There are some of you that read the title of this one and thought “Surely not that movie.” To that I say, yep. And don’t call me Shirley. That joke is a lot harder to pull off solely in text form. But I think I still did it. Let me also notate that by even dividing this entirely contrived audience into at least two make believe factions is a pretty lofty sentiment this early in my 6th review of my spooky endeavor currently almost a week underway. It seems as though this Midnight Meat Train to Horrortown is in full swing and there’s no signs of slowing down. So lets jump into some early 2000’s video game horror adaptation in this one.
No matter how much excitement I try and muster, if you’re any kind of familiar with this film, then you have to know how much of a reputation it has for being a dumpster fire of a movie. I knew that going into this one. I didn’t balk. I didn’t have unrealistic expectations. I didn’t even really want to watch it going into tonight. I watched it because when I landed on it, there was something about it that felt serendipitous. After the last few movies I have attempted, there was a part of me that wanted to try and sit down to something actually sort of scary. I don’t know if I’m getting soft in my old age or just a bit detached from the genre, but the overall appeal of being scared, especially this time of year, feels a little passive to me thus far. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a couple fun ones so far this season. I tackled the latest Conjuring with Ron the weekend after opening a few weeks ago and that was most enjoyable. I also caught Weapons per his recommendation and really enjoyed it, despite my initial “meh” attitude towards it. So I’ve caught some really quality horror so far this year, especially leading up to October. I think on a solo note, I haven’t quite hit that stride of really getting into the spookiness of the season. I’m a big Christmas guy and while I’m trying to taper that enthusiasm until at least the stroke of midnight on November 1st to fully get in that mode, I can’ t help but feel like maybe my desire to defrost Mariah a little early and start decking the halls may be impeding my own personal fright fest. And picking movies like “Alone in the Dark” certainly isn’t helping me to get more in the holidead spirit. Even my puns are a little weak.
The best part of this movie is Christian Slater. For my money, this man should have never fallen off any radar ever. I have nothing but love for Slater and own a great many of his films just based on the merit of his ability. He does not belong in a movie of this quality. Christian Slater should be so far removed from a Uwe Boll film that you could measure their opposite nature like the poles on this planet. And I don’t consider myself to be some Christian Slater sycophant. Sure, I’m a fan. But I don’t spearhead the local fan club chapter. I don’t have a mountain of unpublished fan fiction or binders full of correspondence. I’m just a casual appreciator of Slater’s body of work and with no real career calamities that befuddled his public persona, along with no notable string of horrible flicks he strung together making him box office poison, I really have no concrete idea as to why he simply fell off our radar as a society. I know this movie is a pile of burnt hair wrapped in excrement, but it’s not his fault. He’s the only watchable aspect of this film. Why? Because he’s Christian Freaking Slater in this movie. He’s a professional. The dialogue is trash but he delivers it well. It’s compelling. Whatever he’s saying comes out with authority. He’s not some huge, brash jerk. He’s the central piece of a failed cast clumsily executing another droll video game adaptation that probably never should have happened. That’s the only thing that Uwe Boll is really good for when you go back over his filmography. Hand him a festering pile of hippo vomit and he’ll point a camera at it if you pay him enough for it. Stephen Dorff belongs in this movie. Tara Reid belongs in this movie. Christian Slater feels like he’s being held against his will and still acting circles around everyone else in this movie. I just don’t get why he went away in the first place and why he hasn’t come back ala Woody Harrelson in his glow up over the last 15-20 years or so. Slater is so deserving to be back on the marquee and I hope that’s still in the cards for him.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t really have any idea what this movie was actually about. I did my best to pay attention. Yes, I may have been halfway on Twitter talking to a friend and desperately trying to scroll past the Taylor Swift fanfare to see if social media has anything interesting for me to peruse on the side. Ok, so I might have also sort of been playing sudoku. But I was mostly paying attention to the movie. I think I just have no idea what was really ever going on in most of the movie. It’s like somebody picked a random horror video game from the early 2000’s and brought it to life with a wish.com Korn inspired soundtrack. The nice thing was that everyone’s guns appeared to be set on unlimited ammo. It didn’t help them destroy the aliens. Or maybe they were bugs. Possibly bug aliens? I’m not sure. Pretend Ridley Scott had to make his Xenomorph with leftover CGI from the Scorpion King and he fell asleep halfway through. If those alien bug things weren’t shiny, you’d never be able to see them. So it’s a good thing these kinds of aliens or bugs or transformers or whatever they might have been are constantly covered in Soul Glo so they have that natural sheen to them. Otherwise it might be hard to actually see them on the screen. It doesn’t much matter in the end. I don’t know why or how they got there. There was a weasely old guy who might have been in the know. He got stabbed at one point I think. There was a doodad and a gate that was important I think. In the end I think most of the bugs were dead. Or maybe they moved to Pennsylvania. I don’t know. it’s a truly crappy movie and it’s not one that anyone should be watching. It’s just nonsense.
