20 - The Town That Dreaded Sundown

     Returning to Texarkana, the town is again gripped by a similar series of murders, mirroring the ones that happened in the original The Town That Dreaded Sundown.
     I can't remember if it was last year or the prior year that I watched the original.  It's fairly strange, with a weird mismatch of humor, horror, and styles.  But it was memorable, at least for two things.  First, the long, tense murder scenes (with the exception of the trombone thing) and second, the ambiguous ending, in which the killer gets away, and we never find out who it was.
     This movie eliminates those notable characteristics, and replaces the whole thing with a pretty standard slasher, which is simultaneously dull and over-energetically edited.  Yes, that's contradictory, but somehow, it's true.
      The original was less focused on characters, and instead provided a broad view of the town.  In this version, the town is the focus for the opening credits, but nothing else.  After that, the focus is entirely on a female lead, only because she survives the first attack by the new killer.
     The photography is strange.  There's a lot of soft lenses, giving a sense of haze to the movie.  I don't know if this is intentional, or just that someone thought it looked cool.
     We get a reveal at the midpoint that there are actually two killers working together.  Personally, I would have held this reveal for the end, but it doesn't seem to matter.  At the end, the killers are unmasked and defeated (yeah, sorry about spoilers, but it's hard to care with this movie) which effectively derails the whole thing.
      Why capitalize on the original movie?  It's got a small cult following, but it doesn't seem like it calls out for a sequel or remake.  This story adds nothing of interest to the original movie.  In fact, it seems like it cheapens it.