I was seriously hoping 'House of the Dead' was a fluke, but apparently not. I'm a little disturbed that all the movies he's done or planning on doing are all based on video games and apparently Uwe Boll is working on strike 2 with 'Alone in the Dark'. I read this on-line review:
aying Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead—possibly the worst horror film of the past decade—is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV. The director’s second straight videogame-to-film misfire boasts slightly bigger stars and higher production values than his previous catastrophe, but neither comes close to obscuring the fact that Boll remains mainstream cinema’s most awesomely incompetent living filmmaker. One would have to list every facet of filmmaking basics to catalog Alone’s innumerable shortcomings, but suffice it to say that jagged pacing, laughable use of slow-motion and bullet-time effects, seizure-inducing strobe lights, mismatched editing, ready-for-TV framing, a constantly unmoored camera, and jumbled audio mixing all rear their ugly heads at one point or another during this cataclysmic, cacophonous fiasco.
Writing the rest of this review in Chinese would prove an easier (and more pleasant) task than recounting the film’s unintelligible narrative, which has something to do with paranormal detective Edward Carnby (Christian Slater, squinting heavily and wearing a stupid duster even though it seems to be summer) and his quest to recover lost artifacts from an ancient Native American culture called the Abkani, regain his childhood memories spent at a bizarre orphanage, and battle light-sensitive demon creatures (lame amalgams of Predators, Aliens, and Ghostbusters’ terror dogs) from an alternate “dark” reality. Before the first ten minutes are through, viewers have been treated to an astoundingly stupid and lengthy bit of introductory text that sets up the film’s pointless plot, Slater’s boneheaded narration about the values of fearing the dark, and an action sequence in which unnecessary special effects (ooh, look at the camera go right into the barrel of Slater’s revolver!) and a distinct lack of logic (why would you try to fistfight a bad guy who’s just shrugged off two gunshots to the heart?) provide what may be the world’s record for unintentional laughs. And then Tara Reid makes her first appearance as brainy museum curator Aline Cedrac.
The incomparably blank Reid’s “performance” consists of wearing her blond locks down when she’s ready for love—primarily in a sex scene that even late-night Cinemax would be embarrassed to air—and up (along with dark-rimmed glasses) when she’s doing science. Meanwhile, co-star Stephen Dorff (as a spook-killing soldier working for a paranormal government agency) graciously attempts to offset the actress’s expressionless banality by going manically wild-eyed during every shouting match he starts with Slater’s rogue agent Carnby. Confronted by the insane professor Hudgens (Mathew Walker)—who’s determined, for reasons unexplained, to open the doorway between the monsters’ world and ours—Slater’s Carnby can only muster, “Hudgens, don’t be insane!” But to be fair, there’s little reason to single out one line from Elan Mastai, Michael Roesch, and Peter Scheerer’s horror/science fiction film-cribbing script, which serves up inane scenarios at a superhuman clip. “I’m here to protect you from the things you don’t see,” is how the decidedly un-heroic Carnby describes his civic duty. With this review, I can only hope to accomplish the very same thing.
Needless to say, I won't be seeing this now, but I was looking forward to the movie version of 'Bloodrayne' but I guess there's little hope of that not sucking. If he's so terrible, though, why are producers continually hiring him?
aying Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead—possibly the worst horror film of the past decade—is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV. The director’s second straight videogame-to-film misfire boasts slightly bigger stars and higher production values than his previous catastrophe, but neither comes close to obscuring the fact that Boll remains mainstream cinema’s most awesomely incompetent living filmmaker. One would have to list every facet of filmmaking basics to catalog Alone’s innumerable shortcomings, but suffice it to say that jagged pacing, laughable use of slow-motion and bullet-time effects, seizure-inducing strobe lights, mismatched editing, ready-for-TV framing, a constantly unmoored camera, and jumbled audio mixing all rear their ugly heads at one point or another during this cataclysmic, cacophonous fiasco.
Writing the rest of this review in Chinese would prove an easier (and more pleasant) task than recounting the film’s unintelligible narrative, which has something to do with paranormal detective Edward Carnby (Christian Slater, squinting heavily and wearing a stupid duster even though it seems to be summer) and his quest to recover lost artifacts from an ancient Native American culture called the Abkani, regain his childhood memories spent at a bizarre orphanage, and battle light-sensitive demon creatures (lame amalgams of Predators, Aliens, and Ghostbusters’ terror dogs) from an alternate “dark” reality. Before the first ten minutes are through, viewers have been treated to an astoundingly stupid and lengthy bit of introductory text that sets up the film’s pointless plot, Slater’s boneheaded narration about the values of fearing the dark, and an action sequence in which unnecessary special effects (ooh, look at the camera go right into the barrel of Slater’s revolver!) and a distinct lack of logic (why would you try to fistfight a bad guy who’s just shrugged off two gunshots to the heart?) provide what may be the world’s record for unintentional laughs. And then Tara Reid makes her first appearance as brainy museum curator Aline Cedrac.
