Movie Details
| Title: | The Dark | |
| Director: | Bud Cardos | |
| Year: | 1979 | |
| Genre: | Horror | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 02.22.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Kingdom of the Spiders
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 02.22.06 | Weird Wednesday | After the AFS screening I tried to watch this Gatchaman anime with some of the english voice actors in attendance but I just couldn't. Instead I hung out in the lobby and read a bit and got to hear Kier-La recite a hilariously raunchy Mad Lib (apparently her first ever) and talk about her Barbie board game. Tonight is Weird Wednesday's Fifth Anniversary. Tim got up and spoke a bit then Lars got up and in addition to introducing the movie also talked about the Alamo Downtown's current plight with the upcoming lease rate increase. It really made me curse myself because they were both great little speaches and I really wish I had gotten them on tape. I need to get in gear with my camera and start bringing it to the theater to capture stuff like that. Since I'm thinking the question of whether the Downtown theater will be closing next may would make a good central story to hang the history and anecdotes and philosophy of the theater on, i really missed out by not being prepared for tonight. Have to get on that!!! Anyway, The Dark is about as old as I am, and it stars a bunch of TV people. The story's about a huge monster that should probably be a Frankenstein-esque zombie but for some reason was made into an Alien. The beginning crawl is so hilariously slipshod, filled with cuts and stutters, the crawl speed varying and some text repeating, that it's enough to drive your interest through the sluggish middle right into a pretty crazy fantastic ending. It was produced by Dick Clark, has Casey Kasem playing a police pathologist, Philip Michael Thomas in one scene playing a dude named "corn rows", and William Devane's hair wearing William Devane around from scene to scene. Seriously, behind his driving glasses and under that late-70s Stephen King hairdo, Devane is maybe trying on his best Bruce Dern but probably more thinking about what he's gonna have for lunch. Either way, it's a pretty vapid performance. At the end though, when the zombie/alien starts setting guys on fire with his laser eyes, all is forgiven as one dude, for no particular reason, gets like a triple shot of stink-eye and flies into the air on a wire until he completely combusts leaving absolutely no trace of human remains whatsoever. Everyone else just seems to get the stared-upon area set on fire. I don't know what that poor guy did to him but for whatever reason the zombie/alien dude had, he got no mercy... like the other cops who just got hit with a piece of wood. so I think it's a fitting anniversary movie... let's hope for at least another 5 years so i can actually be in on the conversations afterward about how great Snakes and The Great Smokey Roadhouse were. |
