Eyes in the Dark is a great "found footage" film, one that has somehow remained below the radar since its release in 2010. Presented as a series of classified videos accessed via an FBI server, it purports to show proof that authorities are covering up a series of missing persons and deaths in the Cascade Mountains.

The first video is a short cellphone video of some scared guy meeting a mysterious end, followed by the video diary of two biologists out tracking deer migration patterns in the wilderness -- let's just say they discover why deer migration patterns have recently changed. The majority of the movie, though, deals with eight missing college students and the ill-fated search and rescue attempt to find them.

Eight friends head up to a remote mountain lodge in order to get away from the stress of exams. They are blissfully ignorant, of course, of the legends surrounding that area -- how local Indians have always avoided the place and left cryptic warnings about "eyes in the dark."

I think both the writing and the acting is pretty darn good, making for believable characters interacting in ways that seem genuine. The only real shortcoming of the film is the special effects -- but even that isn't a real problem because the film is all about the terror caused by the entities with the glowing red eyes. Since you get no more than glimpses at the creatures, there's not a great deal of gore, either. That's sound filmmaking in my opinion -- revealing the "monster" often detracts from the thrill and suspense of the action. And let's face it, with an estimated budget of five grand, you would be hard pressed to present any kind of monster capable of pleasing the audience.

I also liked the multiple story arcs of this film; I think it is one of the first of its kind in the found footage genre, predating V/H/S by a couple of years. If you're a fan of found footage horror, I think you're really going to like Eyes in the Dark. It's an overlooked gem.