Customer Reviews

Alone in the Dark [VHS]

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(114)

 

 

I laughed, I cried, it moved me... out of the theatre. Not fast enough, sadly, to escape the inept garbage bin that is "Alone in the Dark." It's the sort of movie that gets relegated to discount bins for four bucks, but isn't ever purchased -- poor direction, bad acting, and a script that pushes new boundaries of silliness.

It opens with an explanation about the Abskani, an ancient civilization who apparently worshiped demons -- and were somehow destroyed by them. Fast-forward to the twenty-first century, and you find that the adage about "those who don't learn from history) is true: Professor Hudgens (Mathew Walker) is obsessed with using Abskani artifacts, and only Edward Carnby (Christian Slater), a clone of Agent Mulder, can hope to stop him.

Carnby is haunted by nightmares that are somehow connected to those ancient demons, and by experiments that Hudgens performed years ago. He teams up with his museum-curator ex-girlfriend Aline (Tara Reid -- and no, I am not joking!) to stop Hudgens from using some ancient statue to release interdimensional aliens, who may destroy the entire human race.

It's an exhibition of wooden acting, an orgy of silly ideas, a giant steaming pile of celluloid that should have been relegated to late nights on the Sci Fi Channel. In fact, it's difficult to understand why this video game adaptation wasn't relegated to the "Direct to Video" bins, along with all the other bad horror flicks.

Where to begin? What bad thing about this is the worst? Let's start with Uwe Boll's direction -- it's leaden and uneven, full of slow-motion and quick cuts at all the wrong moments. Apparently nobody told Boll that alien beasties jumping out does NOT count as a shocking plot twist. At least Boll wasn't directly responsible for the script, which includes an out-of-the-blue sex scene, and Aline reading ancient scripts by memory.

The acting never becomes much better than the script or direction -- Slater and Dorff are sleepwalking through their roles. And Tara Reid manages a bit of hilarity as a scientist -- we know she's smart, because she wears glasses. It's like watching Paris Hilton pretend to be a particle physicist. How many museum curators wear pants that tight?

Uwe Boll should not direct any more movies. After the ridiculously bad creation that is "Alone in the Dark," I wouldn't trust him to direct a documentary on seaweed, because he would probably botch it up. This movie deserves instant oblivion.

We saw "House of the Dead" and blanched in sheer horror at the ineptness apparent in every scene. We gaped at the use of actual videogame footage spliced into the aforementioned movie. We shrieked in terror, not at the so-called horror elements of the film, but at the fact that Jurgen Prochnow deigned to appear in such trash. And we absolutely wept with soul shattering intensity to see the venerable character actor Clint Howard saddled with an annoying lisp while sporting a cheesy looking yellow rain slicker. As the credits rolled in "House of the Dead," we felt a moment of elation because we realized calling Jack Kevorkian was not necessary, that we would recover from the worst film experience many of us had witnessed in some time. Such was the experience of many viewers' regarding their first encounter with the indomitable Uwe Boll's freshman cinematic disaster. Then came "Alone in the Dark," and the nightmare continued. Who among us will have the bravery to climb to the peak of the highest mountain and shriek at the top of their lungs, "Get thee behind me, Uwe Boll?" From the looks of it, just about everyone who has seen this disaster. No one, thankfully, pulls any punches in describing this train wreck.

Christian Slater's character Edward Carnby has a serious problem. No, it's not appearing in Uwe Boll's film, although that would certainly classify as an insurmountable difficulty. Carnby's primary problem, first elaborated on in an introductory screen scrawl that roughly equals the length of the Oxford English Dictionary, involves an ancient race of technologically advanced people called the Abracadabras...er, I mean the Aldonovas...darn, the Abskani! Yeah, that's it, the Abskani. I think. Anyway, these prehistoric yahoos accidentally opened up some portal between the world of light and the world of dark, thus allowing evil creatures that look like something H.G. Giger upchucked after a Jagermeister binge to enter our world. The Abskani died off as a result, but they left behind a bunch of artifacts scattered throughout the world that, if properly collected and utilized, will allow humanity to close the portal once again. If it's been opened in the first place, that is, which apparently occurs when some old coot named Professor Hudgens (Mathew Walker) conducts some crackpot experiment with a bunch of kids. One of these kiddies was Eddie Carnby. Now a whole bunch of years later, Carnby is trying to find out what happened to him when he was just a wee lad.

