Sci-Fi Action Horror From Infamous Director Is One Of The Worst Films Ever Made, Stream Without Netflix

In order to enjoy films like Alone in the Dark, you need to go into your viewing experience with zero expectations. But don’t worry, because the first two minutes of the film make an attempt to explain everything you need to know in the form of a slow-scrolling exposition dump with text on screen while the narrator reads aloud.

Blair Erikson, who wrote the first treatment for the movie that was more faithful to the source material, wrote at length about this opening sequence, referring to it as an “opening back story scroll read aloud to the illiterate audience, the only people able to successfully miss all the negative reviews.”

With all of that ugliness out of the way, we’ll get into what I think I watched before my brain went completely smooth and my wife was forced put a slab of tile into my mouth to prevent me from swallowing my own tongue.

Alone in the Dark centers on Christian Slater’s Edward Carnby, an orphan-turned-paranormal-investigator whose backstory is as confusing as the archeological backdrop that the writers (Elan Mastai, Michael Roesch, and Peter Scheerer) tried to shoehorn into the premise.

Edward, along with 20 other orphans in Alone in the Dark, were abducted and recruited by a government agency called Bureau 713 when they were just children. Bureau 713 focuses primarily on ancient artifacts, with a specific focus on the advanced but extinct Native American tribe known as the Abkani, who mysteriously vanished 10,000 years ago. As an adult, Edward is tasked with digging for answers about the mysterious tribe.

The reason Edward is the protagonist (at least I think he is) in Alone in the Dark is because a number of experiments were conducted on him while he was a child, giving him superhuman strength. Despite the fact that we’re told this, we don’t really see anything out of the ordinary aside from his ability to get beaten up and run around while continuing to get beaten up. He also has a sort of clairvoyance that allows him to sense supernatural activity.

But if I had to be entirely honest with you, all of the lights start flickering whenever anything bad starts to happen, so you don’t exactly need a sixth sense to know that supernatural alien monsters are about to reveal themselves.

But here’s where things get dicey in Alone in the Dark. We’re told through dialogue that the monsters, which are referred to as Xenos (and look like Xenomorphs made by a first-year graphic design student), have some sort of connection between Edward and the Abkani. We learn this information through another series of exposition dumps provided by an archaeologist named Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid), Professor Lionel Hudgens (Matthew Walker), and a medical examiner from Bureau 713 named Agent Fischer (Frank C. Turner).

We’re told that the monsters are sensitive to light, cause electromagnetic disturbances, and are impossible to kill with regular bullets. We’re shown action sequences with plenty of light sources, telecommunication systems that never get disrupted, and so much crossfire it’s impossible to believe that any of the “good guys” survive their own friendly fire in Alone in the Dark.

GFR SCORE

If the above rundown makes zero sense, it’s because I’m still trying to piece Alone in the Dark together in my head as I try to articulate what Uwe Boll was actually trying to accomplish. I can say with confidence that I’ve never been more confused by a movie’s plot, which is why this movie surprisingly has re-watch value. I’m either missing the point, or Boll is … for the sake of self-preservation, I’m going to place the blame on Boll.

With that being said, I challenge you to watch Alone in the Dark on Tubi and witness this $20 million monstrosity for yourself because I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it.