BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Michael_Elliott The Dark (1979)* 1/2 (out of 4)A former convict turned reporter (William Devane) sees that his daughter has been brutally mutilated so he sets out to try and find the killer as does a detective (Richard Jaeckel) working the case. It turns out that a space alien has landing on Earth and is doing the brutal murders.THE DARK has an interesting production history that is actually a lot more interesting than the film itself. Originally Tobe Hooper was to direct this film and he got several days into the production when he either quite or got fired. The somewhat notorious John 'Bud' Cardos took over the production and the end result is a rather tame sci-fi picture that's biggest problem is the fact that it lives up to the title.I say that because this film was shot way too dark and often times you can't even tell what's going on. I mean, I'm all for movies keeping the monster in shadows and what not but the problem here is that whenever the alien goes on the attack it's so dark that you can't see anything. Or, at least, you can't see anything too clear. The other big problem with the picture is the fact that it drags so slowly that the 90-minute running time seems double that. There are non-stop scenes of people talking and fighting yet none of it is very entertaining.It's really too bad that the film is so lame and doesn't feature that good of an alien or gore effects because the cast is actually pretty good. Devane is always worth watching and he turns in a nice performance here. Jaeckel is also very good in his role as is Jacquelyn Hyde and Keenan Wynn in their small roles. You can also look quick for Casey Kasem and Vivian Blaine. Who knows what might have happened with the film had Hooper stayed on but as it stands, THE DARK isn't a very good movie and it's not nearly the best "alien run amok" movies from this period.

Leofwine_draca For the most part a middling, under-developed crime thriller, THE DARK is a really disappointing film with a great premise. I mean, the idea of a decapitating alien killer stalking L.A. sounds like the perfect opportunity for lots of excitement, scares, cheesy special effects and gore. Well, we get the cheesy special effects all right (albeit briefly) but sadly none of those other things. THE DARK is happy to wade along through cliché-land, shafting genre fans by relying on boring police procedural work while the alien himself is relegated to the background, making almost a cameo appearance and getting very little screen time. I mean, if I wanted drama, romance and human intrigue, I'd watch a soap, not a dark thriller such as this! This is a very odd film with a disjointed feel. I mean, it's firmly rooted in depressing reality until this ugly alien with laser eyes suddenly shows up. The alien is like some monster from STAR TREK or something and totally out of place. The investigation into the murders is intercut with some brief clips of people being zapped and exploded by the alien, which just isn't fair. The makeup itself is pretty good but the alien looks more like a Neanderthal than an extraterrestrial. And don't get me started on those laser eyes!The acting here is pretty stolid and unremarkable, especially the usually reliable William Devane. Then again he is given absolutely nothing to do other than look brooding - and with his dark glasses and long hair, he looks rather silly. Cathy Lee Crosby is an irritating blonde reporter who deserves to die and expresses no charisma, while Keenan Wynn is wasted in a role which has no purpose. The policemen investigating the case also have no personalities, so everybody here is pretty interchangeable. When a policeman dies at the end of the film, we're obviously supposed to think "that's so sad" but the more realistic response is "we're supposed to care?". A mad clairvoyant character is also extremely grating and sadly she doesn't get her skull torn off.Where this film does succeed is in the sudden, unexpected action-packed finale, which is everything a monster movie could wish to be. The alien takes on an entire police force, with bodies flying everywhere and all manner of chaos and destruction. It's excellent. If only the rest of the film could have been as exciting as this. Gorehounds need not apply either, as there are exactly three seconds of gore in this film (admittedly a very good bit of a decapitated corpse stumbling over). In the end, if you're looking for an "alien killer stalks L.A." type film, then PREDATOR 2 would be a safer and far more enjoyable bet.

