He’s totally believable as the grieving and guilt-ridden Sheriff Paul Shields who has no clue as to what’s going on. His role sets Dark Was the Night/Monster Hunter/Whatever apart from your normal run-of-the-mill creature features.
The lead actor here is Kevin Durand, who most of you will know from The Strain or Lost. I think you will agree that either of these scenarios would have made for a disappointing if absurd M. I am not sure how reliable the local press was back then unfortunately, as when I looked into it, the culprit behind the footprints seems to either be a rogue weather balloon with a trailing tether or a group of field mice.
It’s based on an incident that happened in the UK in 1855. The story of a small town waking up to strange bipedal hoof-prints that go on for miles may seem strangely familiar to you as it did to me. Using washed out filter effects, lots of drawn out silences and utilizing the hard terrain of upstate New York, the film oozes bleakness. Monster Hunter (or Dark Was The Night as it is known around the rest of the world) is a tense, well-directed scary film set in the snowy Northern United States. I have discovered a new creature-feature that has rejuvenated my love of the genre.
