Alone in the Dark 2

Because, you know...Alone in the Dark 1 was such a great film and all. Was it really necessary to make an even worse sequel to an already horrible film? This one is shockingly good at being completely worthless. The special effects were a complete mess. The acting was very hit or miss (some did a fairly decent job however it's not worth sticking up for them as they agreed to work on this filth). The story is all over the place. I've never seen a movie that felt like those involved realized nothing good was going to come of it so they just gave up and threw together what had been done and submitted it as a finished product. Now I have.

Uwe Boll's original video game adaptation of ALONE IN THE DARK was bad enough, but this sequel reaches new levels of low. Gone are Christian Slater and Tara Reid from the original film, jettisoned in favour of an entirely cheaper cast and an even more nonsensical storyline involving the hunt for a magical dagger and an evil witch.

Bizarrely, the central character of Edward Carnby has changed race, now being played by the Chinese-American actor Rick Yune. Carnby's very soul is in peril thanks to a sinister infection that causes some dodgy-looking veins to stick out of his chest, so a crack team must infiltrate a haunted manor and lay to rest the spirit of an evil witch who's causing all kinds of trouble.

This is a poorly-directed, poorly-written mess through and through, reliant on sub-par CGI and bad acting from beginning to end. All it can offer the viewer is a string of celebrity cameos from various personalities, so we get the likes of Bill Moseley, Jason Connery, former CONAN Ralf Moeller, and CARRIE's P.J. Soles. Even Danny Trejo shows up for just a single scene. Best of the lot is Lance Henriksen, who bags something of a meatier exposition-spouting role, but even he's on autopilot, and nothing about ALONE IN THE DARK 2 is good.

So this film was like a B-Movie that didn't know it was a B-Movie. So it's playing everything really straight, and serious when the script is kind of ridiculous.

The special effects are awful, if some of them would have spent time alone in the dark. Then maybe they could have hid some of the bad CGI. They were so bad I was shocked by how late the film is, because the overall quality also seems like it was filmed years ago.

I think if you like terrible films, you might find it a little entertaining. Some moments do seem really over the top, and the music choices are often over dramatic as well. I don't think it was a complete waste of time, but I do wish I would have been drunk with friends whilst watching it.

Didn't hope for much when I sat down to watch this but, as said, it was a better than expected. I found this sequel to be a competent little B-movie in its own right. Expect low budget, but not too bad - i've seen much worse in special effects and overall production. However, on its own terms it's a successful movie. It is much smaller in scale due to the lower budget, and is basically a retreat of the "group of people trapped" formula. There can't be any doubt that the movie could have been made better with more time and money its still however a considerate addition to a storyline with vast potential. The new cast is very good, possibly better than the cast in the first movie. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but it's definitely a keeper.

With a DVD follow-up of the original "Alone in the Dark" movie, my prejudgment whispered in my ear that this will be just another worthless follower. Actually, it wasn't that bad. The film had a much smaller budget than the original, but you could probably guess that since this was a straight to video movie. The cast is great and fun to watch. OK, this film is never going to win an Oscar. It takes itself to seriously, the effects are occasionally ropey (but good considering the budget) and the acting is not always up to De Nero's standard. But this is a great B movie. The cinematography is actually quite good considering the shooting time and the lighting in extremely good.