A Criatura Sombria

Devil in the Dark's an interesting little film.

Its actually not an easy one to review either. You can see a lot of familiar tropes on offer here.There are elements reminiscent of The Omen, The Descent, Blair Witch (without the annoying shaky camera thing or a witch), films like Snow Beast (for those of us who remember 70's horror) and no doubt others you can think of.

All of this takes place in a wilderness setting, offering lots of atmosphere, with some genuinely creepy, nighttime scares. What is particularly praiseworthy about this film, is how the stark outdoorsy scares are transported back to civilization in the closing scenes of the film. An interesting final twist that raises the hairs on the back of the neck.

The acting is not too shabby either, with a somewhat predictable back story that establishes the fractious relationship between two brothers.

All in all not a bad little horror flick. I give Devil in the Dark a seven out of ten.

I actually enjoyed this film! The setting really adds to the terror and the two brothers having to see past their differences and fight to the end builds tension. Doesn't have the most thought out storyline, but I still recommend viewing.

It kept my interest and I really wanted to understand it all. I thought it would all come together and answer all thise unanswered questions. A nice tidy ending. But it didn't. For me that did not make the movie bad. I for one liked this movie and will watch another time to catch somr nuances that i may have missed.

'Devil in the Dark' drew me into seeing it, with a cool and creepy poster, an intriguing idea with a potentially relatable central relationship and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

Actually found 'Devil in the Dark' fairly watchable, if not an easy film to rate or review. Had to think long and hard about what my thoughts were and how to articulate them. 'Devil in the Dark' is not great, or good, has a fair share of problems (fairly big ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There are however a number of decent, even good, qualities in 'Devil in the Dark', at least it wasn't intelligence insulting or inept (unlike some films seen recently) and the potential is not completely squandered.

Lets start with the positives. The scenery is very atmospheric, likewise with the very nice way it's shot. The music is suitably spooky and doesn't distract at all from the atmosphere, while not exactly enhancing it. The acting is better than average from the whole cast.

There are some scary and suspenseful moments once the film gets going and the central family relationship does have some genuine emotion, with the origin of the conflict being one of the few things agreed made completely clear.

However, the story does feel over-stretched, especially in the first half, and too much of it feels vague, under-explained and gives off the sense of incompletion, with more loose ends than you can count. There is too much overlong exposition and too many extraneous scenes that could have been cut, and the central relationship/family scenes are too heavily focused on in favour of generating more scares.

Dialogue can be stilted while the pace is uneven, especially in the first half where things take too long to get going. Didn't find the ending that scary or surprising and the big reveal was more silly than shocking.

Overall, watchable but not devilish enough. 5/10 Bethany Cox

I was reluctant to see this after reading some not so glowing reviews. Also the ratings r pretty low. Saw lil bit on tv channel n got enticed into seeing this on a dvd. The cinematography and the acting were the factors that convinced me to sit thru the entire film otherwise it's a very slow film n the horror element is almost nada. The monster is not given enuff screen presence, the kills r almost zero but the mountain trekking part transports us with the brothers. The poster of the demon with the horns is also missing in the film but the lair of the creature n the mountain plateau is creepy.