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Only happy When It Rains
SFGate.com. Sounds like a real must-see:
'Alone in the Dark'
Action-horror. Starring Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff. Directed by Uwe Boll. (R. 96 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.).
"Alone in the Dark" is the best Ed Wood movie never made. It fails so miserably as both an action and horror picture that it succeeds as a comedy. It's a film so mind-blowingly horrible that it teeters on the edge of cinematic immortality.
Just how bad/good is this movie?
Perpetual Maxim cover girl Tara Reid not only plays an archaeologist, but she also utters the phrase, "I need to study these artifacts" and on multiple occasions saves the good guys by translating ancient American Indian scripture. No, Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie do not show up to perform brain surgery in "Alone in the Dark," but you will fully expect to find that deleted scene on the DVD.
The movie begins with an incredibly long scroll of text explaining a backstory involving a portal to another dimension, an unspeakable evil and orphans who were used as scientific experiments. Just when you think every possible cliche has been used in the first five minutes, Christian Slater shows up as one of those orphans, who has grown up to become a loose-cannon member of a paranormal investigation team and gets thrown off the job.
From the moment Slater appears, it's clear this movie is going to be telling-your-friends-about-it-the-next-day weird.
For starters, the "Pump up the Volume" star dresses as if he's raided the wardrobe truck from an early 1990s Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, running through most of "Alone in the Dark" in a black ribbed tank top, jeans and brown leather trench coat. At least half of the actor's dialogue appears to have been written for the movie poster tagline. ("Being afraid of the dark is what keeps most of us alive!") The rest of his lines are delivered in sporadic voice-overs, which seem to have been added in postproduction to spackle in the giant plot holes created by director Uwe Boll.
Let's talk about Boll. What the young director has created here is more of a drinking game than a movie, with scenes that are not only laughably bad but also repeat themselves.
A team of soldiers blows up a hallway full of priceless artwork. (Take a drink.) Reid uses a four-syllable science word when it's clear from her confused delivery that she has no idea what it means. (Drink.) Slater utters yet another cryptic line about his fear of the dark. (Drink.)
Seriously, Boll appears to have one goal here, and that's convincing Tim Burton to film a biopic about him. "Alone in the Dark" is the director's second movie based on a video game, and he has at least two more on the way. But no one could create anything this weird without someone else with an established background in bad cinema. And sure enough, the credits list screenwriter Elan Matsai, who also wrote a film called "MVP2: Most Vertical Primate."
This movie gets an empty chair, but it just as easily could have received a clapping guy, and probably would have if there were any acknowledgement in the production notes that the whole thing was supposed to be a joke. Add a few oral sex jokes and replace the actors with marionettes, and "Alone in the Dark" could end up with rave reviews as a sequel to "Team America: World Police."
While the movie isn't quite bad enough to be considered the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of the 21st century, it's not overstating matters to call "Alone in the Dark" this generation's "C.H.U.D."
Every casting decision, camera angle, special effect and sound seems created as a dare to leave the theater. The fight choreography appears to have been taken from an episode of "Lost in Space," the musical score sounds as if it were composed on a 1983 Casio keyboard bought at a garage sale, and even the extras seem as if they were selected for their background incompetence.
On second thought, you probably need to see this movie for yourself. If nothing else, it's worth the bargain-matinee price to watch Slater utter the line "There's a price to pay for bringing darkness back into the light." (Drink.)
-- Advisory: This film contains profanity, violence, body mutilation and bad dialogue. - Peter Hartlaub
'Alone in the Dark'
Action-horror. Starring Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorff. Directed by Uwe Boll. (R. 96 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.).
"Alone in the Dark" is the best Ed Wood movie never made. It fails so miserably as both an action and horror picture that it succeeds as a comedy. It's a film so mind-blowingly horrible that it teeters on the edge of cinematic immortality.
Just how bad/good is this movie?
Perpetual Maxim cover girl Tara Reid not only plays an archaeologist, but she also utters the phrase, "I need to study these artifacts" and on multiple occasions saves the good guys by translating ancient American Indian scripture. No, Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie do not show up to perform brain surgery in "Alone in the Dark," but you will fully expect to find that deleted scene on the DVD.
The movie begins with an incredibly long scroll of text explaining a backstory involving a portal to another dimension, an unspeakable evil and orphans who were used as scientific experiments. Just when you think every possible cliche has been used in the first five minutes, Christian Slater shows up as one of those orphans, who has grown up to become a loose-cannon member of a paranormal investigation team and gets thrown off the job.
From the moment Slater appears, it's clear this movie is going to be telling-your-friends-about-it-the-next-day weird.
For starters, the "Pump up the Volume" star dresses as if he's raided the wardrobe truck from an early 1990s Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, running through most of "Alone in the Dark" in a black ribbed tank top, jeans and brown leather trench coat. At least half of the actor's dialogue appears to have been written for the movie poster tagline. ("Being afraid of the dark is what keeps most of us alive!") The rest of his lines are delivered in sporadic voice-overs, which seem to have been added in postproduction to spackle in the giant plot holes created by director Uwe Boll.
Let's talk about Boll. What the young director has created here is more of a drinking game than a movie, with scenes that are not only laughably bad but also repeat themselves.
A team of soldiers blows up a hallway full of priceless artwork. (Take a drink.) Reid uses a four-syllable science word when it's clear from her confused delivery that she has no idea what it means. (Drink.) Slater utters yet another cryptic line about his fear of the dark. (Drink.)
Seriously, Boll appears to have one goal here, and that's convincing Tim Burton to film a biopic about him. "Alone in the Dark" is the director's second movie based on a video game, and he has at least two more on the way. But no one could create anything this weird without someone else with an established background in bad cinema. And sure enough, the credits list screenwriter Elan Matsai, who also wrote a film called "MVP2: Most Vertical Primate."
This movie gets an empty chair, but it just as easily could have received a clapping guy, and probably would have if there were any acknowledgement in the production notes that the whole thing was supposed to be a joke. Add a few oral sex jokes and replace the actors with marionettes, and "Alone in the Dark" could end up with rave reviews as a sequel to "Team America: World Police."
While the movie isn't quite bad enough to be considered the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of the 21st century, it's not overstating matters to call "Alone in the Dark" this generation's "C.H.U.D."
Every casting decision, camera angle, special effect and sound seems created as a dare to leave the theater. The fight choreography appears to have been taken from an episode of "Lost in Space," the musical score sounds as if it were composed on a 1983 Casio keyboard bought at a garage sale, and even the extras seem as if they were selected for their background incompetence.
On second thought, you probably need to see this movie for yourself. If nothing else, it's worth the bargain-matinee price to watch Slater utter the line "There's a price to pay for bringing darkness back into the light." (Drink.)
-- Advisory: This film contains profanity, violence, body mutilation and bad dialogue. - Peter Hartlaub