I think the biggest thing about this movie is it’s such a product of it’s time. I’m not sure if that’s a positive or a negative. Some movies exist outside of time. Even when they are made, despite any limitations in filmmaking ability, the movie stands on it’s own for generations to come. These end up being classic films. You could go as far back as a Wizard of Oz type of movie or even something as recent as a Shawshank Redemption. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why they get selected for this status. It just happens. Other movies exist in the lens of when they were made and never break out of it. I like to call this the Pelican Brief phenomenon. The Pelican Brief was a wonderful little film. I read the Grisham source material when I was in high school before I saw the film. Both were outstanding. The movie was a great little thriller and it totally held up. It’s been a least a few years now since my last viewing but I believe with a cast spanning Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington with the likes of John Lithgow, Sam Shepard, Stanley Tucci, and John Heard amongst others in the supporting cast, you’re destined for a pretty fantastic outcome. But that movie isn’t timeless. People don’t talk about it frequently. The book came out. it did well. It was adapted into a film like many other Grisham novels. It made some money. People watched it. Now it’s relegated to random Saturday afternoon showings on TBS for most folks. Maybe you catch someone folding laundry with nothing else to watch and the settle for it. Maybe it’s that awkward time where you are done with a weekend project but the game doesn’t start for a couple more hours so you’re looking for something to kill some time. It could be as simple as fading in and out during a rainy afternoon nap as you attempt to relive the excitement the film presents in some disjointed fashion in between snoozes. Whatever the case is, The Pelican Brief is destined to be what it is and that’s totally fine. But it most definitely lives in that vacuum. Alone in the Dark was destined to come out in 2005, I’m sure of it. Had it come out earlier, it would have been too soon and poorly conceived. Any later and the miniscule amount of lingering hype for the game is depleted to the point it’s circling the bowl in of it’s own oblivion. All of the elements come together perfectly to make this movie almost exclusively a product of it’s time. Unfortunately this almost makes it a pile of crap.
I’ve known as far back as I can remember that there is no love for this movie. I knew this was an exercise in futility when I clicked play. I didn’t have displaced expectations. I wasn’t secretly holding out some misguided hope that it would somehow be better than I thought it could be. There’s no hidden potential. There’s no missed layer or secret meaning. This movie is a deliberate waste of your time. That’s all it is. I don’t think at any point is it ever even close to scary. And that’s not machismo talking like it’s actually really scary and I’m just a big tough guy. There’s nothing scary about this movie. There’s no jump scares. There’s no tension building. There’s no anything. There’s no plot. There’s no point. There’s no fun. Legitimately the only minute piece of this film that I was able to cling to as a solitary ray of hope in the deafening wasteland of nothingness it’s comprised of is Christian Slater. He was great. He acted against the grain. I could actively tell he was trying to keep this movie from pushing people to violence against themselves or others. I could feel his charm and personality emanating off the screen even through flaccid and confusing dialogue. I could sense his attempt to make choices about his character that somehow translated to whisper of depth in an otherwise two dimensional production. The only reason to watch this movie is if you have any affinity for Christian Slater and somehow you’ve accidentally burned all of your other Christian Slaters movies in a grease fire and you’ve simultaneously broken every bone in your body and are confined to a full cast in a hospital bed in your living room and this is the only programming available. If you find yourself in that position, I’d really like to know the events leading up to it because I had to work really hard to contrive it myself and I’m writing this. But I congratulate you on surviving this film. Well done. Go find another, much better Slater film like Pump Up the Volume, Kuffs, or Heathers. Heck, I’d take a Very Bad Things after this any day of the week. But rest assured, the only remotely possible way to keep from ripping your eyes out of their sockets while being subjected to this film is to focus on the Slater.
This movie gets a 1. Just a plain old 1. I know I could probably go into decimal points below 1. I don’t think any movie is truly a 0. Even if it was two kids with an old Sony camera making movies in the back yard on the weekend, that’s what movie lovers strive for. We all want to be the creative to get something put together and are desperate for others to enjoy. I don’t hold ill will towards Uwe Boll. I don’t know why he’s done what he has. But I also don’t harbor resentment towards him for it. Maybe I should. Maybe that would stop stuff like this from happening. But I doubt it. This movie is awful. But it’s still got Slater. Honestly his persona alone should probably bump it up to a 2 but it’s that bad of a movie. It’s punitive. Don’t watch it. Seriously. If you watch this and something goes wrong in your life, that’s not on me. I’m not fiddling with it. But if you know what you’re getting in to and can tackle life’s goings on with Slater in tow, I think you’re still doing ok. So that’s Alone in the Dark. It wasn’t good. I don’t recommend you watch it ever. If you do, I’m sorry. It goes by pretty quickly. So that’s something. But that’s about all we can say about this travesty. I’ll get over it. There’s more horror movies to watch tomorrow. We’ll find another something, I’m sure. Maybe it will be much better. Maybe I’ll find a new way to be angry tomorrow. Who knows. Any way you slice it, I’, ready for more horror. So until tomorrow, I’ll catch you on the flip side.
