You know what that sound means? It's another
episode of the Game for a Movie podcast where
we ask, are you game for a movie? My name is
Mike. I will be your host this evening, and I
have one hell of a film to talk to you about.
And I say one hell of a film because honestly,
it's not even about the film. It's about the
director. But of course, we start this podcast
the same way we always start the podcast with
what we are drinking. I have Mountain Candy from
Sycamore Brewing right here in Charlotte. Sycamore
is probably one of my most visited breweries
since moving down here to Charlotte. Especially,
I've met friends there, including Matt from the
Hop Geek News podcast when he was in town for
Packers Panthers. It was very good to actually
put a face to a name finally. Obviously, we've
talked a lot behind the scenes and stuff like
that. We're in a fantasy league together. He's
a guy that I claim out of all the podcasters
that I've met via Twitter or X or whatever. He's
somebody that I actually would have considered
a friend even before meeting him. And truthfully,
it was very nice to actually get to meet him
and his wife at Sycamore Brewing. Sycamore's
flagship is this Mountain Candy, which is a delicious
IPA. Very juicy, very delicious. Obviously, candy
giving that juicy taste and everything. Before
we talk about today's movie of the day, we are
going to talk about some of the things we've
been doing behind the scenes. We had an Emmys
pool that was won by friend of the podcast, Mark,
as well as we have a Razzies pool and an Oscars
pool coming up. If you would like to join, please
send us a direct message on Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, whatever, and I will hook you up with
a link so you can jump in. Especially those Razzie
awards because I have a special episode coming
up with some of the Razzie movies that I've seen
for the year. Talking about all of those as well
as my picks for who I think is going to win the
Golden Raspberries. Including a new movie that
I now own because on Redbox it was $5 to rent
and $3 to own. So I now own Johnny and Clyde,
a film starring Megan Fox that doesn't look amazing.
Which she's nominated for Worst Actress for.
So, yeah, I've got some Razzie information coming.
You may have seen that already. If you get our
newsletter, I would also be happy to sign you
up for that. If you would like to have a I call
it monthly newsletter, but really it's just whenever
I feel like it. Newsletter talking about movie
news, everything like that, as well as giving
you one spot to be able to click and find our
show. Thank you guys for listening very much,
by the way. If you are listening for the first
time for the. 700th time. We really appreciate
everyone that listens to the show, especially
me who's trying to do more and more episodes
alone and is getting more comfortable with it.
Unfortunately, we hope to have everybody back
for another couple episodes in the next couple
of weeks. Mitchell's bachelor party. If you have
been listening to the show a long time, Mitchell
is getting married. So his bachelor party is
next month as well as his wedding the month after.
So it may be a little hard to get us all together.
With all of that going on and everything like
that. But we still are going to try to get everybody
together and talk about all of these movies.
Good, bad, whatever. Speaking of bad movies,
I've got one for you today. It is one of the
worst movies ever released in January. It is
still January as of the time of this recording.
It is Alone in the Dark. Alone in the Dark is
from 2005. It is a video game adaptation from
director Yuva Bull. And truthfully, it is a boring
movie. It's featured on the IMDb's bottom 100
film list of all time. It is a 1 % critic score
and 11 % audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. And
fully deserves every last bit of it, if you want
to know the truth. I could talk about the movie,
and I am going to talk about the movie in some
detail. As we get to it. But really what I've
got to talk first is I have to talk about Yuva
Bull. Yuva Bull, as I said, is the director of
Alone in the Dark. He is a German filmmaker.
He has a reputation. He has been known to get
his hands on video game adaptations. He's done
such movies as House of the Dead, Alone in the
Dark, Far Cry, Blood Rain, as well as Postal,
one of his favorite movies that he's ever done.
