The folks living in a small Texas town thought the Phantom Killer behind the Moonlight Murders of 1946 was confined to the silver screen, via the 1976 film based on the real-life slayings, titled The Town That Dreaded Sundown. But a new copycat murderer has emerged in a meta-horror remake, and the film's first photos show the new threat wearing a wardrobe similar to the original Phantom Killer.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown remake is making its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 14th. Here's the film's latest synopsis (via BFI London Film Festival):
"Set in a world in which the original film exists and is very much part of popular consciousness, this update sees the quiet streets of Texerkana plagued by a maniac who bears striking resemblance to the same Phantom Killer who wreaked havoc on the town decades before. Is history repeating itself? Or has somebody just seen the original film too many times?"
Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum teamed up to produce the film, with American Horror Story's Alfonso Gomez-Rejon making his feature directing debut. The script was written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Carrie remake).
Addison Timlin stars in the movie as a young woman who is the target of a masked killer. Veronica Cartwright plays the grandmother of Timlin’s character, and Travis Tope portrays one of her friends from school. Gary Cole takes on the role of a deputy who is searching for the killer, while Joshua Leonard plays the deputy assigned to protect the woman (Timlin) and her grandmother.
The original movie was directed by Charles B. Pierce and distributed by American International Pictures:
“In 1946, the joy and relief over the ending of World War II, and the happiness over the prosperity that followed, was destroyed for the residents of Texarkana by a series of traumatic experiences that many still remember. In the Spring of that year, five townspeople were brutally murdered and three brought to near death by a masked madman who eluded capture by the Texas Rangers and a host of other law enforcement agencies. This true-to-life thriller is a dramatization of those five still unsolved murders which sent local residents into a panic and caused their town to become an armed camp after sundown.”
For more information on the remake's world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, visit:
Photos courtesy of BFI London Film Festival:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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