You'll forgive me if my memory starts to blank at this point, but I'll be darned if I can form a coherent narrative concerning the rest of the film. Hudgens had something to do with forming a top-secret government agency entitled Bureau 713 charged with investigating the paranormal. Carnby was once a member but has since struck out alone much to the chagrin of his former colleague Richards (Stephen Dorff). In the middle of all of this artifact gatherin' we meet Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid), a brainy archeologist and protégé of Hudgens who just happened to date Carnby at some point in the past. I'd appreciate it if you stop laughing over the idea of Reid as an archeologist and keep reading the review. Thank you. Anyway, some superhuman yutz tries to kill Carnby but fails, and our hero soon turns up to engage Aline in his current quest to discover his missing past. Boll starts tossing out scene after scene of pure schlock, most of which involve highly stylized gunfights involving Carnby, Cedrac, the jackbooted thugs over at Bureau 713, and the Giger beasties. Everything is just as it seems as "Alone in the Dark" judders to its closing credits amidst a shriek of screeching metal and smashing glass. Will Carnby uncover his past? Will Aline Cedrac start wearing contact lenses? Will Richards quit striking macho poses? Who cares?

"Alone in the Dark" is to film what Chernobyl is to nuclear power. Aside from a few interesting shots, primarily the beasties running through a forest and the glimpses we see of the demons' hiding place, nothing works. The cackhanded script, written by no less than three now unemployable hacks, is so full of plot holes that any attempt to explicate on them here at length is an exercise in futility. The dialogue is the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard, the pacing moves in fits and starts, and the acting is utterly hopeless. Tara Reid as a scientist? Strikes one, two, and three right there. Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff try to do right with a horrible script, but I think it's safe to say both men might want to reconsider their career options after appearing in this atrocity. I hear Kmart is hiring. Dorff especially is in big trouble. With "Feardotcom" and "Alone in the Dark" on his resume, he'll be lucky to qualify for welfare. Congratulations, Uwe Boll--you've managed to wreck more careers than the Hollywood blacklist.

What really frightens me about Boll is his upcoming project "Bloodrayne." I feel that I should go see this film in the theater. Why? Because the inevitable comparisons between this director and Ed Wood practically demand that lovers of bad cinema should sit up and pay attention. I never had the chance to see "Plan 9 From Outer Space" on the big screen, but I do have the opportunity to see an Uwe Boll disaster at the local multiplex. One day that might mean something. Or it might keep me out of heaven. Either way, Herr Boll's formidable prowess at churning out total pap seems impervious to the outraged shrieks of the viewing public. Watch "Alone in the Dark" at your own peril.

Ladies and gentlemen, may we bring the five star reviews present here to your attention, and may we point out the obvious facts:

1: They are all written in lowercase characters - and so are the account names of their posters.

2: They contain identical adjectives ("hot", "funny") and nouns ("action", "cast") as praises.

3: They share the same spelling mistakes (or are these inept attempts to impersonate an incompetent speller?)

4: They all consist of one sentence only.

5: They all come from freshly registered accounts with no reviews of any products other than UwEbola's film.

6: 90% of the account names of "these reviewers" contain references to an awkward musical genre which, if I recall correctly, is named "gangsta rap".

Ergo, only one question remains: was the person who registered all these accounts and posted all these reviews *ordered* to do so by, say, a Lion's Gate executive, or has s/he acted out of a foolish, misguided sense of loyalty to Uwebola?

This was so bad. It was one of the worst movies Ive seen in a long time.

In the DVD Special Features, one of the three writers credited for this disaster says that videogames are a great bases for films because videogames offer such rich characters.

NOT!

Aside from Lara Croft, I can't think of any videogame characters with any depth. Even Lara Croft was only two-dimensional, whereas the characters in ALONE IN THE DARK, and every other videogame based movie, are barely one-dimensional.

That's one reason ALONE IN THE DARK is so BOOOOOOOORRIIING! Cardboard non-characters that just move from level to level, pointlessly killing monsters. (My God, how far Christian Slater has fallen since he showed so much promise in HEATHERS! -- and Tara Reid in this film was just dreadful; vapid and empty and one-dimensional and just so boring to watch and listen to).

