alone and in the dark... sounds like Christian Slater's future in filmmaking

Alone in the Dark marks the first video game/movie ever making the Bad Movie Review list, and it's also the first one with Christian Slater. It's also the first one with Tara Reid and the first Bad Movie to be reviewed that's actually listed on the Internet Movie Database's bottom 100 movies of all time, as voted by users. In short-- I knew this was bad before I popped it in a couple minutes ago. But how bad can it be... right?

We start the film with scrolling text and a voice over. Thank God for the voiceover-- I wasn't gonna read all that. Film, not book. The gist is that a bunch of miners found some Indian ruins and the Native Americans opened the gates of evil. Of course, the gates will be opened again, because if they weren't there would be no movie. It's important to note that Uwe Boll is the director of this movie. Boll is the number one reason why I should be in Hollywood and doing his job. He's AWFUL. His other big-budget film is House of the Dead, now at number 42 on the worst movies of all time. He's German, so they assume he has style, but everyone seems to know he makes garbage. What's worse-- he still gets work. He has six directorial gigs lined up in the near future and one is about aliens who prey on humans. Ironically, I think that's what this movie's about too.

Our review starts 22 years ago, when this freaky doctor took kids and tried to merge them with alien beings of some sort. One kid got away though, and I think it's Christian Slater. They plan to kill him. His name is Edward Carnby. OOh-- we got a sweet narration from Slater now. This is gorgeous. Don't tell us the plot-- show us! This is like sci-fi/action that wants to be noir. And what better way to say noir than with a car chase? Some guy in a cab is chasing the cab that Slater's in. Oh, how do we make a car chase better? Put parts in slow motion. Seriously kids, take notes on this shit. Slater's character, we learn in the cab, is a paranormal investigator. How do we stereotype a paranormal investigator? Long black coat, sarcastic wit, five o'clock shadow, and inexplicable resilience. The guy from the chasing cab catches up and chases Slater. He's not human cause he gets shot a bunch of times. Boll's direction is very cliche and any innovative parts are squashed by obviousness. "Look at me-- I did this shot!"

YES! We met Tara Reid. She has glasses, so she must be smart. She's actually an archeologist-- or so we're expected to believe. Her man-voice makes her sound like an authority, but that's the best we can expect. She's also sensitive when it comes to talk about men. She must've had a relationship go bad. Back with Slater, he seems to think he's being followed when he sneaks in to some elaborately decorated apartment or something. He's analyzing some stuff, but I don't know what it is. I can't stress enough that I won't be stupid in this review-- the movie's actually a terrible one and it makes no real sense.

On a ship, on the ocean, there are some sailors who up a box from the water and open it up. Demons or whatever they are come crashing out and Christian Slater gets a headache. Some other guy seems to be awakened too, and a woman. I'm guessing there are 19 people who are getting this sensation. They're the 19 who were taken years ago to be merged with the demon/alien/monster thing. Well, we ended up back with Tara Reid, who we may have forgotten about by now (if we're lucky). Then we leave her for the boat of dead sailors. I think Boll did this solely to remind the producers why this shit bag cost so much money. Paying for Tara Reid. My goodness. Magically the boat docks and the lead doctor/scientist runs off. He's the dude who messed up the kids. What a jerk.

Tara Reid just got yelled at. What a dumb fake-blonde with auburn highlights. Who's to say an archeologist-- can't look good right? Me. Because it's Tara Reid. Sooner or later she'll have to end up in a tank top or something, so I'll tell you whether it's pre or post-op boob job. Slater gets called to a house to investigate the disappearance of his friend, who was one of those 19 kids. He's an adult now, in case you didn't pick up that 22 years ago thing from the beginning. Slater goes back to his old orphanage for clues. Of course. Why should he not? I mean he was only there 22 years ago. Why would anything valuable be there? He lucks out though, and the nun who took care of him is more than willing to dish out the locations of the other 18 kids from the orphanage. OOh. Tara Reid and Christian Slater were an item. She's mad though because he disappeared and she thought he was dead while he was in the Amazon for six weeks tracking poachers who were selling artifacts. Fox Mulder didn't do that crap-- he stayed on task. Tara Reid now analyzes the pieces they've found. She explains that they would fit together, but they were found so far apart, "If you want someone to build a puzzle, why would you put the pieces so far apart?" I believe my direct quote to the screen was, "Because they DON'T want you to put the puzzle together you stupid ass." I trailed off at the end.

Now they're in the museum, where Tara Reid works. The demon things are there and they're gonna kill the security guard. Nice knowin' ya buddy. Apparently these things strike in the dark. You don't wanna be alone in the dark. Get it? Of course the whole museum is dark. Pshh. Wait a damn minute-- what just happened? The military just showed up, like out of no where at all. And drop your defenses everyone. Stephen Dorff's here to save us all (from such classics as Feardotcom and Alicia Silverstone's boyfriend in Aerosmith's 'Cryin' video). Anyway, he took Slater's old job, so there's some tension. They have a scuffle and move on. Slater meets up with Reid, and they split up to work on the case. Slater goes to a doctor friend for some help and finds out that he has a symbiote inside of him. Not cool. We'll see how that goes-- no, wait-- we're at the museum now. No resolution between scenes, nor transitions to convey change in setting.