Almost none of his movies make money at the actual
box office, though he does have a pretty sizable
return for home video releases or people buying
DVD copies of it. And I say sizable, not exactly
amazing. But at the same time, he is well -known,
and I will give them credit for this. I'm going
to shit on this guy a lot, probably. But truth
is, I am fascinated by Yuva Bull. He is... Just
this chaotic man in the best of ways. Obviously
on the podcast, we talk a lot of bad movies and
everything like that. And truthfully, it's because
a lot of these have a little bit of heart and
a little bit of feeling. And even if they're
awful, sometimes it's just fun to watch. I will
say Alone in the Dark wasn't one of those, but
the career of Uwe Boll is one of those. Like
I said, he is just a very fascinating guy because
he found a loophole. in German tax law that keeps
getting him money so that he can make these films.
So one of the things I do want to give credit
to for Uwe Boll is he works with incredibly low
budgets, especially nowadays where every movie
has inflating, ballooning production budgets.
I don't have the exact numbers for Alone in the
Dark, but I do for House of the Dead. It had
a production budget of around $7 million. It
garnered $11 million at the box office and then
an additional $28 million from home video. And
that's a lot of what you can say because Alone
in the Dark had a $20 million budget. It only
made $5 .1 million at the box office. But I happen
to know a lot of people that have rented it,
bought it, seen it, that kind of stuff because
they just want to see the train wreck that is
Alone in the Dark. So I'll give him credit there
where he works with these incredibly tight budgets,
makes these movies and they're not great, but
they do make their money back. And then some
they do usually recoup their money. A lot of
people like to look at just box office and especially
certain worlds now that we live in where there's
not a lot of post market after theaters. And
they just look at the box office and go, wow,
this movie really didn't do well, even if it
did well. worldwide or if it did well in post
sales for dvds and stuff like that so everybody
sees his movies and goes wow that was a total
flop because it only made 5 .1 million on a 20
million dollar budget but it does usually make
its money back in these post sales so there i've
got i've given him something nice and as told
the compliment sandwich is always nice criticism
nice let's get to the criticism shall we so a
lot of people rightly so, because of his movies,
have called him out and done negative reviews
about Uwe Boll. Some of these people have received
the ultimate honor, is what I will say. So Boll
reached out to his five harshest critics and
basically challenged each of them to a 10 -round
boxing match. And I'm not joking. This is not
something that he was just like, Oh yeah, I'm
just going to challenge him to a boxing match,
put him in their place. He actually did them
and was victorious in all five. Even if you didn't
like the guy, I don't know that I would ever
go in a boxing match against Yuva Bull. Especially
if you see the guy, he'd probably kick my ass.
So I'm going to say right now, I'm not saying
these things because I want to start a fight
or get into a fight or anything like that. I'm
just talking about the movie and the fact that
it's bad. I have not myself watched it yet, but
these boxing matches are also part of the subject
of Raging Bull. Yes, that's B -O -L -L. It's
a documentary on the filmmaker's life and everything
like that, including these boxing matches that
he's challenged people to. And just because the
critics are the ones that actually had the boxing
matches doesn't mean they're the only ones to
get challenged. Some of the other people that
were challenged to these boxing matches. During
publicity for Postal, Uwe Boll said that he is
the only genius in the whole fucking movie business,
and he called certain directors, I'll say Michael
Bay and Eli Roth, fucking R -words. Obviously,
he said the actual word. I personally don't use
that word in my day -to -day. Hope you understand
that. I'm fine with saying fucking, but the R
-word is a no -no. Bay, of course, was asked
about this, and he said that Bull is a sad bean
and that he couldn't care less about the comments.
Roth said that he described the comments as the
greatest compliment ever coming from Bull. Of
course, that doesn't just stop Uwe Bull, the
most interesting man in Hollywood or filmmaking,
I guess, really. He basically then appeared on
G4's Attack of the Show, where he was interviewed,
mind you, in the nude. to challenge Michael Bay
to a 12 -round boxing match at the Mandalay Bay.
