The Dark

1979

Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller

6
IMDb Rating 4.2/10 10 2169 2.2K

police alien murder

Plot summary

At night the Mangler stalks the streets of Los Angeles, killing and mutilating random victims. On the trail are a TV reporter, the father of one of the victims, and a police detective, but despite their efforts only the mysterious psychic DeRenzy knows what the killer is and how to stop it.

Director

Tobe Hooper Photo
Tobe Hooper

Top cast

Warren J. Kemmerling Photo
Warren J. Kemmerling as Police Captain Speer
Keenan Wynn Photo
Keenan Wynn as Sherman 'Sherm' Moss
Cathy Lee Crosby Photo
Cathy Lee Crosby as Zoe Owens
William Devane Photo
William Devane as Roy Warner / Steve Dupree
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
832.72 MB
1280*546
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 3
1.51 GB
1920*818
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 6

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by merklekranz 5 / 10

Intriguing cast and some amusing dialog are what works best ......

I first became aware of this film because of the William Devane factor. Unfortunately Devane's character is extremely "boorish". All is not lost however because of the eclectic cast. The story is a mish-mash of "Jack the Ripper" and sci fi, with neither angle very impressive. What I do like is the quite sharp and often darkly amusing dialog. Overall the acting is acceptable, with Jaquelyn Hyde giving a standout supporting performance as a "medium" who can predict where the monster will strike next. You might remember her as "Mrs. Blair" in Woody Allen's hilarious "Take the Money and Run". With Richard Jaeckel, Keenan Wynn, and Cathy Lee Crosby also contributing, "The Dark" is almost saved from being a "bomb", but not quite. - MERK
Reviewed by Vomitron_G 3 / 10

It's dark, alright...

There's a very thin line between cult-movies and bad B-movies. THE DARK constantly balances on that line, but when you make up the over-all score, it hopelessly falls into the latter category. It has definitely some elements that scream for cult-status recognition, but fails due to plot-stupidity, illogical events and dialogue-nonsense. And even though I liked it, at some moments, this is by no means a good movie.The acting maybe isn't too atrocious, but all the actors performances are just plain boring. The plot's boring too for that matter. It has an alien man-thing running around in the city killing people for apparently no reason. At no point whatsoever we learn anything about this alien. The police-detectives, the writer/investigator (whose daughter was killed by the creature), the weird psychic lady,... they all don't have a single clue about who's doing all the killing, but strangely a bunch of demonstrating citizens figured out that it clearly must be a creature or monster of some sort. It makes no sense. Well, actually, it does make sense that this movie doesn't make any sense when you read the trivia-section here on IMDb and find out that this movie originally was to be a zombie-movie. They re-edited it afterwards, adding footage and cheesy animated special effects, into a sci-fi/horror-flick. You can actually still see the alien stumbling around like a zombie in certain scenes.But as a result we get to see an alien that isn't a man in a laughable monster-suit, but a man with rather cool make-up. The scarcely lit close-ups of the alien are truly creepy. But the glowing eyes effects on the other hand are..., you guessed it: Cheesy. Aside from probably having one of the most appropriate titles ever (boy, this movie is dark!), it has something else going for it: The musical score, at times, is excellent and rather original. Along with some spooky violins you can hear voices whispering "Tenebreee..." and "Darknesss...". To my knowledge this has only been done in Argento's SUSPIRIA and the Friday THE 13TH-series.To people who haven't been digging deep into horror-movie-history, THE DARK will probably be a pretty bad B-movie. But I still think THE DARK is worth a watch, 'cause I consider it to be a C-movie. "C" for Curiosity. After watching it I found it rather strange that a 70's movie like, for instance, Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE developed a cult-status along the years and THE DARK didn't. Oh, well, if you think the whole aimless-alien-loose-on-earth concept of THE DARK is fun, then you should try finding a copy of the so-bad-it's-hilarious trashy sci-fi crap-fest NIGHTBEAST (1982).
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