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'Alone in the Dark' is now infamous on the IMDB as one of the worst films of the 00's so I have decided to have a look to see how bad it really is.
For those of you who don't know - and lets face why would you - 'Alone in the Dark' is based on a series of computer games by Atari that were released in the early nineties, think 'Resident Evil' meets gothic horror. Why would anyone want to make a film out of a relatively unknown game franchise? Uwe only knows! But I'll get onto him in a minute! The games' plot revolves around mysterious haunted mansions filled occult goings on and Lovecraftian monsters from the dark dimensions. The main character is Edward Carnby, a private investigator with a love of the supernatural. "Devil worshipping makes me smile, so this was my idea of a paid vacation" he enthuses. Unfortunately no line of dialogue in the film is this good.
So it's not sounding so bad so far... 'Resident Evil' was all right and 'monsters from the dark dimensions' sounds quite cool. Why are we interested in it? Did I mention Uwe Boll? This is his second video game adaptation, sitting between 'House of the Dead' and his subsequent adaptation 'BloodRayne'. Uwe is now famous as the man who makes 'stupid' video game adaptations, difficult in a genre for which you are not expecting to tax your brain.
For this film he has managed to get quite a good cast, headed by Christian Slater as the private investigator Edward Carnby and Stephen Dorff as commander Richard Burke head of the governments paranormal investigation agency - unit 713. They're joined by the woeful Tara Reid as Aline Cedrac - Carnby's love interest. Even Boll seems to have problems taking Tara seriously, laughing on the DVD director's commentary he says, her glasses 'should' make her look intelligent. Non the less, once she is past her first few scenes and her glasses are packed away she puts in a passable effort at looking mildly bewildered by all the supernatural goings on.
Tara Reid - looking intelligent
However, as soon as the curtains open you know that - despite its budget and cast - something is terribly amiss with this film. It begins, stepping straight into lengthy written prologue - this introduces the historical back-story, agency 713 and some of the characters. Then it trips over itself and falls into a flashback. Finally, it gets up and stumbles, bewildered, into a voice-over. What possible reason could there be for so much clumsy back-story? Uwe helps us out by explaining on the commentary that the test audiences had been confused by the plot and extra prologue had been added to help explain it to them. It's just a shame that this did nothing to alleviate the confusion I felt whilst trying to follow such basic things as the flow of the film from one scene to the next.
I believe that a film has a pulse or a rhythm to it that picks you up at opening credits and sweeps you along to the final credits roll. It helps you to immerse into its world and lets you keep pace with what is happening on the screen. If this is the case then 'Alone in the Dark' is in the film equivalent of arrhythmic shock. It beats when it should be resting and it rests when there should beat. For example, after the deluge of back-story you are given in the film's opening I was expecting some kind of rest so I could take in the atmosphere and immerse myself into its world, instead I was pushed headlong into an action sequence with an unknown bad guy. Why at this stage would I care what he did or what happened to the equally ill-defined hero? This is a feeling that I was unable to shake for the entire film.
Uwe Boll clearly has no interest in developing his characters. The average time given over to character development is 2.3 sentences. There is no chemistry between any of them. By the time of the sex scene between Carnby and his love interest half the audience hadn't even realised that he is supposed to already have a relationship with her!
Action scenes are what this film is about and there are some good set pieces. These include slow motion 'bullet time' as in 'The Matrix', a couple of good Kung Fu sequences and nice computer graphics. There is even a firefight lit by the muzzle flashes of guns being fired which fits the film's style rather well - even if this was an idea lifted from 'Equilibrium'. But these scenes were let down because I had no interest in the characters and little idea why the action was taking place.
I should mention the set design, and effects are also rather good if only to highlight that the only thing that is really providing us with any interest from a 'bad' film perspective is lack of direction and poor editing.
'Alone in the Dark' is a poor film not a terrible film. It is too poorly put together to enjoy as a 'good' film, but it doesn't have enough 'bad' production to make it entertaining either. Perhaps I need to invent a new category of 'bad' film between the eye-gouging tedium of 'Manos the Hands of Fate' and the hilarious ineptitude of 'Troll 2' reserved for films with no redeeming qualities good or bad. All in all this film is bit of a waist of time, unless you happen to be a film student looking to see how not to put a film together, in which case I am sure it would be invaluable.
BRAINMELT:
SBIF:
"[Alone in the Dark] is far way from [sic] that trash that the people wrote on the internet. This movie is way better than house of the dead in everything, and the movie makes sense and is told in a way that you understand the story." - sure thing Uwe.
bravenet.com