Of course, Michael Bay didn't have to respond,
but he did, saying partially, I never even heard
his name until last week when he made threats
and rants. The guy is a fucking idiot making
threats to me. Clooney, Eli Roth says he has
a doctorate but uses the R word in his vocabulary.
Come on. I don't agree with Michael Bay on a
lot of things, but I even got to say, yeah, he's
kind of right. Obviously, that boxing match never
happened, although a Michael Bay Uwe Boll boxing
match would probably sell better than an Uwe
Boll movie. Supposedly, in September of 2016,
he released his last movie, walked away from
the camera and the end credits, and that's been
it, right? Well, only kind of right. He still
has produced and released a couple of movies
here or there, but it's definitely not as frequent
as it used to be. Now, because he's moved on
to something different in his life, he has entered
the restaurant industry because he wanted to
have German food in Vancouver. And truthfully,
it's worked out for him. It's actually been pretty
great. In 2020, his restaurant won a gold award
for best European restaurant at the 2020 Vancouver
Magazine Awards. So good for him. So that's where
it stands today on Uwe Boll. He's doing... what
he wants to do, and he's always been, and this
is a common thing I've seen about it, he's always
been honest. Honest the way he thinks it is.
That's another way I'll quote it. It may not
exactly be honest, honest, where he can admit
that he made a bad movie or anything like that,
but the way he sees it and the way he feels it,
he's always been true to how he feels about it
and how he thinks it is. I will say good for
him, and he is a very interesting human being.
Notice, I can talk about him a lot longer than
I can probably talk about the movie Alone in
the Dark, which got him a Razzie Award for Worst
Director. So let's begin, shall we, talking about
actual Alone in the Dark. Alone in the Dark is
a video game adaptation of a game series from
Infoware. Alone in the Dark stars Christian Slater,
Stephen Dorff, and Tara Reid. and, of course,
is directed by Yuva Bull. Had a $20 million budget,
as I said earlier. From what I can tell, it had
a box office of $5 .1 million, which, not great,
I'll admit, but at least it made some kind of
money. That might actually be saying a lot for
this film. Let's go into the details of what
happens. So the movie starts with a long scroll.
And basically this was added because a lot of
people were confused about what happened in the
actual movie. So taking in from Tess' audience
and everything like that, they added in this
long scroll to explain everything that happens.
So there's a group called the Abkhani. who opened
a world between the light and the dark world.
These terrifying creatures in the darkness, everything
like that. The Abkhani basically were wiped off
the face of the planet. It also introduces Bureau
713, which explores abnormalities in our light
world, is what I will say. This group was founded
by Dr. Hudgens. He was the leader of Bureau 713,
but he was basically kicked out because he was...
Psychotic, essentially. And now he is in an abandoned
mine and he does experiments on children, mixing
them with creatures. So he's mixing man with
creature, which are these creatures from the
dark world. I don't know what else to call them.
They're called Xenos later in the film, but we
don't know that right now. We get a little intro
scene that's obviously in the past where Hudgens
is talking to a nun at an orphanage. And the
nun... admits that she is going to call the police
eventually, but just give it some time where
basically the children disappeared overnight.
In that same scene, Hudgens is being told by
one of his underlings that one of the children
has disappeared. We kind of see him go through
this thing where he sees the monsters and everything
like that, the missing orphan. And then it flashes
to today. We are on a plane where our main character
played by Christian Slater, Edward, Kind of jumps
out of a nightmare. And he's sitting next to
this kid who is basically talking to him saying,
did you have a nightmare? Cheese gives you nightmare.
