Alone in the Dark | | Cast : | Christian Slater, Tara Reid, Stephen Dorff | | Director : | Uwe Boll | | Studio : | Lions Gate Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | January 28, 2005 | | DVD Released Date : | August 19, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | September 05, 2005 | | Summary | IT TERRIFIED ME FOR THE WRONG REASONS. | Content
 | IF ANYBODIE`S CAREER SURVIVES AFTER THIS TRAINWRECK NOW THAT IS SCARY. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 31, 2005 | | Summary | It's the worst! | Content
| I'm a huge scary movie fan and was really excited by the description of the movie plot as I read the back of the DVD cover. I love Christian Slater and thought I was in for a real treat. I have to say that I just read through many of the reviews on Amazon and most of them are dead right. How disappointing. It's so bad, I threw it away, after having spent 20 dollars on it. There's no one that I could give it to, and it's so bad, I didn't even want to donate it to the library. Save your money, don't even bother renting it. It's a shame, because the concept of the movie could have been amazing in the hands of a better director. As far as the acting, even the worst actors can be magic on the screen if the directors and producers know what they are doing, but if the production team stinks, even some of the best actors in Hollywood will seem off their mark. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY ON THIS! |
| Rating | | | Date | August 30, 2005 | | Summary | One Of The Few Films Actually Worthy Of It's Horrible Reputation | Content
| For the plot outline, here's what the back of the DVD box reads:
"Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) is a private investigator specializing in unexplainable supernatural phenomena. His cases delve into the dark corners of the world, searching for truth in the occult remnants of ancient civilizations. Now, the greatest mystery of his past is about to become the most dangerous case he has ever faced. With the help of his ex-girlfriend, archeologist Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid), and his bitter rival, government agent Richard Burke (Stephen Dorff), Edward is about to learn that just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean it cannot kill you!"
According to the character of Carnby, fear of the dark is what keeps us alive. Sadly, however, fear of crappy movies doesn't keep us from renting them. Despite the horrible reviews, I decided to give into the temptation of renting Alone In The Dark (I had a free rental, so I figured there couldn't be much of a loss). It was even worse than I'd expected...
For one, the creatures that are unleashed from the depths of darkness -- or whatever cliche horse feces is shoveled around in the story -- are pathetic CGI dino-beasts. Anything interesting, frightening, or even simply "cool" about them? Nope. Just pointless computer-generated monsters that fail at entertaining the audience in the slightest way. For two, the acting is horrendous. Seeing Tara Reid on the DVD's main credits made me roll my eyeballs, but seeing her attempt to act as an archeologist in a sci-fi action flick just made me laugh. The only half-way decent acting is given by Christian Slater, but it's still not enough to cover up for the rest. And for three, the movie is terribly boring, with few action scenes. Oh sure, a few unknown bumps here and there, some creatures flashing across the screen, and a little gore is included. But true action? Very little. The small amounts of action it did include is the reason I gave this stinker two stars. I hate to see a movie suffer, but this one deserves it.
In conclusion, don't make the same mistakes most of these reviewers made by renting the movie, knowing how terrible it must be. Just trust the ratings on this one. It'll save you your money as well as your time. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 21, 2005 | | Summary | Part Sci-Fi & Horror.... Not a great film but passible entertainment. | Content
| I'll get some negatives for these comments likely by the past reviewers of this film; but the review stays ;) Sorry kiddos; I am not going to follow the wagon train here. Sometimes when a film is made, and the viewers cannot understand it, they are so disappointed they give it a one star rating. Alone in the Dark is not a Ed Wood film, so it does not deserve a one star rating. With that, no actor is at fault here. I just viewed the film fresh. An actor interprets what the director wishes him to do. If a film is badly made, the majority of the time, it is due to bad direction or the cutting room. The problem with this film is common. You try to put a book or a lengthy story into a roughly two hour film, your likely to ruin it. Alone, could had been a interesting film, had it been made into a mini-series of about 3-3&1/2 hours giving it time to evolve and make sense. But the director hurtled in too much into 2 hours. The result was confusion as to what was going on. I believe the film was based on a game. I am not familiar with the game so I can't compare the film as some did here. This is another film where the action takes over the acting. The reason I gave it 3 stars is the acting is passible, and the entertainment value is also passible, and you can't give it a 2 1/2 star (middle rating). There are some decent effects in the film. I am not going to compare it with the effects in other films, because some reviewers are heavy duty into the action effects; but Alone passes the grade for special effects, and there are creepy moments. But I agree; you really have to listen to whats going on here, and unfortunatly it's too much, and the film becomes confusing at times, even with some explained dialogue. It seems the director took from other films to keep it interesting, or tryed to save it; films such as " Aliens," Starship Troopers (the helmuts ;), Indiana Jones, and several others, wrapping them up into one film. My advise is to view it on TV, or wait for it to go to the 6.88 bin at Walmart, but it's not 20.00 worth of viewing time. They probabally could had chopped it up and made 2-3 decent X-files episodes with it, had it been older. I wasen't going to rate the film until I seen everyone following suit. Did someone say Baaaah? (my sheep immitation)
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| Rating | | | Date | August 13, 2005 | | Summary | very rarely do I turn a movie off...I did this one | Content
| 1) If you want to see a creature loose in a museum rent Relic. Whatever your thoughts about Relic it was 100 times better than the first 30 minutes of this movie
2) I really like Christian Slater but I really hope he doesn't take any further low budget B horror movie jobs and ruin what career he has
3) Tara Reid cannot act!! Either that or the director and/or script was so lame that it made her look bad.
4) I think what topped it for me was this attractive woman with her baseball hat on backwards (whats up with that?!) and makeup all done up and she is the comms specialist for some secret government agency (no dress code?). She just keeps looking pretty and trying to look tough while pushing buttons and giving updates to the Stephen Dorff when he can see for himself what is going on. Really Dumb!!
5) The director cannot create a suspensful scene for the life of him. They relied too heavily on special effects and less on finding a better director.
Overall: Not worth even renting. Even if you are a Slater/Reid/Dorff fan don't do it!! |
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