Now our mad scientist seems to have a demon thing caged up in his lab. How, I don't know-- no one told us. He injects himself with some demon/alien blood and tries to become one. Back at the Slater and Doctor's lab, the Doctor just so happens to be absolutely ready to provide means to defend against and kill the creatures. No time to develop the weapons, nothing like that-- just flat out had them laying around. Tara Reid drives a Beatle. That makes her more annoying. She keys into Christian Slater's place. She's pre-op from what I can tell. Boom, now the government headquarters with Dorff. I bet we're at scene #257 by now. We're jumping between locations like a kid on a pogo stick. And there's the obligatory sex scene. It's pretty tame. Funny too because they're both wounded from the attack the night before. Totally pre-op. I'd really like to be in an apocalyptic situation or an earth threatened by paranormal attack. It's like everyone has to have sex. I just don't get it. I like that clean apocalyptic crap like Night of the Comet. So the mad scientist infects Slater's doctor friend. He must be a bad guy now. We have an infestation movie too now.

After some smooth flesh-slappin' Slater and Reid are back on the case. These things are back for another attack. I'm not scared of them yet. It's very ineffective for a horror bad guy. Wait-- this movie just became worth it. Christian Slater just did a flying jump-kick into a monster. When all seems well, after Slater kills a monster, we end up smack-dab in the middle of a shooting spree. Where? Who? How? No answers. Turns out they shot up Slater's apartment, but he's long gone now. Sweet God-- 40 minutes left. No justice, no peace!

We have a military hunt now, like that sequence that filled up 15 minutes of fluff in Jason X, but this is all self-serving fluff. It does nothing to advance the plot or make me care about any of the characters. I really only liked the doctor. So I don't know what's going on now, I zoned out. They shot the crap out of the 19 people. I guess they're infecting more people too? There are more than 19 people fighting here, but why would Boll really tell us anything? We might actually understand what's going on if that happened. There's more military in this movie now. The cast, just based on bodies, must've cost a ton. Special effects, plus sets, and 'star' power... what do you think? The script couldn't have been done when they started shooting this thing... $20 million. You know how much of Africa's debt that is?! Foreign funding though guys. It opened to a $2 million audience in the States and went down and down and down. I stop there because it was out of most theaters after two weeks-- all of them in three.

Okay, so they're in a cave now. Our hero-team is looking to get to the source of the problem, while our military boys shoot some monsters. This is absolute, total crap. Greg would be so mad about the lack of realistic gunfire. This is what the hell is wrong with kids these days. Playing these video games where they shoot the hell out of things. That's not sending a good message. At the end of a cave they hit a wall, so they blow it up. They move along. We're cutting in between this and some other dude, but I don't know who because they never told me. In their defense, they lost my attention long ago. 22 minutes left guys. This'll be smooth now.

Everyone's gonna die. There's no sense in dragging this out. Stephen Dorff might make it, Slater and Reid will be fine. Everyone else is gone, so why do we have to watch draw it out? Oh, the story goes on. Behind the wall they find the lab where Dr. Crazy Scientist infected all those kids. Apparently Slater is somewhat immune because he was electrocuted as a child, so he killed the bug inside him. So now they're at a big ancient-looking wall, and they use their artifact to open it. Like they haven't learned that opening things is a bad idea. OK, so the Scientist comes back and shoots a guy. That means Dorff, Slater, and Reid are left. I'm good. Scientist wants to open the door on his own, but he'll probably get killed or something when he does it. Dorff killed him with a knife. Greg could've done that. He can use throwing knives. So the door opens and it's all dark, filled with demon/alien/monster things. Luckily, they close another door and-- wait. What the hell's going on? I'm so confused right now. Light's shining through, but it's still night time. Dorff happened to have a nuclear bomb, so he's gonna blow it up.

Ya know what I realized here. Boll really underestimated his audience. This is like a horror movie for fans of Dude Where's My Car? There are no explanations of events, no likable characters, and no real appeal at all. Horror movies are fun and lame and easy to make fun of, but the fans of horror movies are far more detail-oriented and intelligent than Boll seems to realize. Horror fans are usually nerds, and nerds care about elements that make a good movie. Boll has insulted me with this garbage heap. When Reid and Slater make it out (the survivors) they find a city evacuated. They never told us they were doing that-- I thought this was an isolated event. Boll leaves us with one final kick in the crotch-- the guts to suggest a possible sequel. Three writers wrote this one. I can see how that could be. Maybe it was like when I was a kid in school. One kid writes one sentence, and another writes the next, and so on until you have the most disjointed and deviated story from the one that the first kid had in mind. These guys must've passed it around until they got tired, passed it to Boll, then passed it to audiences-- as smooth as a kidney stone.