I saw you eat cheese before. And Christian Slater
basically gives this narration while he also
scares the shit out of this child. So after the
flight, we see Edward leave the airport and he
gets into a cab. And basically this cabbie is
just making small talk with him and everything
like that. And Slater slash Edward realizes that
they're being followed. And they're being followed
by this thing called a sleeper. Sleeper is the
thing that Hudgens has been operating on making
half man, half Zeno. So they call them sleepers
because they look like humans, but they kind
of are evil in a sense. So one of these sleepers
is chasing after them in another cab. And basically,
Edward, there's this whole chase scene. and the
cab gets pinned in a bad area and the sleeper
is going to run through the cab edward jumps
out of the cab left and when the scene comes
back he's to the right it's one of my favorite
things to start off this movie where we're not
even 10 minutes in and there's already been an
error where i'm like oh shit i saw that and i
wasn't even paying attention to this part really
After he gets away from the sleeper in the cab,
basically he's running away, knowing that the
sleeper is going to be right on his tail. They
get into a hand -in -hand combat, and basically
there's like 80 different cuts in this fight
sequence that you have no clue what's going on,
but you kind of just know that Edward is losing.
And I said at this point, he's struggling with
one of these man creatures, sleepers or whatever.
We are supposed to believe that he's going to
take out all of them at the end because we know
how this is going to go, right? He's going to
win, save the day, get the girl, that kind of
stuff. We also learned that he doesn't have his
own weapon because he grabs a gun off of a cop
and he starts shooting at the sleeper. And even
though it has bullet time, slow motion shots
that you can see obviously go through the heart
of the sleeper. The sleeper is pretty much unaffected.
I also gave a comment at this point saying at
least it has blood because if you are going to
go and be rated R and be a video game adaptation,
why not go for it? Have blood. And so that was
something that I was okay with and the fact that
it is a bloody mess. Finally, they get to a fish
packing market, which is why I've said I think
it's either San Francisco or Seattle or maybe
even Vancouver if it's to be believed that. Eva
Bull was living in Vancouver at this time, basically
somewhere that would make sense to have fish
on ice at this market where they're just like
tossing fish and everything like that. So they
get into this fight. He's holding Edward down
on the end of the belt. And there's like a pointy
stick or stake hanging up right above him. And
Edward's able to grab this. hook and pull himself
out of the way and get the sleeper to fall on
the stake and spike himself through the gut.
Sleeper down. Great. So now we go to a museum.
It flashes to a museum and we get introduced
to another one of our new characters. This is
Tara Reid's character of Aileen. Aileen works
at the museum. She is basically the head of research
when Dr. Hudgens isn't there. Yes, that Dr. Hudgens.
I know what you're thinking. There's a security
guy that is walking with this delivery guy up
to Aileen and saying, basically, the delivery
guy is looking for Dr. Hudgens, but he doesn't
know if he can leave it with Aileen. And the
security guard is just like, don't you know who
she is? This is Aileen. She is the leader of
this thing when Dr. Hudgens is gone. She is also
the head researcher of Akani culture. The reason
I made notes of this is because the security
guard knows way too much about the Abkhani, Dr.
Hudgens, and also he has a throwaway line about,
oh, it's because her boyfriend has been missing
for three months, which is also insane that her
boyfriend has just been missing for three months
and like everybody knows about it. The security
guard knows about it. Lots of people know that
he's been gone for three months. This is also
juxtaposed with another scene going on where
Dr. Hudgens is on a boat in the middle of the
ocean. And he is working with this ocean crew.
They have found this relic in the middle of the
ocean that they are pulling in onto the boat.
And it is housed in gold because it keeps away
bad spirits or locks them away. I'm not really
too sure what they were saying about it. They
said bad spirits. And basically this gold either
keeps them in or keeps them out. So Aileen is
looking at this thing that was sent to Dr. Hudgens.
She's examining it. Hudgens is finding this relic
in the middle of the ocean. And we don't know
what's happening with Edward. He's on his own
at his own place after having defeated the sleeper.
