Alone In The Dark has gained the reputation of being one of the worst movies of recent decades, somewhat unfairly. Surely wretched, the movie is far from director Uwe Boll's worst, yet it is treated as such. Boll, best known for ruining every form of movie he touches, almost always video game adaptations, has become this generation's Ed Wood: a genial but incompetent douchebag who churns out awful but somewhat entertaining fodder for people ready to pass judgement on the horrid proceedings with a vicious mind and a joy for the abjectly stupid.
Not as bad as the tepid, dull, and dim-witted Bloodrayne nor does it heap stupidity and purposelessness like House Of The Dead, Alone In The Dark attempts to ruin the career of Christian Slater, here seen attempting to perform as a noirish detective in a not-very-dark monster movie, somehow involving strange experiments, monsters of the darkness, and secret goverment agencies in the most haphazard of ways.
Slater is saddled with the world's worst actress, the always-drunk Tara Reid, whose inability to deliver a line with any serious import adds even less credibility to her supreme miscasting as an assistant curator at a museum, even more unlikely casting than Hilter in Fiddler On The Roof or Dane Cook as someone who's funny. The millstone of Reid hangs heavily around Slater's benighted neck as he drags through the sub-amateur writing and dialogue to spar with an even-less-enthusiastic Stephen Dorff, rattling off lines with all the verve of a man condemned to die.
Though some aspects of atmosphere and effects work and Slater tries somewhat, despite the obvious awfulness of the surrounding film, the film doesn't work worth a shit and comes to nothing more than a trainwreck of badly-written, badly-acted, badly-paced scenes, chock full of stupid decisions and sub-made-for-Sci-Fi-Channel action.
Everything reaches its "climax" in some underground lair where the shadowy dogs of hell come from and the good guys attempt to win, but we find in the "twist" ending that, apparently, it didn't work and the world is doomed.
One might say that I have ruined the plot by revealing this futile detail, but the movie is pre-ruined, so I can do no wrong in this regard. If I tried to give you any inkling of the actual plot, I would fail you, myself, and common sense, as there is no descernable method to the madness contained within, except excuses to perform the various acts of violence contained within. Even the sex scene is inexplicable and somewhat stomach-turning, particularly with the worst choice in music ever made...
The music is another vastly inferior element of the film, co-opting a soundtrack from the Nuclear Blast metal label, going so far as to feature music videos on the DVD, a feature indeed "special" in how awful it continues to make the film. Of particular badness is the end credits theme by Nightwish, one of the most inept and incompetent pop-metal outfits of the Scandenavian region, summing up the total feeling of the movie with its abhorently stupid lyrics.
Everything in the film could be satisfyingly described as "a fucking atrocity and a crime against mankind", yet it still doesn't ramp up the ineptitude to the level of Bloodrayne. And Christian Slater, poor soul, does his best to wear this albatross, forgiven for the smirky enjoyability of his 80's films.
We forgive you, Christian. Boll, for all his stupid charm, will never be forgiven. He hurts us all and yet tries again. For this, he must pay.
