The Dark Lurking

World, this is a warning.

This so-called movie's current IMDb rating - 3.6 out of 10 - is an affront to cineastic taste and decency. It is absurdly too high, and will go down. This is one of those movies that have zero reason for existing, whose every aspect of production is A JOKE of derivative and artless incompetence and desperately and despicably amateurish commercialism of the most contemptible kind. There are nary a redeeming value to be found in this piece of offal masquerading as a movie. The main movies it rips off are Event Horizon and Alien, but of course it does so without having any technical competence of any kind, giving the impression that all aspects of the production were presided over by 12-year-olds.

The characters are never introduced or established (there IS no characterization), and there is no discernible plot; no explanations for either the zombies or the aliens. Or if there is, it doesn't come across. This movie is physically and mentally painful to look at, and I feel that humanity as a whole must be warned against it. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

I would give this movie several minus points if I could. Still, I will say one good thing about it. The zombies (or whatever the bloody hell they were) were well-made. Quite capable gore effects there. But that's all the praise I can muster for one of the absolutely worst movies I have ever seen. Please do not waste time, and especially avoid wasting money, on this screaming stinker. It will have you writhing in agony, and possibly resorting to gnawing off a limb for solace. Please understand: This is not so bad that it's good. It's just plain awfully, unendurably, insultingly BAD.

Alright, first of all the movie was also known as "Alien vs Zombies". What was up with that? That title couldn't have been further from the truth. Okay, given there were some weird aliens in the movie, but zombies? Hardly qualified as zombies. They were mutants.

The movie cover, at least the one on the Danish DVD release, looks so much like an actual Alien movie cover, that it should be illegal. But of course, that is done to lure people in, to sucker people into buying it. Which I did, of course.

Let's get on to the movie. The storyline was actually good enough, though there were some obvious lacks here and there, and you also sat there after the movie ended with a thought like "why? why was this movie necessary?". There is a lot going on in the movie, but a lot of it actually doesn't come full circle, and just is left hanging there, hoping the audience will forget about it.

In this movie "The Dark Lurking" you will find a lot of cliché stereotypical macho he-men running around, all of which oddly enough, have really low voices. I guess having a rough, low voice makes you more manly? And you don't really get any real introduction to the people in the movie and why they are there in the first place. And also, what was up with the multitude of different accents being present in the movie? It just added to the confusion.

The acting was actually good enough, though the movie suffered from series of halting dialogue. At some points you just wanted to yank out hair at the root at some of the stuff people said.

What worked best for me in this movie was the dark and brooding environment. The scenery was fantastic and there was a good sense of claustrophobia in the movie. And also there was a lot of action throughout the movie. And the special effects worked quite nicely as well.

What didn't work for me was the alien lifeforms. Wow, that was so hilarious and so unimaginative. And you just got to love those oh-so-obviously-fake-plastic spikes that were protruding from its arm. And the "zombies" (as they want us to accept them as being), well they were somewhat of a lukewarm thrill. They were mutants, plain and simple. Mutated humans, not zombies! They had lots of blood splattered on them; nice! But they looked like something from a cheesy sci-fi movie gone bad.

Actually I was sitting and waiting for Bruce Campbell to just pop out of nowhere and start kicking butt!

In overall, this movie had some good elements, but it failed to punch through, and it ended up being a confusing, lukewarm experience that you would rather not have gone through.

NO SPOILERS (this one couldn't be spoiled anyway :D) First of all.. I didn't pay for this one, I thought this was funny etc. but I bored in middle .. graah.

Nice acting, horrible dialogue, stupid plot, OK effects etc, crappy screenplay :| and some "ripley" kinda wannabe there.

Well with these things this deserves 3/10 at least :D not much else to say. The could name these little 'sensible'.

After all I didn't get much out of this, stupid "zombies" running around in weird plot, stupid directing, clichés and all argh. :) Didn't even laugh.

3/10 from me maybe some kids like this, zombies looked like some fkn Er. whatever :D

I wish I hadn't paid the on-demand fee for this one.

As my title states, the effects were decent for a low budget film.

The worst element, however, was the ridiculous dialogue, particularly from one of the rescuees who whined and complained about everything rather than showing any fear or nervousness which would be entirely natural given the circumstances. I only kept watching so that I could see her get her come uppance.

I agree with the other comments about it blending aspects of Aliens and Resident Evil. Unfortunately, since it is so obvious it only serves to highlight how much this film is lacking.

Skip it.

Oh dear oh dear, bargain basement dvds are us I am afraid, dreadful, dreadful and dire, Australian actors or swiss or German? They could not really decide and kept changing their accents whenever they felt like it, and the sync seems to be out with the speech so perhaps this made the feel of the film non existent, I never felt for anyone in it so again not much to write home about…set on a ship that is also dreadfully designed in a fashion similar to that mr blobby may have built, armed with only machine guns killing strange creatures…if there is anything positive to say about the film its that the creatures, at times, especially during close up, can be quite scary, so if you watch it, do it for that reason only (and the odd bits of gore fest), as the film lacks anything worthwhile for me to remain captivated. Poor all round for me.