So all three of these scenes are kind of happening
at once. Aileen is looking at the thing that
was sent for Dr. Hudgens. She's examining it
and everything like that. And then Edward, having
just defeated the sleeper, is going home to take
a well -deserved nap. And Dr. Hudgens is looking
at this relic. The ocean crew with Dr. Hudgens
are talking to each other and going, if it's
housed in gold, can you imagine how valuable
it is on the inside? And so they double cross
Hudgens and lock him away in the, I guess, brig,
but it's like a holding area kind of thing. The
boat crew gets it open and all of a sudden pandemonium
hits. You can see. You only get it from Dr. Hudgens'
point of view. So you hear noises, you see things
start to shake and everything like that. You
have no clue what's going on. You just know they've
unveiled something. As well as Edward starts
having these moments where he's freaking out
at his house and everything like that. And Aileen's
kind of seeing these things that are spiking
on the relic as it happens. Also, we see other
people that are all of a sudden... activated
they're sleepers and because they've opened this
these people look like they're in a trance and
they just walk out of their house with the clothes
on their back and like no shoes nothing just
whatever they had on because he was thrown in
the brig hudgens is able to survive while the
rest of the boat crew doesn't make it hudgens
pushes open the door after a long time of fighting
able to get it open and he steals whatever was
in the relic or in the uh golden sarcophagus,
essentially, and takes it with him as he leaves.
After everything has happened, it is the next
day. Edward didn't sleep well and everything
like that, and he wakes up to a missed call.
Basically, his childhood friend John is missing,
and so he needs to go to the orphanage to find
out more about what happened to John, why everybody
disappeared that night, and what it could mean
because he knows they're connected. Sister Clara
is there and is really willing to help. And basically
tells him kind of what happened. Not exactly
what happened, but kind of what happened. That
they were experimented on as kids. And that they
really didn't disappear. Dr. Hudgens kind of
kidnapped them. But she knew it had something
to do with the Abkhany. And so now Edward has
a heading. He knows where to go now. He goes
to the museum to talk to the lead Abkhany expert.
Who is played by Tara Reid. That's Aileen. Edward
walks in and is expecting this big welcome back
from Aileen. They give a hug. And then as soon
as they split apart, he is slapped across the
face. Why did he disappear for three months?
This is the boyfriend. We got it now. Basically,
they're going to get away from the security guard
and they're going to talk it over and be in private.
And so they have this whole conversation. Not
a whole lot happens in it. It's just kind of
like, I'm sorry I was undercover. I couldn't
tell you I didn't want you to be in danger. That
kind of thing. She kind of understands she's
still a little angry, but she kind of understands
and realizes like it's going to be OK. And then
the lights start flickering and Edward not only
pulls out one gun because he has his own gun
this time, he pulls out two and gives one to
Aileen because he knows what's about to go down.
Also, at the same time, the security guard is
on his own in the museum trying to find out.
why the lights are flickering, and what's happening.
And also trying to find Aileen and Edward to
try to get them out of there. As the security
guard is looking for them, all of a sudden it
flashes to Aileen and Edward as they hear him
scream in the darkness because he has been killed
by one of these creatures, the Xenos. The Xenos
can kind of hide themselves in the dark, thus
alone in the dark. You're not really ever alone
in the dark. And we get our first look at one
of them in the CGI. Not very good. Again, this
is a smaller budget, so I kind of understand
it, but still, it is not a good look. It is very
fake, and you can tell you're looking at a third
-rate CGI studio that put this together. The
CGI monster is able to scratch Aileen, and I'm
wondering if it works like zombie rules, if she's
going to become a Xeno now, and basically runs
away. Edward and Aileen get to the front of the
museum after being chased by it. And we think,
uh -oh, who knows what's going to happen now.
So now seems like a good time to take a break.
So as always, we always have a guessing game
when it comes to our bad movies. And the first
one to guess the bad movie right that has a podcast
gets a shout out or gets their promo played on
the show. The first one to get this time was
Halloween is Forever podcast at hollow forever.
They are on X Twitter and that kind of stuff,
as well as you can listen to their stuff on Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, all that good stuff, good
pods even. You can find it everywhere. Basically,
their description, pick a topic and listen to
three mutant horror nerds rip each other's guts
out on the way to deciding whose favorite flick
reigns supreme. That is Halloween Forever Podcast.