The incomparably blank Reid’s “performance” consists of wearing her blond locks down when she’s ready for love—primarily in a sex scene that even late-night Cinemax would be embarrassed to air—and up (along with dark-rimmed glasses) when she’s doing science. Meanwhile, co-star Stephen Dorff (as a spook-killing soldier working for a paranormal government agency) graciously attempts to offset the actress’s expressionless banality by going manically wild-eyed during every shouting match he starts with Slater’s rogue agent Carnby. Confronted by the insane professor Hudgens (Mathew Walker)—who’s determined, for reasons unexplained, to open the doorway between the monsters’ world and ours—Slater’s Carnby can only muster, “Hudgens, don’t be insane!” But to be fair, there’s little reason to single out one line from Elan Mastai, Michael Roesch, and Peter Scheerer’s horror/science fiction film-cribbing script, which serves up inane scenarios at a superhuman clip. “I’m here to protect you from the things you don’t see,” is how the decidedly un-heroic Carnby describes his civic duty. With this review, I can only hope to accomplish the very same thing.
Needless to say, I won't be seeing this now, but I was looking forward to the movie version of 'Bloodrayne' but I guess there's little hope of that not sucking. If he's so terrible, though, why are producers continually hiring him?
Gerald Rice Wrote:...akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV.
Whoa. Cold...but ya gotta love it.
FPW
FAQ
"It means 'Ask the next question.' Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created." Theodore Sturgeon.
I'm convinced that Uwe Boll is out to discredit video games. He's stated, in interviews, that he doesn't really like video games, nor the people that play them. He's also stated, in interviews, that he doesn't like the horror movie genre.
He's adapted two horror videogames into horror movies. Or should I say horrible?
As I said; I think he has an agenda, and I don't think it's to make good movies.
He's adapted two horror videogames into horror movies. Or should I say horrible?
As I said; I think he has an agenda, and I don't think it's to make good movies.
Throughout our history there are those ghosts
Compelled to illustrate our dreams and hopes
Victors hang in pictures, losers from ropes.
Regardless they all swing in the same boat.
nijimeijer Wrote:I'm convinced that Uwe Boll is out to discredit video games. He's stated, in interviews, that he doesn't really like video games, nor the people that play them. He's also stated, in interviews, that he doesn't like the horror movie genre.
He's adapted two horror videogames into horror movies. Or should I say horrible?
As I said; I think he has an agenda, and I don't think it's to make good movies.
Then why would he waste his time and flush his career down the toilet? That's like saying I don't like white people and remaining faithfully married to the ugliest white woman I could find. I mean, what's the sense in that?
I swiped this from another board. There's a repeat or two...
check rottentomates.com for more ----> http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10003186-alone_in_the_dark/
"Saying Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV."
-- Nicholas Schager, SLANT MAGAZINE
"This is jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, 'I-can't- believe-someone- made-this-crap' badness we're dealing with."
-- Dustin Putman, THEMOVIEBOY.COM
"...asking the viewer to accept Tara Reid as a scientist is pure insanity, requiring a staggering leap of faith that I can't even begin to contemplate."
-- David Nusair, REEL FILM REVIEWS
"...films like "Battlefield Earth" and "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" await a film of this magnitude because it gets awfully lonely on the island of misfit movies."
-- Jeffrey Lyles, GAZETTE (MD)
0/4 "On the short list of Worst Movies Ever Made."
-- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL
0/4 "I laughed. I was bored. I couldn't believe my own eyes."
-- Jeffrey M. Anderson, COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID
"None of it hangs together enough to make a coherent narrative."
-- Pamela Troy, CULTUREVULTURE.NET
"you need an actor who can make the words SOUND smart, and Reid won't be winning a Nobel Prize anytime soon (she's proof that alcohol kills brain cells … with a vengeance)."
-- Willie Waffle, WAFFLEMOVIES.COM
F "The three stars have seen better days, but I'd like to think they could still do something classier and more dignified than this. Like gay porn."
-- Rob Vaux, FLIPSIDE MOVIE EMPORIUM
1/5 "Obvious dry humping to inappropriate music doesn’t cut it in a horror flick – at least give us some skin."
