Monster Truck - Bete, dass er niemals ankommt

The meaning of cryptic prophesy splits apart a team of secretive guardians as they transport, by 18-wheeler truck, a deadly creature and its half-human sister from their now ineffective holding place to a more secure location.

Whether you see this as "Monster Truck" or "Dark Haul", it is not a bad film. Tom Sizemore, who does not appear in nearly enough films these days, leads a team in order to fulfill a prophecy... but does even he understand it? The brilliance of this script is not the hauling of a demon (which is already clever), but the demon's pairing with a very human sister. Can she be trusted? Is she too attached to the demon? What is her role in all this?

I saw this movie years ago, but the memories are still there, apparently, because for some reason I thought about this train wreck today. It's your standard anti-Christ good vs bad hackneyed pseudo-religious jumbled mess muddled through the clogged filter of the brilliant minds behind the Syfy channel.

The anti-Christ (AC) character was born during the sepia film era of New Jersey. I don't remember which century, but I do recall the actors not bothering with accents that might have suited the time period. AC's sister Zip or Sip or something equally improbable is supernatural herself and the only one who can control him. And by control I mean helpfully yelling "Stop!" after AC had brutally massacred a half dozen nameless extras. Who these guys are and how they got roped into AC guard duty is never explained. One doubts a job posting for such a position would get many applicants. Maybe they offer dental.

Anyway, our heroes, who by the way are to the man total jerks, decide to take AC and his sister on a road trip to Pennsylvania. I can't recall the reason. Something to do with an expiring Cracker Barrel gift card or something. It doesn't matter, they never needed to apply for a PA filming permit. The semi they're carrying AC in breaks down for some reason, AC escapes, the same extras are killed a few more times, and then the spoiler ending happens. By which I mean the ending spoils the entire reason for the movie.

Two stars for not being forgettable, despite my best efforts.

As SyFy movies go, this was definitely a lot better than most. The creature was a bit cartoonish at times but it was pretty descent. Acting was good, even for the no name characters that usually spoil as so-so movie. I like Tom Sizemore and he did a good job as usual, he's played in this type of movies before. Didn't know any of the other actors. Body count kept me interested and the gore was not over the top or unrealistic.

Plot was original for the most part and I guessed the ending somewhat) action but didn't quite get the final scene. Wasn't sure how they wanted me to perceive the end...

I stumbled upon the 2014 movie "Dark Haul" here in 2021. And needless to say that I had never heard about the movie prior to getting to sit down to watch it. Since I hadn't already seen it, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

When I saw the SyFy logo on the screen, my hopes for this being possibly an entertaining or cheesy enough movie sort of went out the window.

And true enough, "Dark Haul" is your average SyFy dribble, for better or worse. Sure there is an audience out there for these movies, and every now and again SyFy does manage to churn out something worthwhile watching. "Dark Haul", however, wasn't one such movie.

The storyline told in "Dark Haul", as written by Ben Crane was essentially some very generic and mundane stuff. Things that have been seen and done before in other movies, and often so with more success. So director Colin Theys didn't really deliver a wholesome movie experience here.

The acting in the movie was as to be expected for a movie such as this. And you have Tom Sizemore on the cast list, which pretty much indicates the standard of what you are in for.

And this being a typical SyFy movie, you know you are in for some dubious special effects. And yeah, the CGI effects in "Dark Haul" were laughable to say the least. Imagine computer game graphics from the mid-1990s, and you have the level of CGI in the movie.

I endured about an hour of "Dark Haul", then I hauled myself out of the movie. I just couldn't take anymore of the generic dribble that passed by on the screen.

My rating of "Dark Haul" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

I am not a huge fan of made for syfy type movies. Other those with some pseudo science asteroids or magnetic problems with the earth type things they generally suck. However Dark Haul was different. First of all it kept my interest through the entire film and it was action packed. Second , there was more of a sense of history and mystery than most such movies. Evalena Marie puts in an amazingly strong performance as well. The movie also wasn't entirely predictable. I do agree with other review points that the editing could have been a tad better and the movie a bit shorter and a bit more backstory but overall the movie was way better than the usual fare.