Alone in the Dark (2005)
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 This film should have been left alone in the dark.
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Alone in the Dark is a 2005 German-Canadian-American science fiction action horror film, very loosely based on Infogrames' popular video game series of the same name (the fourth game to be precise). Directed by Uwe Boll, the film stars Christian Slater as supernatural detective Edward Carnby and Tara Reid as the scientist assisting him. The film was universally panned by both critics and audiences and was a box office failure. It is often regarded as one of the worst films ever made. Despite the film's critical and commercial failure, a 2008 sequel was produced, Alone in the Dark II, directed by Michael Roesch and Peter Scheerer.
Plot
Edward Carnby, detective of the paranormal, unexplained and supernatural, investigates a mystery (the recent death of a friend) with clues leading to "Shadow Island" that brings him face to face with bizarre horrors that prove both psychologically disturbing and lethal, as he discovers that evil demons worshipped by an ancient culture called the Abskani are planning on coming back to life in the 21st century to once again take over the world. Only he and a young genius anthropologist with an incredible memory (and his ex-girlfriend), Aline Cedrac, stand in their way at a gateway to hell. Standing in Carnby's way, however, is the impact that a brief encounter with an evil spirit called the Queen had upon his mind, as he slowly finds himself overpowered by the forces of darkness as they eat away at his very sanity. It's up to him to stop an invasion of the Alien-like demonic creatures who are pouring through a portal opened by the Abkani artifacts.
Why It Should Be Left Alone In The Dark
- Overly long introduction; this was mandated by the executives who felt that the movie's plot was too confusing.
- Overuse of narration.
- Extremely poor grasp of the source material.
- So much so, that the movie is said to have almost nothing to do with the games.
- The film is action-packed even though the game is mainly mystery and suspense.
- Awful, excruciatingly painful acting, especially from Christian Slater and Tara Reid.
- Numerous plotholes.
- Pointless scenes that add absolutely nothing to the plot or character development or anything worthwhile. They’re painful, poorly acted, and stupid.
- The monsters in the movie are blatant Alien ripoffs.
- However, Boll himself flat-out called the monsters "xenomorphs" in the commentary.
- Really bad and outdated CGI effects on the monsters and other things, such as bullet tracers.
- Lots of editing mistakes. (e.g. When a female soldier is killed by a creature, she moves her head after the crew moves away; and a woman who is being mind-controlled is hit by a bullet from Slater's gun, the bullet doesn't even hit her and she acts as she got shot)
- Some of the action scenes are lit and edited so poorly, you can't even see anything.
- Like any other Uwe Boll movie, this also has an awfully-made sex scene, which in this movie's case, uses an inappropriate song about racism.
- It doesn't make sense how the city in the movie was evacuated in one night even though the city has a huge population which would have not taken only one night.
- Laughable special effects.
- The movie's failure pretty much tarnished Christian Slater's film career.
- The ending is a rip-off of the ending to The Evil Dead.
- The pacing is extremely bad.
- The cinematography isn't very good.
- Unfitting heavy metal music (that doesn't even come from the games) that plays during the action scenes.
Redeeming Qualities
- The concept is decent, despite the poor execution.
- Stephen Dorff is decent in the film.
- The poster is actually creepy.
- Great soundtrack, although it does not fit the film as mentioned above, they are some really good metal songs (although it's doubtful whether any songs from the soundtrack album actually appear in the film, since it has over 37 songs), making the soundtrack passable overall.
Videos
Reception
The film was heavily panned by critics, audiences, and fans of the series alike. The film currently holds a 1% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 120 reviews and a critical consensus that reads, "Inept on almost every level, Alone in the Dark may not work as a thriller, but it's good for some head-slapping, incredulous laughter." On Metacritic, it has a 9/100 indicating "Overwhelming dislike" and holds a 2.4/10 on IMDb. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "F" on an A+ to F scale.
