Alone in the Dark (2005)

Directed by Uwe Boll. Starring Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff, Tara Reid, Matthew Walker, Will Sanderson, Frank C. Turner, Françoise Yip, Mike Dopud, Mark Acheson. [R]

Slater plays a paranormal investigator who battles shadowy, scaly creatures and a mad scientist-type in this sloppy adaptation of a video game franchise that’s bound to test the patience of dedicated gamers and hapless noobs alike. Jaw-droppingly inept action-horror hybrid is incomprehensible from the word “go,” even during its frequent exposition dumps, which are delivered primarily through the incessant introductory text crawl and Slater’s monotonous narration. Noisy, ugly, repetitive, and imbecilic, there’s nothing to it besides generic monsters, constant machine-gun fire, wretched dialogue, ear-splitting heavy metal, and camerawork and production values that would embarrass CBS primetime. Needless to say, there’s not a single real character (or performance) in sight, but by casting Tara Reid as an expert anthropologist and museum curator, suddenly Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist Bond girl looks like a pretty savvy decision. “Director” Boll’s second crass “effort” in video game-based “filmmaking,” and it sure does resemble a number two. Manages to provide one legitimate scare: it inspired a sequel.

2/100