Picking a Winner
Alone in the Dark, Directed by Uwe Boll; based on the Atari video game; with Christian Slater (Edward Carnby), Tara Reid (Aline Cedrac), Mathew Walker (Hudgens) and Stephen Dorff (Richards). 96 minutes, each more dreary than the one before. You start to root for someone, anyone, to get naked, but frankly big whoop, so you stop.
Boston Globe: Think of the lamest horror movie you’ve ever seen. Now think of Tara Reid in the lamest horror movie you’ve ever seen. See how much worse it could have been?
Hollywood Reporter: As video game adaptations go, even Pong: The Movie would have a lot more personality. … One of those rare instances of a movie being so bad … it’s still really bad.
New York Daily News: No better than whatever you might pick up while wearing a blindfold at Blockbuster, even if you happen to reach into a trash can.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Alone in the Dark co-stars perpetual party-girl Tara Reid as an archeologist. That alone should give you some clue as to how bad this movie is.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Never trust a movie that opens with a written introduction scrolling by that’s longer than the collected works of Tom Clancy.
New York Times: Alone in the Dark looks as though it had been thrown into a shredder and randomly reassembled. For reputable actors like Mr. Slater and Mr. Dorff, it is an embarrassment that smacks of career desperation, but at least they hold their own. About Ms. Reid’s clumsy cue-card readings, the less said the better.
San Francisco Chronicle: So mind-blowingly horrible that it teeters on the edge of cinematic immortality.
Minneapolis Star Tribune: If you took the 100 worst ideas ever conceived for a science-fiction film, rattled them around in a Lotto tumbler and spilled them out onto the screen at random, you could not produce a more asinine hodgepodge than Alone in the Dark. A film so utterly bereft of intelligence, craftsmanship and entertainment value must be regarded with awe and reverence. It has attained a kind of unfortunate perfection.
Linus: Wow, it’s playing in half an hour around the corner.
January 28th, 2005 at 20:28
You missed my favorite
So didja go see it?!
January 28th, 2005 at 20:36
There were so many to choose from! But that is a good one. If you click the title links in the reviews, BTW, you’ll find other fun stank reviews, and a link to rottentomatoes.com which gives it a 3% rating.
Yep, of course I saw it. I do these things so you don’t have to, you know. Busy weekend, but I’m hoping I have time to do it justice in a writeup.
January 28th, 2005 at 20:38
I feel burning sympathy for the screenwriters. There’s more plot material in Simpsons Road Rage.
January 28th, 2005 at 20:40
Your dedication to your craft is remarkable, my dear Linus. We appreciate your continued efforts to keep us all from having to witness anything involving the multi-talented Ms. Reid.
January 30th, 2005 at 21:49
Actually my new favorite review is a user review from Metacritic (I’ve become marginally obsessed with the unimaginable horror of this film). I like it for its conciseness and, seemingly, its accuracy.