10 Hidden Gem Horror Movie Remakes You Need To Watch

6. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

We Are What We Are
Orion Pictures

Out of the all the early slasher flicks that came out of the 1970s, none are as underappreciated as Charles B. Pierce's The Town That Dreaded Sundown. A pseudo-documentary slasher, this horror is loosely based on the real-life Moonlight Murders which shook the town of Texarkana in the 1940s in which an unidentified killer known as The Phantom attacked eight people.

It's fitting, then, that the 2014 half-remake-half-sequel occupies a similar level of underappreciation in modern cinema.

Dubbing itself a "metasequel", this iteration came to us courtesy of producers Jason Blum and Ryan Murphy with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directing. Set in a present-day Texarkana, this flick gets off to a brutal start when the masked killer makes his grand return by attacking a young couple who've just left a drive-in screening of the original film. Leaving the girl alive with the message "This is for Mary. Make them remember", the town is once again awash with panic while the bodies start to pile up.

Paying homage to the original while amping up the brutality, Gomez-Rajon's slasher is as stylish as it is violent. However, it's the clever meta approach to the genre which makes this entry worth your time.

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Contributor

Glasgow-based cinephile who earned a Masters degree in film studies to spend their time writing about cinema, video games, and horror.