If you want to know more about them, I am about
to play their promo. Congratulations, guys, for
getting it correct. And we'll be back after your
promo plays. Listen every Monday to Halloween
is Forever for spooky, ooky movie reviews. Or
follow us on social media at Halloween is Forever.
Join the Patreon for even more ghoulish goodness.
We are back and we want to thank the Halloween
is Forever podcast for playing along. If you'd
like to play along as well, I give you three
hints, usually gifts that are not related to
the movie in any way, but they have a certain
clue to them. Use all of them and you can figure
out the next bad movie yourself and you might
get your promo featured in the next episode.
So when we last left off, Aileen and Edward were
at the front of the museum being chased by one
of these Xenos and you can't see them. And they
kind of feel like they're being overmatched because
they only have two little pistols trying to fight
off one of these Xenos. Until, through the ceiling,
through the doors, all these Black Ops Bureau
people start breaking through the windows and
start killing off these Xenos. Some of them get
killed in the crossfire and everything like that,
which, good. This is not going to be one of those
the villains can't shoot kind of situations.
These villains actually know what they're doing.
The leader of these agents is Commander Burke,
played by Stephen Dorff. He's now in charge of
Edward's unit. And this is when we learn that
Edward basically was part of Bureau 713. He no
longer is anymore. We don't know why, but he's
no longer a part of it. But he knows about this
part of the world and how there's these spooky
things that go bump in the night and that kind
of stuff. Commander Burke and him, obviously
two macho men going head to head against each
other. You can tell right off the bat, there's
sparks of the fact that they are going to be
against each other for a little while. They get
into a mini pissing match is what I call it.
And Edward steals an ID card off of Burke. Why
do you steal that ID card? You might be asking.
Well, it's because he needs a little more information.
He's going to use the ID card to look it up on
a Bureau 713 computer. He gets himself in and
is able to do some research, obviously, hacking,
it's cool, and everything like that. You know,
even though you have an ID card, you probably
still have a password system and everything like
that, but he's able to figure it out pretty easily
and get in. He found out that the original sleeper
that he killed was a former 713 agent. Uh -oh,
that's a problem. He also is talking to this
guy, Fisher. Fisher is played by Frank Turner.
a colleague of Edward. He works for Bureau 713,
and he's basically his guy on the inside. He's
been working with Fisher, and Fisher is able
to tell him that he has this creature inside
of him, as well as the rest of the sleepers that
were at this orphanage. Basically, these creatures
called the Xenos, and they are the ones that
take over once the Mama Xeno, I guess, or the
main Xenos are woken up. through this device
that Hudgens found in the middle of the ocean.
Now, Edward's worried because he knows he has
one of these Xenos inside him. But because when
he was a kid, he got electrocuted trying to escape
from Hudgens and his crew. It killed it and basically
electrocuted the Xeno, killed it inside of him.
It's still there, but he's not being taken over
and made into a sleeper because of it. Meanwhile,
at the same time, we see that Hudgens has taken
the blood of one of these Xenos and he injects
himself with it to kind of get like powered up,
I guess. So after being given this information
from Fisher, Edward heads back to his apartment,
house, whatever. It's like one big room and meets
up with Aileen so that they can kind of try to
figure out where these Xenos are coming from,
what they can do to get rid of them, that kind
of stuff. After doing a little bit of research,
and I mean a little bit because it's probably
30 seconds worth of research, they find out that
the Xenos, and more specifically Dr. Hudgens,
has been going to this abandoned mine. And so
now they know where to go. But of course, as
soon as they uncover that, they start getting
attacked by sleepers, including John, Edward's
best friend from when he was a child at the orphanage.
This is when things go crazy because the lights
go out and Bureau 713 comes and basically you
can't tell what's going on. And I know in Yuva
Bull's mind, he has this amazing scene in his
head. It basically is going to be like flashing
lights and you kind of get images of stuff and
they have all these guns and they just start
firing. It's just poo, poo, poo, poo, poo. And
there's creatures, there's guns, there's flashing
lights. Plus there's this hardcore metal song.
