‘Town That Dreaded Sundown’ Finishes Casting, Set For 2014

The Town That Dreaded Sundown has picked up a slew of new cast members, according to a report earlier this week from The Hollywood Reporter.

The THR website noted that Veronica Cartwright, Gary Cole, and Joshua Leonard, would be joining Addison Timlin for the Arkansas- and Texas-based terror tale — a remake of the Charles B. Pierce docudrama from 1976.

Following THR‘s breakdown, Movies.ie added a fourth cast member — newcomer Travis Tope — would also join with American Horror Story director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon calling the shots. This was confirmed through IMDb along with a number of other casting additions, including Jaren Mitchell, Arabella Field, Dodie Brown, Lance E. Nichols, and Kurt Krause.

Pierce’s original was highly experimental, blending documentary narration with an actual cast to tell the true-life story of the Texarkana Phantom Killer, a sack-headed monster responsible for a string of deaths in 1946.

For decades, the crimes have remained unsolved, though law enforcement officials eventually centered their investigation on a 29-year-old ne’er-do-well named Youell Swinney, according to “The Crime Library” at TruTV.

(There was never enough evidence to convict, however.)

Glee creator Ryan Murphy saw Pierce’s film and was haunted enough by it to chart course for a Town That Dreaded Sundown remake (announced in January).

Given the cast Murphy has put together for this effort, it should be a pretty top-drawer production. Timlin has appeared in Zero Hour and Californication. Cartwright is fresh off a turn in the TV drama Revenge and was also the “other woman” in Ridley Scott’s original Alien (1979).

Joshua Leonard, no stranger to horror himself, has done The Blair Witch Project and Hatchet. And last but not least, legendary character actor Gary Cole (Lumbergh from Office Space, riiiiiight) has proven himself a go-to star for anything from action and comedy to drama and horror.

Here’s a look at the film’s original trailer.

http://youtu.be/JOTOxk1naC4

The new version will take a meta approach wherein Timlin is pursued by a copycat killer in modern times. The setting is still Texarkana, a border town extending to both Arkansas and Texas, and the original place where the killings occurred.

Cartwright will star as Timlin’s grandmother, raising her granddaughter after the girl’s parents die in a car accident.

Cole and Leonard will be a sheriff-deputy team hot on the trail of the killer with Leonard doing double duty as bodyguard to Timlin and Cartwright.

Filming will begin soon in Louisiana with a planned 2014 release date.

As for those of you clamoring for the original, fret not. A Blu-ray/DVD combo pack hits stores on May 21 and is available now for pre-order on Amazon.

Are you excited about next year’s Town That Dreaded Sundown remake? What did you think of the original?