Creature of Darkness

Basically, this is a terrible movie. The acting is probably the worst part, not surprising with actors I have never heard of before. Even Devon Sawa, who I have seen in past movies and was usually an OK actor, is really bad. The dialogue is some of the most clichéd and ridiculous I have heard in a movie. In particular, the dancing scene early in the movie where the girls talk about the guys, unbelievable.

The effects in the movie are not too bad considering what I assume was a low budget. The "creature of the dark" is surprisingly good and definitely the best actor in the movie.

Not a movie I would recommend to anyone.

A group of teenagers camps in an area nearby a military base. Soon they are chased by an alien that hunts them down. The disturbed Andrew (Devon Sawa), who is haunted by nightmares, recalls the words of his uncle, Major Victor Devorshak (Matt Lattimore) that was a pilot that claimed that had been abducted by an alien called The Catcher (Phil Van Tee) and ended his days in a mental institution. Andrew tells that The Catcher kills humans to stock them for the winter. Further, his uncle had advised him to never go to that area during the night, but his friend Esther had convince him to come to the place to get over his nightmares. Now they have to fight back to survive.

"Creature of Darkness" is a pathetic movie, with lame story, direction, screenplay, acting, special effects, makeup and location. I am a fan of B-movies, especially from the 50's and early 60's, and I expected that "Creature of Darkness" was this sort of movie when I bought the imported DVD. Unfortunately, the plot is and awful rip-off of "Predator", but with unpleasant characters and stupid situations. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): Not Available (fortunately)

The monster of a man's recurring nightmare turns out to be real when he and his friends go on a weekend cycling trip to a remote area.

I simply could not believe how low this film was rated on IMDb, coming in at a depressing 2.8. Come on, people, this movie has Devon Sawa, the kid who played Casper and starred in both "Idle Hands" and the under-appreciated "Devil's Den". I think seeing Sawa's face alone must be worth a third star out of ten.

Okay, so some of that last paragraph was sarcastic. This film is slow, boring, and the whole story is pretty stupid. Even the title, "Creature of Darkness", shows very little imagination. This film would have been better had they intentionally tried to make it bad.

Despite a few good actors in the cast this movie is just terrible. I generally like B (and Z) movies because most of them are at least fun or have some redeeming quality. I wouldn't say this movie has either but one positive is that the creature looks surprisingly good, or it's head anyway. It's essentially just a silicone mask with some mechanized facial expressions, but for the budget it's not bad. And it's kind of amusing that it uses a spine as a weapon. Unfortunately you don't see enough of the makeup because the creature is wearing some cheap black hooded cloak that looks like a generic Halloween costume. Everything else is basically garbage though and I wouldn't say it's worth watching just to see brief glimpses of a cool alien mask/makeup. Even then you don't see enough of the makeup because the creature is wearing some cheap black hooded cloak that looks like a generic Halloween costume. As for the rest, the CG looks like Sega CD games from the 90s, the acting is beyond terrible, even from Devon Sawa and especially from Kevin Alejandro, the dialogue basically just fills space to pass the time, there really wasn't much of a plot, and it was horror trope soup. I'm giving it a 2 for the alien makeup and for somehow luring Devon Sawa into the cast.

The director, whose biography on the DVD would have you believe he's either Kubrick or Orson Welles, has credits and awards for nature shows. You know photographing animals in the wild.

Sure great, but in this case that doesn't mean he can write a scene or stage an action scene to save his, or any cute animals life.

The plot is a predator rip off deal. It's poorly shot on HD, the black levels and colors and focus are all problems from time to time.

The action scenes just don't cut together at all. Slow motion is used once in awhile for no good reason. The sound job on the movie is awful some of the stereo effects seem to come from the wrong side of the screen.

It's so poorly staged that sometimes it takes you a few scenes later on until you understand what happened in a sequence. It's sub amateur sorry to say there is no idea where to put the camera.

The one thing the movie has going for it is a cool looking creature head and hands. That is when it's a real prop, when it's a CG thing that too looks barely decent enough for a video game. But the real creature is coolly designed and nicely operated. Too bad the director and story give it nothing to do.

The movie seems to be cut to avoid nudity, the one semi nude scene is "timed" so darkly that it stands out against the rest of the night scene it is in. Profanity too is sort of mixed around the F word. Like the film was done to pass for screening on Sci Fi network ( now retartedly named Scy Fy) And is it better than the worst things on Scy Fy? Well no, it's probably just about as bad as their worst monster movies, certainly more poorly directed and photographed than many, on a writing level it's about par for the lousy course, aside from the real creature here which raises it above AZTEC REX, for example.

Has a pre credit sequence which makes no sense at all and is repeated later in the film, also seems like this was done to give is a punchy opening for Scy Fy channel.

Several endless scenes of people talking around the campfire slow down the middle and show off terrible writing and clueless acting. Early on there are several scenes to establish interpersonal conflict--which are bad and needless just makes you wish you'd never gone dirt bike riding.

Computer FX of airplanes and gunfire all really poor, music seems like same few cues from a sound library, but wait, there is a very "white" sounding rap song during the end credits.

They do drop a burning dune buggy out of the sky. There I've said everything nice I can think of. Really find one of the nature shows he directed and watch it, it might help you not want to kill the producer/writer/director before he makes you sit through another one like this. Hire the creature guys, fire the rest of them. A failure on every creative level involving the basics of movie making.