Apart from the thin characters, ALONE IN THE DARK has no real story. A long expository monologue fills us in on the background (things already known to game players but unknown to film viewers). Then it's off to a pointless non-story as characters kill monsters in each new setting, just like in a video game. No real story, or theme, or developing characterizations.

And the monsters and "scary scenes" are so cliche-ridden, things we've seen in so many other films. The dark museum with an artifact/monster brought to life, which museum is suddenly then invaded by SWAT teams -- RELIC already did it. The mountain of skulls lining the cave walls -- JEEPERS CREAPERS had it, to name just one film.

As for bloopers, you have a SWAT team leader going underground, leaving his men above ground. Then long after he's sealed underground and loses contact, his men up above are slaughtered. Later, still underground, he screams, "Is this why my men are dying up there?" Hey, how'd he know? Is he psychic?

The synopsis of this movie is good but that is where it ends. The acting was horrible, the flow of the movie was stilted, and the love scene, if you can call it that, was inappropriate and gratuitous. I all for a little sex in a movie, but this one just came out of nowhere. By the end I just wanted to monsters to eat them all and be done with it. If I could give this movie 0 stars, I would. It was a waste of time and money to rent this. Maybe a different director could have made a difference, we'll never know. I hope Christian Slater starts to pick his scripts a little more carefully in the future or I might have to write him off.

I'm a huge scary movie fan and was really excited by the description of the movie plot as I read the back of the DVD cover. I love Christian Slater and thought I was in for a real treat. I have to say that I just read through many of the reviews on Amazon and most of them are dead right. How disappointing. It's so bad, I threw it away, after having spent 20 dollars on it. There's no one that I could give it to, and it's so bad, I didn't even want to donate it to the library. Save your money, don't even bother renting it. It's a shame, because the concept of the movie could have been amazing in the hands of a better director. As far as the acting, even the worst actors can be magic on the screen if the directors and producers know what they are doing, but if the production team stinks, even some of the best actors in Hollywood will seem off their mark. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY ON THIS!

What can I say about Alone in the dark that other reviewers have'nt all ready said. The movie sucks and is one of the worst movies of 2005, despite all the negative reviews I watched this film out of curiosity and realised that director Uwe Boll is a complete hack and yet Hollywood keeps on praising him like hes the next best thing and to make things worse he is about to make another video game movie Blood Rayne from the playstation 2 game, the film starts of with a paranormal investigator played by Christian Slater whos career could have ended with this dreck, he is looking for an artifact that could summon creatures that only come out in the dark or something like that I couldn't give a damn about what the story was about. So you have Tara Reid who plays the role of a museum curator and Stephen Dorph as an agent or throwaway characters that we don't care about and alot of bad dialogue and special fx especialy the shoot out scene between the agents and mosters shot with stupid camera angles just like that scene in house of the dead. If you want to see this crap then I suggest you rent it just to see how bad it is or better yet just download the film so you won't waste your money on the price of purchasing a dvd.

I was very disappointed with this film. The movie had no definite direction. The music and the sound effects overrode the actors speaking most of the time. There was so much background music playing that there was not enough silence to even have a remotely scary scene. I expected much more from this movie. I would ignore the 5 star comments on this page. I based my interest off those comments to go see the movie. They had to of been made up comments or people with bad taste in movies. I feel like I wasted my money seeing this film. I think that the rest of the audience felt the same way. There was no response to the film from the audience the entire time. I'm just very disappointed.

For over 10 years, Double Dragon was the worst film based on a video game. But now, that title has been taking away and only Uwe Suck can do that. House Of The Dead was a laughfest film. With bad acting, special effects, storyline and it had nothing to do with the game.

Alone In The Dark was just even worst and to me, this is the worst film of 2005 and one of the worst films of all time. The creatures look like some reject H.R. Giger creatures. The film's plot makes no sense and it's confusing. The ending of this film makes no sense and it's a ripoff from "The Evil Dead".

I know that Christian {The Cannibal} Slater, Tara {No Talent} Reid and Stephen {Loves Teenage Girls} Dorff need the money to pay the bills. But, if I had to choose between finding a way to get money to pay my bills or star in a Uwe Suck film to get paid, I rather find a way to get money to pay my bills.

I hope for those who haven't seen this film, better keep it that way. This film is good for one thing, if you can't go to sleep, just pop this film in your DVD, look at it for 5 mins and you're be asleep from being bored.