Kaya Ozkaracalar I'd first watched this in a cinema in Istanbul in the early 1980s. The Turkish title was GERÇEK YARATIK (The Real Creature) and an English-language title as ALIEN TERROR was tagged on to the Turkish posters. - and ALIEN had been released a while ago in Turkey as YARATIK (The Creature). So the publicity for this movie was suggesting that it was related to the much-publicized ALIEN and that it was actually the real stuff! I was just 13 or 14 years old at the time... (and there was no internet back then!) Naturally, I was pretty much disappointed when I went ahead to see it and realized it was basically an ordinary urban murder thriller until the last scene. Nevertheless, I've recently bought its DVD to rekindle childhood memories and watched it last night. Now watching it with a more open mind, zero expectations, I find it not half bad as most reviewers have it. First of all, the cinematography in night scenes is simply perfect, beginning with the opening scene. I think the problem most of the other reviewers face ("too dark") simply stems from bad transfers of previous VHS and/or TV prints. The DVD's brand new digital transfer from original materials is really a beauty. Plus, the soundtrack is also very effective, as even the most negative reviews acknowledge. So, overall, the nighttime attack scenes are really brilliantly crafted. Top-notch horror filmmaking there. Having said these, the movie is sadly not competent in other departments and is a mess overall. Richard Jaeckel, who was great in MAKO JAWS OF DEATH, looks very wooden here as the main cop protagonist. William Devane shows some charisma and has got what is called as a screen presence, but is out of tune with his character as a father who had lost his daughter as a savage murder victim. All the secondary characters, esp. the boss of the female reporter, play it for laughs. A few of the lines are intelligently sarcastic, but the demonstration scene (what is it by the way? a student demonstration?) is very offensive: a bunch of youths protest that the city police is busy harassing them rather than tracking the murderer and they act like stupid monkeys (jumping around, etc!) during the demonstration! The director must be a feeble-minded cop-loving right-winger who strongly resents student activists deep in his heart and used this as an opportunity to make fun of them... Anyway, the incoherence of the plot, which, as is widely known, stems from a reworking of the script, is already well-covered in all reviews. I am not very much troubled by that precise aspect and actually find it interesting that you can trace two versions of one story in one movie! As everyone who has read anything about the movie knows, the original scripts did not entail an alien! The DVD has an informative video interview as well as a commentary track with the director Cardos. I've watched the interview and listened to part of the commentary. Cardos explains that the original version entailed a freak-child (and not a zombie, as has been claimed). He also says that none of the footage Tobe Hooper shot before being replaced has made into the final edit of the movie.

Aaron1375 As a kid I really enjoyed this movie a lot, for reasons that completely escape me now. I watched it later in my adult life and I just saw a very uneven film that seems to make no sense. I would find out that the film is that way for a reason and the reason is the film was supposed to be a film about a sort of zombie that is roaming and killing people in Los Angeles; however, due to the science fiction craze during this time they decided instead to try and make it an alien. Not sure when this decision was made, but it was done somewhere midstream or later! Still, while I did not enjoy quite as much as I did as a kid, there is still some interesting things going on and the cast is full of people you have seen before, but probably do not know their name. Well, I knew Casey Kasem's name as he has a very bit part in the movie as I am guessing some sort of forensic expert. Other than that, I could not tell you who was who, only that I was sure I had seen a good deal of them in other things. The film also has a television quality to it as it almost does not seem like a film and considering it was rated R, it is rather tame too. Not too much gore in it and no skin to speak of.The story has a killer on the streets of Los Angeles who only kills at night and only takes out one victim per night. This, for reasons unknown, sends the city into a panic even though I am guessing the freeways take out more people than this killer. Well the father of the first victim wants action and he kind of wanders around not really doing anything besides flirting and eating take out. The cops, well they are all over the place trying to stop the killer because the citizens are going insane with every death. I mean, it kills like three people and everyone acts like it is taking out a thousand people a night. A psychic seems able to predict this fiendish creatures moves, but will anyone listen to her in time to stop the creature as it grows stronger with every kill! So I would say that a good portion of the film was done before they decided to turn their zombie into a laser eyed alien. For one, it would have made sense for the psychic to have some sort of connection with it if it was a zombie or something else that was from the spirit realm, but not an alien. A lot of the shots early in the film when it unleashes its eye lasers looks like it was added in and was an afterthought, while you can tell the shoot out at the end the alien slant was firmly in place. I think the zombie one would have been fine, though that shoot out at the end was the highlight of the film. It just did not make sense for it to be an alien and most of the scenes it is obvious that it was going to be a walking corpse deal.So the film had its moments, but overall it was just a bit too much of a mess to be considered good or even okay. This film could be looked upon as a reason you should never switch what you are making while your making it. The film also could have used more of the monster, because at times it literally disappeared from the picture and you would almost forget you were watching something with a monster and just think it was an old cop television show or something. That car chase for example, just really did not seem to fit in with the whole crazed zombie or alien theme. It's worth a look though if you were like me and seen it in your youth and you want to revisit it. The return trip was not as good for me, but it had a few good moments to it.