HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Dark, The It knows you're alone
Year: 1979
Director: John 'Bud' Cardos
Stars: William Devane, Cathy Lee Crosby, Richard Jaeckel, Keenan Wynn, Warren J. Kemmerling, Biff Elliot, Jacqueline Hyde, Casey Kasem, Vivian Blaine, John Bloom, Jeffrey Reese
Genre: HorrorBuy from Amazon
Rating:  4 (from 2 votes)
Review: On her way home one dark night in Los Angeles, a young woman is viciously attacked by a snarling, shaggy-haired fiend of unknown origin. Her grief-stricken father, ex-con turned horror novelist Steve Dupree (William Devane) clashes with Det. Dave Mooney (Richard Jaeckel), the grouchy cop assigned to the case. Ambitious TV news reporter Zoe Owens (Cathy Lee Crosby) and her boss Sherman Moss (Keenan Wynn) whip up a media frenzy as more victims fall to the monster while the cops are at a loss to explain its random modus operandi. Meanwhile, eccentric psychic De Renzy (Jacqueline Hyde) has a premonition the monster’s next victim will be third-rate actor Randy Morse (Jeffrey Reese), but is dismissed by the cops as a kook. Steve tries to trace the elusive psychic before eventually he, Zoe and half the LAPD come face to face with the terrifying, death-ray spewing monster.

There are a handful of horror movies titled The Dark including a 1993 effort featuring Stephen McHattie, Brion James and a young Neve Campbell and the 2005 Sean Bean-starrer directed by the talented John Fawcett. However, this 1979 obscurity earned a degree of notoriety as a near-incoherent patch-up job. Co-produced by iconic music television host Dick Clark, of American Bandstand and Rockin’ New Eve fame - who made the earlier, superior cult gem Psych-Out (1968) - this was originally a zombie movie, but in the wake of Star Wars (1977) and Alien (1979) the monster was hastily reworked into a creature from outer space. Hence, we have some hokey narration prattling on about close encounters with extraterrestrials while the filmmakers superimpose laserbeams shooting from the monster’s eyes.

As well as the supernatural overtones failing to gel with the science fiction rationale, The Dark has a wide range of problems: the pacing is slow, plot threads lead nowhere, killings occur with no rhyme or reason, the psychic angle doesn’t amount to much, and the romance between Steve and Zoe (who initially hints Steve deserves all his suffering since he writes such violent novels!) does not ring true. Little of what occurs onscreen makes sense in the cold light of day. And yet, as Dario Argento demonstrated with Inferno (1980), a horror film does not have to make sense in order to be scary. While nowhere near that league, The Dark still taps that primal fear of something horrible and unfathomable lurking in the darkness. You don’t know what it is, nor what it wants, but it is coming to get you. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the tense sequence where Sherman flees what may either be his own overactive imagination or something genuinely prowling in the shadows. He goes from joking about the idea to slowly succumbing to this primal, irrational terror we all share.

First-choice director Tobe Hooper was sacked early on, replaced by underrated B-movie hand John 'Bud' Cardos. While the story is nonsensical, Cardos sustains suspense quite effectively, aided by moody cinematography from John Morrill - who shot all his films plus cult favourite A Boy and His Dog (1975) - and a creepy score by Roger Kellaway with its hissing chorus (“The darkness!”). Cardos is interesting character. A former child actor with family connections at Twentieth Century Fox and whose uncles managed the lavish Graumann’s Egyptian and Chinese theatres, he appeared in the famous Our Gang shorts by producer Hal Roach besides more prestigious fare like The Return of Frank James (1940) for director Fritz Lang. His skill with horses led to a career as a rodeo rider during his teens while he later worked as an animal wrangler and bird handler, most notably on Alfred Hitchcock’s peerless The Birds (1963). Throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, Cardos worked as an actor in exploitation films before directing became the next logical step. His films were usually saddled with shoddy scripts but distinguished by his ability to stage complex set-pieces on low-budgets and imbue key scenes with surprisingly potent emotions, be they terror (Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)) or wonder (The Day Time Ended (1979)).

Screenwriter Stanford Whitmore was a regular TV writer toiling on popular shows of the time (e.g. McCloud, Ironside, The Wild Wild West) but had an eclectic range of big screen credits including war dramas War Hunt (1962) and Baby Blue Marine (1976), the Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin’ Heart (1964) and the eccentric Faust update comedy Hammersmith is Out (1972) directed by Peter Ustinov and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Given his original premise was extensively reworked it seems harsh to suggest he had little flair for horror, but the film works better as a quirky ensemble character piece with a monster attached.

Most horror films from this period focus on young women being mauled. This broadens its range of victims with middle-aged men and would-be vigilantes getting zapped by the alien. Cardos evokes a seedy Seventies milieu of cynical cops, weary hookers and drunken bar patrons and pits an array of intriguingly oddball characters against the monster including William Devane giving a by turns apathetic or genuinely offbeat peformance with eyes shrouded in dark glasses, hunched and sporting a hacking cough. Future Miami Vice star Philip Michael Thomas appears as a mouthy street punk, Angelo Rossitto cameos as a dwarf news vendor, and Casey Kasem - famed DJ and voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo! - plays a forensics expert. Appearing as the monster is John Bloom, hitherto known for playing the Frankenstein Monster in Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) for infamous schlock merchant Al Adamson for whom John 'Bud' Cardos often worked as an actor. The monster makeup is quite unsettling and the laser-spewing showdown injects some welcome excitement, but goodness knows whether the original script made any more sense.

Click here for the trailer

Reviewer: Andrew Pragasam

 

This review has been viewed 4438 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
Mary Sibley
Enoch Sneed
Darren Jones
Mark Le Surf-hall
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
Graeme Clark
  Desbris M
   

 

Last Updated: