Dark Was the Night

Dark Was the Night (2014)

Evil's Roots Run Deep

An evil is unleashed in a small town when a logging company sets up shop in the neighboring woods. Isolated and threatened, a mysterious force hidden within the trees outside the small town of Maiden Woods, strikes fear in the townspeople as Sheriff Paul Shields attempts to overcome the demons of his past while protecting those that he loves.

Date of release
2014-10-17
TMDB
5.6 / 10 (294)
Runtime
1h 37m
Genres
Horror, Thriller
Director
Jack Heller

Casting

Interesting facts

Dark Was the Night is a 2014 American horror film directed and produced by Jack Heller, and written by Tyler Hisel. It stars Kevin Durand, Lukas Haas, and Bianca Kajlich.

Production

Tyler Hisel's screenplay for The Trees (later to become Dark Was the Night) was included in the 2009 Hollywood Black List (the annual list of the top 100 screenplays; not to be confused with this blacklist). The film is loosely based on the real-life events that unfolded in Topsham, England in 1855, known as the Devil's Footprints. The small town woke to find freshly fallen snow and apparent hoof prints tracing the landscape.

There is a point in the film where the Sheriff is investigating creatures with a "three-toed hoof," which they see from its tracks. He briefly pauses over a search engine article about a Wendigo. One of the town residents, who claims to have Shawnee ancestry, tells him that the natives believed in a spirit that dwelled in the trees. In many native cultures, the Wendigo is depicted as a forest dwelling humanoid or evil spirit.

There is also a reference in the film to the possibility that the creature could be a thought-extinct or never-discovered species that had simply lived undisturbed in the woods for a long time without human contact. Deputy Donny alludes to the case of a fish which was believed extinct for millions of years, possibly a reference to the case of the rediscovery of the coelacanth.

Jack Heller directed, and the film is said to include a "never-before-seen monster", drawn from various pieces of American folklore.

Production started in February 2012, filming in Southampton, New York.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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