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💀 NUMBER SIX 💀
💀 ONE FILM BY CHARLES B. PIERCE 💀

"The Town That Dreaded Sundown" (1976)
* dir: Charles B. Pierce
* Crime / Horror / A True Life Texarkana Terror (Now With More Trombone!)
[ ★★★½ / ★★★★★ ]

Charles B. Pierce is a name that I've long been familiar with, and that's because of "Mystery Science Theater 3000".

But my familiarity with the cult-beloved Arkansas filmmaker doesn't begin-and-end with "Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues" despite my ability to quote every single joke from the episode it (and he) appeared on ("can I borrow a cup of shirt?"). I developed a real genuine appreciation for the low-budget scrappiness and regional flavor of that particular film after many riff-filled viewings, and went on to track down not only the first "Boggy Creek" film (which is good), but also the criminally underseen "The Evictors" (which is even better).

But "The Town That Dreaded Sundown", inarguably his best known work, has remained a notable personal blindspot despite the fact that I've owned the (beautiful) Scream Factory blu-ray for a few years now. I even saw the pretty solid remake/sequel well before I got around to this thing!

And did I expect a film that felt uncannily like a southern fried full-length episode of "Unsolved Mysteries", complete with pulpy narration, comical overacting and a lurid, uhm, unsolved mystery? No, no I didn't...but who doesn't like a good surprise?

Pierce was an interesting filmmaker with a surprisingly strong authorial eye when it came to crafting these sorts of ripped-from-the-headlines, open-ended narratives that feel akin to a cool breeze creeping in on a humid summer night to send a sudden chill through your entire body. And he did it all while working in local regional cinema; miniscule budgets, limited resources, and casts comprised largely of non-actors and the occasional slumming star (hello there, Ben Johnson!). But his films, for lack of a better word, just work. It's the way he always took on an interesting, unexpected visual perspective during the more high stress moments, or how effectively he could build the tension of a scene until it inevitably exploded across the screen in sudden bursts of unexpected violence.

There's a bit too much, shall we say, "dumbass redneck comedy" for my taste (including SEVERAL scenes of comedic crossdressing)...but it's all pretty goofy and wholesome, all things considered, and it adds an admirable sort of small-town flavor to the proceedings that goes a long way towards endearing you to these people as things proceed to go horribly, violently south. Speaking of which: this film is often unflinchingly brutal and downright upsetting despite seeing very little at all from a physical violence perspective. It all just FEELS so terrifying and visceral and...well, REAL, which is only another credit towards Pierce as a filmmaker.

However: the endless parade of meetings between all of the assorted detectives and criminal investigators (and psychologists and witnesses and so on) begins to wear pretty damn thin before too long, which is an element of the film that I have a much more difficult time defending. There also isn't nearly enough incident to hold much of your attention between the various (excellent) attack scenes when the story decides to once again veer down these dead-end roads, which makes it all feel like padding more than anything else.

...those attack scenes though. Christ, do they ever work.