Alone in the Dark (2005)
Directed by: Uwe Boll
Premise: Based on the video game. Edward Carnby (Christian Slater) is a paranormal investigator who aligns with a museum curator (Tara Reid) to combat monsters from another dimension.
What Works: The first third of the movie is almost camp, and that is about as good as this movie can hope to be.
What Doesn’t: Almost everything else. The acting, especially by Tara Reid, is terrible and is exacerbated by dialogue that is laughably inane. The performances might have been fun if the filmmakers were not taking themselves so seriously. Virtually nothing happens throughout the second act. The film closes with a large-scale gun battle that has completely incoherent action and is disconnected from the first hour of the film.
Bottom Line: Alone in the Dark is what an Ed Wood production would be like made with today’s special effects but without the campy humor. It’s further proof that video game films are cinematic death.
Episode: #80 (January 8, 2006)