Michael Ledo "Dark Was the Night" and "Monster Hunter" are the same film. The small quiet town of Maiden Woods (Pop. 243) appears to be annoyed by a "Bigfoot" type creature as the virgin woods to the north is being harvested. Sheriff Paul Shields (Kevin Durand) who has some personal problems getting over the death of his son , is aided by Luke Haas (the kid from "Witness" all grown up) as they try to solve the problem of the missing horse, pets, and strange footprints all over town. The drama and action build up slow until the end when we get to see the creature (unless you have the UK DVD "Monster Hunter" then it's on the plot spoiler cover).People acted fairly civil in this film. The drama was mostly internal conflicts, i.e. Sheriff Paul fighting his own demon within until he has to face the legend of the woods. The slowness of the movie had "TV production" written all over it. For those who prefer high drama, low action horror, with character development, this one has it.

derbo73 This is a classical monster horror flick, showing nothing new. It was done fairly well, but it had some great flaws, too. The beginning was quite exciting, the camera shots and the characters interesting. I wondered whether this would turn into a quite good werewolf movie, when all of a sudden the story stopped to move on. The drama background of the protagonist(s) was shown for almost the rest of the movie, and not much else until the very end. I got the impression that the director would actually make better drama movies than horror movies. The acting was pretty good, but the middle part of the movie was stretched so far that I almost fell asleep. The monster had no background whatsoever, I think there was a lot of wasted potential here (NA folklore).The end comes rushed and a bit funny, the monster displayed and the CGI shots in the final scene are below average.All in all there is almost no deaths or gore involved and many scenes where the protagonist can walk around in the darkness and the oh so fast and powerful enemy is simply not attacking him.

Seth_Rogue_One Not much to say about this movie, it's one of those movies where mysterious things are going on but the "action" doesn't really start until the last 20 minutes.And for those sort of movies to work they need to have interesting enough characters etc, and a good pay off which unfortunately this does not.Kevin Durant and Lucas Haas are both reasonably good actors usually but it was kinda like the director told them to downplay every emotion as much as possible... that or they just didn't care too much to deliver the wooden dialogue they were given.Also a very ugly looking movie due to a constant blue filter which is some attempt to make the movie even more moody than it already is, and tbh moody horrors aren't really my favorites... Although I'd barely call this a horror.

glennbecker Wow, this film made me want to kick someone ... mainly whatever douche in a suit insisted on a) showing the monster at the end and then b) tacking a cheap "teaser" ending onto the whole thing, just in case you had missed the fact that you had just been insulted with bad CGI.As other reviewers have pointed out, this film LOOKS great. The cinematography is top-notch and the limited color palette underscores both the creepiness of the story, and the emotional troubles of the main characters. The performances are surprisingly heart-felt and subtle for a "horror movie," especially that of Kevin Durand, who sometimes comes off like Christopher Walken's sensitive (and less drop-dead weird) younger brother.Finally, I must say that the Wendigo legend is a favorite of mine, especially via Algernon Blackwood's clunky but creepy-as-hell short story.... and up until the end, Dark Was the Night is a GREAT telling of the Wendigo tale. The early not-even-glimpses of the creature are unsettling. The film has pretty much everything going for it, and then ...... in the climactic battle at the end, we see the monster, dead on. And it is lousy. I reeled from its CGI crumminess. I think I may have gasped. I felt ripped off, fooled, violated and insulted. But that producer in a suit (see above) wasn't done with me yet. The very last thing HAD to be the equivalent of the giant quivering "?" at the end of so many B movies in the 50s. And all that subtlety is flushed straight down the crapper for the sake of a cheap shot.I'd love to talk to the director and find out what happened. Given the quality of the bulk of this film, the ending CANNOT have been his idea.