The Dark (1979)

Directed by: John 'Bud' Cardos
Starring: William Devane, Cathy Lee Crosby

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Detective Dave Mooney: Tell the chief that this is slaughter. Normal methods don't work.
Captain Speer: Normal methods always work.

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The Alamo Drafthouse's acclaimed (by me) film series Weird Wednesday celebrated its fifth year of showing mostly unknown movies last night with a screening of The Dark by John 'Bud' Cardos. Unlike a lot of Weird Wednesday entries, The Dark is actually out on DVD, meaning non-Austinites have a chance to watch this trainwreck themselves. Featuring William Devane as the father of a murdered girl, and Cathy Lee Crosby as a 'sexy' reporter trying to crack the case... neither of them realizes that the killer is actually a 7-foot alien who shoots incredibly bad cgi'd laser beams from his eyes until its almost too late.

Did I say sexy? I meant weathered.


These are the cops... they're here to help.

The movie is hampered by the fact that there are no likeable characters. The cops are completely incompetent ("The shark is known as an eating machine... what we have is a killing machine!"), the lead Detective, Dave Mooney (Richard Jaeckel) is an ass (at one point he steals a newspaper from a midget newsie and laughs at him), the media are so interested in getting ratings that they ignore the fact that they're sparking riots all over town, and Cathy Lee Crosby's character - despite supposedly being a sexy up and coming reporter - comes across as bitchy and self-centered. Devane is the closest we get to seeing someone you can kinda identify with, but even there the only thing you really know about his is that his daughter was killed and that he kinda looks like Tommy Chong when he wears a bandana.

What kind of a dick steals from a midget?


Told ya... he's Chong.

To top things off, the 'monster' is laughably bad... apparently Cardos didn't have the budget to spend on things like makeup or props, so you never get a clear shot of the alien. Instead, you get a couple of scenes of him flexing his hands, but even those are clearly ill-fitting plastic Halloween gloves. That being said, there were plenty of things about this movie that I did like:

- The whispery voice on the soundtrack... <THE DAAAAAAARRRRKKKKK....YEAH....
- The scene where the monster - standing behind a young girl - growls at her, causing her hair to blow towards the monster. A roar so strong it creates a vortex? Cool.
- The gang member who tells a cop "You ccouldn't find your butt with both hands!"
- William Devane's badass silver L82 Corrvette Stingray with burnt-orange interiors and a police scanner built into the dash.
- The drunk guy yelling at his girlfriend tto "Get Out!" when they're both already standing outside.
- The scene at the end when the cops cornerr the monster in a warehouse, and he starts blasting away with his laser vision... knocking an improbably high number of cops off of high wooden rafters. What the hell were they all doing up there?

I want one of those cars.


Cardos throws in a lot of shots with cool perpectives like this.

The movie ends with a shot of a blind man (who we saw earlier in the film, but had no apparent plot function) walking down the street as the narrator tells us: "Of the millions of possible alien confrontations, man has had his first. An encounter for which he has no understanding or explanation. In the darkness of the universe, MAN is the alien. And from this day forward, only those who walk forever in darkness will have nothing to fear in the dark." Wha? I don't know if I missed something and this blind guy somehow tied into the whole Monster From Space story, but I don't get it. Guess it doesn't really matter much... Cardos seems to have a thing for ending his movies with pseudo-deep/shocking final scenes (see Kingdom of the Spiders for a good example of this). Don't go into this one expecting too much and you should have a pretty good time, especially if you see it with beer and friends.

Here's what you've all been waiting for, I'm sure.

The DVD contains a 14 minute interview with Cardos, in which he very openly discusses how the 'alien' aspect of the film was shoehorned in at the last minute to cash in on Star Wars. He describes the original plan for the killer (an abused kid who was locked in an attic by his parents because he was illiterate) and, of the final version says "It came out OK, I guess... but I still like the original version better."

- Micah