There aren't many Westerns made today; let alone of good quality. With superb acting and directing, The Dark Valley should go down as one of the best. Timing and scenery are used well.

"The Dark Valley" is a truly unique film. It mixes the usually stereotypical Heimatfilm genre with classic Italian American western parts and adds a gloomy film noir atmosphere to it. This genre is extremely rare and precious in German-speaking regions where one gets mostly exposed to the stereotypical Heimatfilm and extremely redundant crime fiction genres. I wish there were more movies like this from these countries.This collaboration between German, Austrian and Italian artists takes place in a dark and isolated valley in the Alps where a sinister family has established a reign of terror and controls everybody and everything. One day, a silent cowboy from Texas that seems to hide a dark secret comes to town just before the winter arrives and asks to stay there. As soon as the snow is falling the valley becomes a natural prison and one of the members of the sinister family gets brutally killed in the fog while cutting down a tree. A few days later, another member of the family gets murdered during a hunting trip in the woods. Soon, the surviving family members suspect the charismatic cowboy to be connected to these horrible crimes and the young man has to go into hiding.While the story itself might not be original and the pace of the movie a little bit slow at times, the rest of the film is absolutely outstanding. The acting is charismatic and realistic. The Tyrolean dialect adds a lot to the authenticity of this great film. This accent is a little bit tough to understand at times for somebody from North-Western Germany like me but it adds a lot of charm to the film. The locations are just as stunning. The churches, farms and stores are broken, dark and dirty and the mountains, rivers and woods are misty, somber and wild. The dark lighting techniques and the menacing yet decent soundtrack only add to the atmosphere. The numerous fight scenes and shootings are brutal, graphic and raw but never feel exaggerated. The film has almost no special effects and feels almost like a documentary at times. There aren't many dialogues in this film but like many great films, it doesn't need overlong conversations since the overall atmosphere, body language and the landscapes are speaking for themselves.This haunting movie is highly recommendable for anyone who likes westerns, those interested in German, Austrian and Italian culture and fans of profound and sinister movies. You won't forget this outstanding experiment anytime soon and I'm really hungry for more.

The more "user reviews" I read on IMDb over the years, the more I am convinced that people post things without A) actually paying attention to the movie or B) A lick of forethought or critical thinking skills. The Dark Valley is a genre film, a revenge western set in the Alps instead of the Rockies. For anyone complaining that the main characters' motivations aren't talked about, did you watch the beginning? The opening scene explains it all in a matter of seconds. I mean come on you lazy viewers!! He only pulled out his pocket watch a half a dozen times to get the point across. The Dark Valley is brilliant BECAUSE it doesn't treat viewers like the idiots that (obviously from these reviews) most of them are... There is no "I'm here to do THIS because of THAT" scene... It literally is not necessary if you just watch the movie. Sam Riley is great as The Stranger that so many have played in Westerns before, the plot is straight forward, the acting top notch, and the camera work is hauntingly beautiful. What else do you need from a Netflix gem? And really? You didn't like the movie because of the song at the beginning? Sounds like something my teenage daughter would say... But seriously, it's an Austrian movie so OF COURSE it's going to have bad music. :) Too lazy to pay attention to nuance, but not too lazy to make asinine generalizations on the Internet.

Pleasantly surprised to find an authentic Western rivaling Dances with Wolves and Eastwood in quality and ambiance. And, shockingly, it's a German production filmed in the Italian/Austrian Alps. The character presentations, props, sets, landscape, costuming, background sound effects and music were created, or reworked from existing structures, such that I could feel those rain drenched muddy roads on my feet as I watched. Bonus - action, suspense, storyline twists and emotional intensity. Landscape/scenery looked very much like the Rockies to me and I've traveled the Rockies from Canada nearly to Mexico. My only negative is, like many movies, the director did not have enough real world dirt and tatteredness in the costuming and props.