I just saw the I-dunno-what-to-call-it reboot/sequel/sidequel to The Town That Dreaded Sundown and, in short, if I had to watch this or the original, Id watch this one. Does this make it better than the original? In my opinion, yes. Does it make it a good movie? No. Not by a longshot. BUT, its an interesting failure that does try really, really hard to both pay homage to the original and differentiate itself from it. Like, a lot! In the first fifteen minutes alone were treated to a documentary style recap of the original events that led to the making of the first movie that is now a part of the tradition of the small town of Texarkana, then a voiceover about the towns annual viewing of the movie, and a long tracking shot through the drive-in,with fleeting intros of the main players, and then the first kill, which leads to a Scream 2-like scene with the girl coming back through the bushes into the drive-in screen where the original movie is playing with a similar scene. Voiceovers from various people come in and out, there are flashbacks to the original events, and to the filming of the movie based on the events, AND there are brief cut-ins with scenes from the first movie all throughout this one. Its literally a mess of camera tricks, oversaturated colors, and weird editing, as if they just threw every idea they could think of for each scene in and couldnt stop themselves. That said, thats one of things I came to enjoy about it. There are individual scenes here that are really unique to what is basically just a run-of-the-mill slasher flick. The filmmakers are trying here and I can respect them for that at least. Other things I liked, the meta aspect of this film being about the new killings being inspired by the film and the original events that led up to that. The idea of some tragic events in the towns past, and the characters past, haunting them and holding them back is really interesting and the movie does play with that somewhat throughout. For a production by the same producers of Oculus, Jessabelle, and countless other mainstream horror movies, this one is surprisingly graphic with the violence and Im all for that in my horror. Its not scary at all, but I was shocked a bit when some of the kills happened. Also, some of the setpieces are really on the nose with their metaphors, theres a lot of religious symbolism here, but it felt all part of the overall lets-just-do-everything tone, so I was OK with it. Overall, a big, convoluted mess of a film that nevertheless caught my attention and kept me interested til the end, even if I was like Huh? What? from scene to scene.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 07:32:32 +0000
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