Reign in Darkness

I know that cosmic forces conspire against me and this movie is further proof of that fact. You see, were it not so, then this blight of a film, this cancer, this celluloid diarrhea that crept into my eyes and ears and then sat and festered upon my brain, forever burned into my memory, would never have happened.

Now, surely you must think "Fortey, what could be so bad? Why was the movie horrible? Didn't the end clinch it at least?"

Well, allow me to give you a guided tour of the special sphere of Hades that was this film.

To begin, this movie was filmed with a Sony Handycam. Possibly something older than a handycam made by Hitachi, from the mid 80's, I can't be sure. Some viewers appreciated the gritty look it provided. I was distracted by the "Uncle Carl's home movies" look it provided.

Describing the actors as wooden would insult furniture everywhere. Describing the dialogue as horrendous would be accurate and perhaps a little soft. But hey, I'm a tolerant guy. I like Ed Wood movies sometimes, it's hard to make my brain hurt with poor dialogue. But not impossible.

The producers of this film apparently saw the Matrix and a handful of vampire films (though I believe this shlock actually predates Underworld) and thought to themselves "Hey guys...let's take these ideas and then throw them in a blender with feces, slap it in front of a camera and see what happens." And so they did.

The ending though...ahh, the ending. What can I say about that except... I never saw it. I thought a sandwich would be more fulfilling than watching the rest of this film so I turned it off never to watch it again. And I forgot to make my sandwich. C'est la vie.

For those who liked this movie, I recommend Beaches featuring a young Mayim Bialik as well as tasty lead paint chips. It's the treat that can't be beat.

This movie is so completely awful it's difficult to know where to start! Firstly, 'El Mariachi' is namedropped on the DVD cover and we are led to believe this is a similar looooow budget effort. But in the commentary track the directors Kel Dolen and David Allen let slip it cost a million dollars! Now, by Hollywood standards that is low, but I wouldn't exactly call that a shoestring budget! 'Pi', 'Man Bites Dog' and 'Laws Of Gravity' are three movies that immediately spring to mind that show what can be done with very little money but TALENT and drive, and closer to home Peter Jackson's 'Bad Taste' was a cheap but original and entertaining horror movie that I really enjoyed. So there's no excuse for why 'Reign In Darkness' is so absolutely terrible! I can't think of anything good to say about this. The script stinks, there are no real characters with any substance or funny lines or any real logic behind it. The digital photography is passable I suppose but the acting stinks and the fake American accents are laughable. I couldn't help but wonder why Dolen and Allen made such an unoriginal and uninspired wanna-be mainstream movie in the first place. Why bother trying to compete with Hollywood product like 'Blade' when instead they could attempt something totally extreme and unlike anything Hollywood already produces? Someone like say, the astonishing Takashi Miike would be a more fruitful inspiration rather than this third-rate John Woo schtick. Surely being outside the mainstream allows you to be MORE creative and adventurous, not less! Maybe they were treating this is a show reel and are angling for a mainstream Hollywood career. If that's the case I wish them luck (because they're really gonna need it!), but otherwise I'm baffled about where they are coming from. Perhaps their constant references to Lucas and Spielberg on the DVD commentary says it all. I would say 'Reign In Darkness' is the worst Australian vampire movie of all time, but I've seen 'Bloodlust', and that, believe or not makes this look like 'The Matrix'! Even so this is one of the poorest Australia movies I've seen in many years, and is to be avoided like the plague!

Don't let the cover fool you for this poor movie. the plot had many holes init so i was lost right off the bat. the acting was imporable. the main charactor looked like a batman and agent smith from The Matrix. on a scale of 1 to ten one "being poking my self in the eye with dull wooden spork" and ten being "I loved it." I'd give it a 2 glueing my hand to senitive areas and yanking my hand back. The last time I saw a movie this bad it was called i, zombie. I'd rather watch that again than this.

Pease dont rent this movie it was a waste of film

The only halfway decent thing about this movie is the cover art. It's easy to see why the principals have no other movie credits - they're just that bad. The only glimmer of on screen talent is from David No, with a real director and a real script he might hope to turn in a creditable performance.

Kel Dolen's lisping narration is a boring attempt to provide some sort of continuity and story line that would otherwise be totally absent from this lame excuse for a movie.

There is one shocker connected to this movie; according to the 'Official' website, they are making a sequel!

OK, first things first, let me get a little rant out of the way: IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE AN EX-SPECIAL FORCES BOUNTY HUNTER IN YOUR MOVIE MAKE SURE HE OR SHE CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK IN THE DIALECT YOU WANT THEM TO! The Aussie trying to talk like an Alabama native was, quite possibly, the dumbest idea in cinema history. Except for casting Judge Reinhold as a Black Ops officer in "Project: Human Weapon".

The cinematography wasn't all that bad (except the part where I could actually see the rig they used to lift people off the ground) and it showed what the future of Independent Film will look like (sharp, clear, and almost as good as the studios) but the people behind the camera must've blown their camera budget on that awful looking Kevlar vest thing because instead of buying a red lens filter to simulate night time they just turned the contrast on the camera WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY down. Awful. So, yeah, it looked OK despite having a couple of glaring mistakes but that simply wasn't enough to save a horribly written, shoddily directed, badly acted piece of Australian crap.