Alone in the Dark - Or Just Close the Damn Door!

Stinker Madness - The Bad Movie Podcast

What is the point of any of this??? What does life even mean anymore?!?!

Watching Alone in the Dark is like stepping into a surreal nightmare where logic, talent, and coherence take a permanent vacation. Directed by Uwe Boll, the film somehow manages to turn a moderately creepy video game series into a cinematic trainwreck so inexplicably bad it’s almost mesmerizing.

Let’s start with Tara Reid, whose performance as "Dr. Aline Cedrac" is the kind of thing you’d expect from someone who Googled “archaeologist” five minutes before arriving on set. Reid delivers lines like she’s trying to remember if she left the oven on, her scientist character less "Indiana Jones" and more "lost intern who wandered into the wrong set." Her chemistry with Christian Slater is nonexistent—though to be fair, Slater himself looks like he’s plotting his escape mid-scene.

The plot is the cinematic equivalent of dumping puzzle pieces from three different games onto the floor and calling it "art." Something about ancient artifacts, a secret government agency, monsters from another dimension, and the unexplained disappearance of common sense. Characters reference backstories and motivations that the movie never bothers to show or explain, leaving viewers wondering if they accidentally skipped an hour. But don’t worry—it wouldn’t make sense even if you had the context.

Nothing in this world adheres to any internal logic. The creatures are impervious to bullets until they suddenly aren’t, characters forget their own objectives, and physics behaves like it’s being controlled by a drunken toddler with a dartboard. There’s a moment when flashlights become pivotal to survival, except the characters don’t seem particularly invested in keeping them working. Why? Who knows! Consistency is for amateurs.

Then there’s the action, if you can call it that. Imagine someone yelling, “Action!” and the cast collectively deciding to flop around and fire guns into the dark. The choreography is stilted, the editing is headache-inducing, and the monster effects are so bad they look like rejected renders from a 90s PC game. Somehow, Uwe Boll takes things that should be inherently exciting—gunfights, explosions, and supernatural horror—and makes them as thrilling as watching beige paint dry.

And yet, in its complete and utter failure at being a movie, Alone in the Dark achieves a kind of perverse charm. It’s like a black hole of quality so dense it warps reality into something entertaining. You can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all—the wooden acting, the nonsensical dialogue, the budget-bin special effects. It’s a film you watch with friends, drinks, and the understanding that you’re witnessing a masterpiece of mediocrity.

Verdict: Alone in the Dark is not just bad—it’s spectacularly, gloriously, hilariously bad. For aficionados of cinematic disasters, it’s a must-watch. For everyone else? Save yourself.