When a logging company displaces wildlife to the north, a mysterious creature finds new hunting grounds to the south… toward the small town of Maiden Woods. Kevin Durand and Lukas Haas play sheriffs in the small, upstate NY, community. Trying their best to solve the mystery of missing pets and live stock.. and human victims, which end up being found high above, in the trees.
Although kinda slow, I liked this movie for the most part. The acting was fine and the story was pretty good. My only real issue was with the presentation of the creature. Which they only showed in the last 5 minutes. And was pretty bad CGI.
As always, Spoiler alert.
The “Creature” is supposed to be a Wendigo. In Algonquian folklore, the wendigo or windigo is a cannibal monster or evil spirit native to the northern forests of the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada.
The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption
I happen to know a bit about the Wendigo, and in addition to the description, above.. they are traditionally depicted as being half human and half deer.. with a full rack of antlers. (see photos)
So, that’s a Wendigo.. so, what the hell was on the screen?
That’s not a Wendigo…
The Creature ended up looking more like a rejected version of the Lizard from Spiderman, or maybe a lizard-man from a RPG Game. It’s big, and reptilian.. and not a Wendigo.
At the end of the movie, they end up killing it (I told you about spoilers, didn’t i?) – and the get a “better” look at it.. and by better look, I mean you can’t see it at all, even with flashlights shining on it.. or on the CGI model sprawled out on the ground, that is. The CGI looks was just horrible, and they couldnt be bothered to make a physical costume for close ups, I guess.
All and all, what started as a slow walk in the woods, with promise.. ended up being a SyFy Channel quality disappointment.
Oh, and in my opinion.. “Dark was the Night” is a horrible title.
