It was re-titled Monster Hunter for its release in the UK. The initial screenplay was titled The Trees. The film is loosely based on the real-life events that took place in Topsham, England in 1855. One morning, the people of the town awoke and found sets of unidentifiable, bipedal footprints. The incident became known as The Devil's Footprints.
This film contains examples of:
- Agent Mulder: Donny is quick to believe stories of something supernatural.
- Amicably Divorced: Paul and his ex-wife Susan split up after one of their sons died in a household accident. However, they clearly still care for each other.
- Because Destiny Says So: Pondered by Donny near the end of the movie, where he wonders if he was transferred from a big city to a small town because he is supposed to protect someone. Paul dismisses it.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Paul has killed the creature, his family is safe, Donny is wounded but alive. Then Donny realizes a bullet wound he inflicted is absent from the monster's corpse! Cut to dozens of creatures swarming over the roof of the building they and their families are barricaded in.
- Clothing Damage: Most noticeably when the sole survivor of the hunting party stumbles up to Paul. His orange vest has been clawed to shreds.
- Dead Star Walking: Steve Agee plays a logger foreman killed by the creature in the opening scene.
- Disconnected by Death: The logging foreman calls one of his crew on a walkie-talkie and gets a brief garbled response before the radio goes dead. He later finds the severed arm of the logger still holding the radio.
- Farmer's Daughter: Although she also works at a store in town, Clair, the daughter of a farmer whose livestock is attacked by the creature shares a flirtatious look with Donny when she first appears while brushing a horse and Paul says her dad shot at her last boyfriend.
- Foreboding Fleeing Flock: A sign of the monster's coming is how every animal in the area from the deer herds to the flocks of birds to the priests dog has vanished (whether they sensed the creature and ran or have been killed is unclear).Earl: Animal senses a threat, it tends not to hang around.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In the final shot, a monster lunges at the camera.
- Genre Blind: The logging foreman takes the complete radio silence of a logging crew and their refusal to respond as them trying to get overtime and/or fucking with him rather than thinking something is wrong, and he heads over to their position. This leads to his death at the hands of the monster.
- Good Parents: Jake and his ex are both good with their son.
- Good Shepherd: The local priest is a pleasant man who encourages Paul to seek comfort from the community and allows people to take refuge in the church at the end.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The foreman's death is not seen, only his blood splattering in his windshield.
- Grief-Induced Split: Paul and Susan separated after their son Tim died in an accident while Paul was minding him. Susan tries to get Paul to stop blaming himself for Tim's death.
- Guns Are Worthless: The creature endures multiple shots from a pistol, one with a shotgun, and possibly one from a hunting rifle, only to recover and quickly begin attacking again. Ultimately, it is a hunting knife in the belly that kills it. Possibly averted, as there is more than one monster.
- Ignored Expert: Longtime local hunter Earl picks up on how something has made all of the animals disappear and reflects about how he's heard stories from his Native American grandmother that some kind of monster could be out there. He isn't immediately taken seriously by Paul, who implies that he's just trying to spook the new guy when Donny brings it up.
- It Can Think: "Maybe it's adapted to its surroundings. Maybe it's learned how to hide. What if its smart enough to know that we're a threat? To know to avoid us? Until it has no choice..."
- Kids Love Dinosaurs: Adam has a dinosaur toy on his piano in his first scene and is later shown to have dinosaurs painted on the wall of his room.
- The Lancer: A Clueless Deputy Donny is not, being intuitive, loyal to his boss and willing to talk things through with him or help in the climax.
- My Greatest Failure: In a conversation with Donny, Susan reveals that the reason she and Paul separated is because one of their sons died in a swimming pool accident six months prior to the film. Paul blames himself for allowing it to happen.
- Nothing Is Scarier: For the majority of the film, the entity prowling the town at night is barely even glimpsed. We can hear it. We know it's there. But we don't see it. Even during the climax, we don't get a very good look at it due to it being dark and the only light sources being flashlights.
- Rain of Blood: After stumbling upon a member of the logging crew’s severed arm, the foreman has drops of blood fall on him, alerting him to a corpse stuffed into the tree. This is what encourages him to book it.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The logging foreman tries to escape in his car after discovering the logging crew’s dismembered corpses, only for his car not to start. Then the monster breaks into the back of his car, and he gets torn apart.
- Standard Cop Backstory: Paul and Donny both have elements of this.
- Teaser-Only Character: The foreman and logging crew killed in the pre-title sequence.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Abrasive hunter Jim after one of his cameras catches proof there really is something out there and he realizes Paul and Donny really are doing what they can.
- Wendigo: The creature is implied to be one of these. When Paul begins searching the internet for animals with feet that match the prints found all around Maiden Wood, the camera lingers on a Wikipedia entry for windiga, an alternate spelling of wendigo.
"All we have to do is get through the night..."
