His fingerprint is stamped solidly on the screen throughout Dark City , the follow-up to his 1994 hit The Crow . Murdoch learns this too, when the clock strikes midnight and everything in this city freezes. Every single person falls unconscious-except Murdoch. And the Strangers. They appear, in pale white skin and dark overcoats and hats, and rearrange the slumbering people as they please.
Buildings grow from the ground as others crumble away into eternity.
The set-up is intriguing. But what sets Dark City apart is the look. The production design and visual effects of Dark City all service the story, atmosphere, and style of the film itself. I've explained a lot of the plot, I guess, but no more than you'll hear or understand in the first five minutes of the film. The effects in Dark City employ models, computer graphics, and blue-screen techniques, but all of them are seamless or damn close to it.