Here's a film that borrows elements from not one, but two distinct decades of horror: 1950s bug-eyed monster movies, and 1970s supernatural TV horror.

I know no term for that 1970s style of supernatural TV horror, but you know it if you've seen it. Shows like Ghost Story/Circle of Fear, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Night Gallery, and The Darkroom. TV movies like Horror at 37,000 Feet (1972), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), and The Initiation of Sarah (1978). Theatrical films like The Evil (1978, aka Cry Demon, House of Evil), Burnt Offerings (1976), and The Sentinel (1977) share some of that sensibility. Many 1970s supernatural horror productions feature that same canned music; an eerie harpsichord piece and/or a trilling flute noise.

The Dark opens with a long informational scroll across the screen, read by an ominous narrator, informing us of the various deadly ways in which species adapt to life on Earth, speculating that the same likely occurs elsewhere in the universe, and suggesting that not all first encounters with such life forms are likely to be friendly...

This somber silliness evokes those 1950s BEM movies in which some narrator or scientist delivers an overly-long bit of pseudo-science, spoken with the stern seriousness of a high-school biology film strip. Although, The Dark may also have been inspired by Star Wars's screen scroll, that film released only two years earlier.

The Dark's informational scroll culminates with a red ball of light hurtling toward Earth. We cut to a young woman exiting a movie theater. Oddly, it's night and the streets are deserted. Was she the only patron? Anyway, she's properly frightened, and scurries up the street. She hears footsteps. Spooky voices whisper...

Theeeee da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ark!

She quickens, runs, ducks, thinks she's safe... An alien monster rips off her head! (No, you don't see it. Despite the alien's M.O., you only see one decapitation in the entire film. This film isn't too gory.) Anyway, thus begins...

Theeeee da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ark!

I say "Theeeee da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ark!" because whenever it's dark and lonely, and some character is wandering about, that eerie (and eerily familiar) canned 1970s music is mixed with non-diagetic spooky voices whispering...

Theeeee da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ark!

Such non-diagetic whispering makes no sense. This is not a supernatural film. No spirits or ghosts. Just a gypsy fortune teller with some clairvoyance. It seems the whisperings were added solely to create atmosphere, and frighten us with...

Theeeee da-a-a-a-a-a-a-ark!

And to assure we're scared, characters oblige us by wandering about dark deserted hallways, parking lots, streets, nervously glancing about, sometimes killed, sometimes not. Yet despite the title, this is not a film about the dark, but about a killer alien.

While the atmospheric style is 1970s, the monster story is 1950s, with a shamelessly cheesy alien. Its hands resemble Lon Chaney's werewolf, hairy with long dark fingernails. It hurriedly stumbles after our heroes in what appears to be (in silhouette) Frankenstein monster boots. Its red cat-like eyes shoot raygun beams that toss people across a room before causing them to explode without a trace.