific murders were committed by a masked assailant known only as the phantom killer. For three harrowing months, the phantom stalked the back roads of Texarkana following young couples looking for privacy to isolated areas where their screams for help would go unanswered. Though several arrests were made in connection to the brutal slayings which ended as suddenly as they began, the killer's identify was never confirmed. Indeed many people who lived through that nightmare time believe t4h phantom spend the rest of his days free, walking the streets of Texarkana quietly, anonymously, until his assumed death in 1976 a film inspired by the infamous Moonlight Murders was released. Every year on Halloween "The Town that Dreaded Sundown" is screened somewhere in Texarkana, in tribute to the Phantom's legacy of death and blood. Today, Texarkana is a place haunted by its past, defined by a mystery that was never solved, and a tragedy that could never be forgotten. The following happened in Texarkana last year.

mikelogan's halloween 2023 event | day 3: based on real events

[halloween-central]

🔮 Spooky Watchlist 🔮

I figured I’d share what I tend to watch around this time of year! This includes a wide range of shows/movies ranging from family friendly to rated R stuff so there’s something for everyone! That being said, I know not everyone will like everything I listed, please be kind!

Shows:

Over the Garden Wall

Buzzfeed Unsolved

Scooby Doo

Scream Queens

What We Do in the Shadows

X Files

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Halloween/ Spooky Episodes:

BTVS:

season 2 episode 6 (Halloween)

season 4 episode 4 (Fear Itself)

season 4 episode 10 (Hush)

season 5 episode 1 (Buffy vs. Dracula)

season 6 episode 6 (All the Way)

Suite Life of Zack and Cody:

season 1 episode 19 (The Ghost of Suite 613)

season 3 episode 12 (Arwinstein)

Simpsons TreeHouse of Horror

(I’m not gonna list all of these because there are over 30)

That 70s Show:

season 2 episode 5 (Halloween)

season 3 episode 4 (Too Old to Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die)

Wizards of Waverly Place:

season 3 episode 2 (Halloween)

iCarly:

season 1 episode 7 (iScream on Halloween)

Zoey 101:

season 2 episode 4 (Haunted House)

Movies:

Scream (1996) (franchise)

Halloween (1978) (franchise)

Twitches (2005)

My Babysitter’s a Vampire (2010)

Halloweentown (1998)

Hocus Pocus (1993)

Corpse Bride (2005)

The Addams Family (1991)

Addams Family Values (1993)

Scooby Doo (2002)

Scooby Doo Monsters Unleashed (2004)

Scooby Doo Camp Scare (2010)

Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost (1999)

Scooby Doo and the Goblin King (2008)

Scooby Doo on Zombie Island (1998)

Scooby Doo Abracadabra Doo (2010)

Scooby Doo Alien Invaders (2000)

Scooby Doo Legend of the Vampire (2003)

Coraline (2009)

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Van Helsing (2004)

Blade (1998)

Underworld (2003) (film series)

Practical Magic (1998)

Clue (1985)

Zombieland (2009)

Zombieland Double Tap (2019)

Happy Death Day (2017)

Freaky (2020)

Fear Street (film series starting in 2021)

Ready or Not (2019)

A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place II (2020)

It (1990)

It (2017)

The Omen (1976)

Poltergeist (1982)

The Shining (1980)

The Evil Dead (1981)

Evil Dead II (1987)

The Exorcist (1973)

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Vampyr (1932)

The Birds (1963)

Rear Window (1954)

Vertigo (1958)

Psycho (1960)

Silver Bullet (1985)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

I know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Prom Night (1980)

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

Jeepers Creepers (2001) (this is a series but I’ve only ever seen the first two)

American Psycho (2000)

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Cloverfield (2008)

Paranormal Activity (2007) (also a series but I’ve only seen the first one)

Blair Witch Project (1999) (tbh I have never seen this I’m too scared)

Feel free to add anything you think I might have missed!