Alone in the Dark (2005)

I think I upset a few people at last year's FrightFest where director Uwe Boll made a personal appearance (and surprisingly went down a treat) by walking out of the second of his two dire movies shown there.  I count myself amongst the hundreds of film fans who think that Boll is as rotten a director as Ed Wood, but with bigger budgets and without Wood's naive (and somehow charming) awfulness.

This film is not to be confused with the rather jolly 1982 movie of the same title where a group of loonies including Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence, and Martin Landau take over the asylum.  In fact I would be hard-pressed to even attempt to tell you what this dismal farrago was about.  Based on an Atari video game of the same title, it joins most other game adaptations by being full of slam-bam action sequences without any discernible story.  This film is so heavily reliant on background material both in printed titles at the beginning and by subsequent voiceover, that there is the potential for any number of interesting developments, none of which are given to the viewer here.  It's all something about a lost tribe of Indians who unleashed the powers of darkness and about some latter-day mad scientist who recreated these spirits in orphaned children.  As one does.

Christian Slater, who used to have a career, makes a noble stab at mouthing the pathetic dialogue and showing his muscles as a psychic researcher.  Stephen Dorff, who similarly once was a reliable lead actor, adds absolutely nothing as the head of the government's swat team.  And Tara Reed makes the most unbelievable archaeologist ever -- nearly on a par with Denise Richards' Bond rocket scientist.  As these three battle CGI monsters against any understandable logic, the casual viewer can only put his head in his hands and wonder what the heck is going on and who the heck gave this hack the bucks to inflict this horror upon us.

Tags: Alone in the Dark, Uwe Boll, Christian Slater