-- Joshua Tyler, CINEMABLEND.COM
F "Terrible beyond belief, like the worst 1940s serial ever made. As for Slater and Dorff...well, they've been in worse movies--wait a minute, no they haven't."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
.5/4 "so far off the scale bad that the only possible reaction is to laugh at it -- and I do mean at it and not with it."
-- Steve Rhodes, STEVE RHODES' INTERNET REVIEWS
1/4 "Worse than you can imagine... see 1997's The Relic instead."
-- Chuck O'Leary, FANTASTICA DAILY
D "Reid delivers her lines as though she is calling for another round of Mai Tais for the house."
-- Nell Minow, MOVIE MOM AT YAHOO! MOVIES
0/4 "Laughably bad."
-- Chris Hewitt, ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS
0/4 "Director Uwe Boll (is) a latter-day Ed Wood who fancies himself a cross between action-sytlish John Woo and B-movie horror-ific John Carpenter."
-- Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWIRE
check rottentomates.com for more ----> http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10003186-alone_in_the_dark/
"Saying Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark is better than his 2003 American debut House of the Dead is akin to praising syphilis for not being HIV."
-- Nicholas Schager, SLANT MAGAZINE
"This is jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, 'I-can't- believe-someone- made-this-crap' badness we're dealing with."
-- Dustin Putman, THEMOVIEBOY.COM
"...asking the viewer to accept Tara Reid as a scientist is pure insanity, requiring a staggering leap of faith that I can't even begin to contemplate."
-- David Nusair, REEL FILM REVIEWS
"...films like "Battlefield Earth" and "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" await a film of this magnitude because it gets awfully lonely on the island of misfit movies."
-- Jeffrey Lyles, GAZETTE (MD)
0/4 "On the short list of Worst Movies Ever Made."
-- Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL
0/4 "I laughed. I was bored. I couldn't believe my own eyes."
-- Jeffrey M. Anderson, COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID
"None of it hangs together enough to make a coherent narrative."
-- Pamela Troy, CULTUREVULTURE.NET
"you need an actor who can make the words SOUND smart, and Reid won't be winning a Nobel Prize anytime soon (she's proof that alcohol kills brain cells … with a vengeance)."
-- Willie Waffle, WAFFLEMOVIES.COM
F "The three stars have seen better days, but I'd like to think they could still do something classier and more dignified than this. Like gay porn."
-- Rob Vaux, FLIPSIDE MOVIE EMPORIUM
1/5 "Obvious dry humping to inappropriate music doesn’t cut it in a horror flick – at least give us some skin."
-- Joshua Tyler, CINEMABLEND.COM
F "Terrible beyond belief, like the worst 1940s serial ever made. As for Slater and Dorff...well, they've been in worse movies--wait a minute, no they haven't."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
.5/4 "so far off the scale bad that the only possible reaction is to laugh at it -- and I do mean at it and not with it."
-- Steve Rhodes, STEVE RHODES' INTERNET REVIEWS
1/4 "Worse than you can imagine... see 1997's The Relic instead."
-- Chuck O'Leary, FANTASTICA DAILY
D "Reid delivers her lines as though she is calling for another round of Mai Tais for the house."
-- Nell Minow, MOVIE MOM AT YAHOO! MOVIES
0/4 "Laughably bad."
-- Chris Hewitt, ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS
0/4 "Director Uwe Boll (is) a latter-day Ed Wood who fancies himself a cross between action-sytlish John Woo and B-movie horror-ific John Carpenter."
-- Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWIRE
Scott Hajek
[i]"A beer right now would sound good, but I'd rather drink one than listen to it."[/i]
You know... (sigh). I knew it would be bad, but I was hoping against hope that it wasn't BAD.
I love the games. I still remember way back in college downloading the demo for Alone in the Dark and having the crap scared out of me. I played all four games (yes, even the not-so-great "New Nightmare"). I was hoping that Boll would take inspiration from the first game and make reference to the Cthulhu Mythos, or even have creatures from it, but no.... it was never to be.
I guess my next great dream will be for some studio giving Del Toro an unlimited budget to make "At the Mountains of Madness".
I love the games. I still remember way back in college downloading the demo for Alone in the Dark and having the crap scared out of me. I played all four games (yes, even the not-so-great "New Nightmare"). I was hoping that Boll would take inspiration from the first game and make reference to the Cthulhu Mythos, or even have creatures from it, but no.... it was never to be.
I guess my next great dream will be for some studio giving Del Toro an unlimited budget to make "At the Mountains of Madness".
