Okay, I know the slasher genre was still finding its way in the mid-70s (meaning most of the entries from that time are gonna scan as prototypes today), but, even by that metric, this one seems kinda shoddy and deficient to me.
For one (and maybe I'm just a victim of my own expectations here), The Town That Dreaded Sundown barely feels like a horror film for much of the runtime. It's honestly more of a police procedural, which would be fine - who doesn't love a good cop thriller? - except there's no excitement to it. Between the dirt-cheap visual quality, the ultra-cheesy narration, and the misguided attempts at comedy, this movie is constantly undermining its own mood, killing any sense of tension or urgency in the process.
And it's too bad, because you can see the significance here. Those murder set pieces, few and far between as they frustratingly are, do feel influential, with the stalker POV shots, the slow build-ups, the motiveless killer in a mask, and the bloody victims. These scenes are genuinely effective, and they hint at a much better Friday the 13th-meets-Zodiac thriller lurking beneath the surface. But all the surrounding elements are so second-rate and uninspired that the movie never comes especially close to getting there.
Grade: C
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