And I know the scene he sees in his head, but
it just does not translate onto the screen. It's
absolutely horrible, including the sleepers that
show up in the flashing lights and everything
like that. You could tell he was trying to differentiate
humans versus sleepers. So you can tell the characters
are different and everything like that. But basically
the idea was they were just going to wear like
paling makeup. So they only kind of seem like.
They seem like horrible zombie makeup, you know,
not even the good stuff that you can see on like
an episode of The Walking Dead or something like
that. It literally is like they painted them
white and they're going to be these sleepers.
Of course, Commander Burke is part of the Bureau
713 agents that have made it in there. He gets
his gun hit away from him and he has this kung
fu sequence with these sleepers and takes out
like three of them. And Edward is away from him
and Burke's just like, Edward! Edward's like
running away and with Aileen and everything like
that and so they're ahead of Burke but then all
of a sudden you just hear Edward go Burke and
he looks at him and Edward shoots right past
him and takes out two sleepers like right through
the head and this was enough that when Burke
finally catches up with them they're like okay
we're going to the mine you're coming with me
because you're cool it's also funny because now
that they know where the mine is the Bureau 713
people, especially this one that sits behind
a desk pretty much the entire time, is kind of
like, cool, we've now figured out all of these
Xenos are centralized right here in this one
spot. Like, you couldn't figure that out? It's
been 30 years. Edward grew up with a Xeno inside
him, and you couldn't figure out where the Xenos
were? This is the part. where things get a little
crazy. I completely forgot at one point, and
more so because I just didn't think he came back
into the picture. Fisher was kidnapped by Hudgens,
and he was fed a Xeno, so now he's kind of a
sleeper. This does come back in the next five
seconds of this explanation. So they set up a
perimeter around the mine. They know that Burke,
Edward, Aileen, and a couple soldiers are going
to go down in the mine and try to put down all
the Xenos. But they also know that all the Xenos
that are already outside of the mine will come.
So they put up this perimeter, including with
the generator that puts out light because these
creatures are best in the dark. So Burke, as
he's getting ready, is basically like, I want
all these people here. I want every last one
of them, everybody that we can get, get them
here so that they can come help us so we can
take out the mine. And then he's basically, Edward
Aileen, you're with me. Three other soldiers.
Come on. Let's do it. We have our team of six.
We're good. And they go into the mine alone in
the dark. You're welcome. This is not just any
mine, by the way. This is the Abkhany mine. The
Abkhany mine is loaded with traps because they
wanted people to not be able to release the Xenos.
So right off the bat, they fall down this trap.
And Marco, one of the guys, is spiked to death,
falls on these spikes and is absolutely just
gone. So there you go. Now we've got our three
heroes and two other soldiers are still alive.
At the beginning of the fight, when the Xenos
start coming, it's pretty even because the Bureau
713 guys are able to see them. So they're able
to fire early on and everything like that. But
one of the people that slips past the defenses
because he looks just like Fisher is Sleeper
Fisher. Sleeper Fisher goes to the generator
and basically pulls a grenade. Off of this guy's
or pulls a grenade pin off of this guy's belt
and just blows himself and the generator and
the guy up all at once. So now they're alone
in the dark. Yes, I'm going to keep saying that
because it's fun how many times they made sure
they were alone in the dark. Also, some of the
things that were funny about this is the perimeter
soldiers. Basically, they start opening fire.
And after like two shots, this guy reloads his
gun. And I'm like. So you went into a fight without
reloading. Like you're not reloaded. You only
had like two bullets and then said, cool, reload.
You knew that you were going to be fighting enemies.
You had time to prepare. And yet you still decided,
oh, two bullets and then I'm going to reload.
As this is happening, we see people lose from
both sides. Basically, the small team in the
mine loses someone. And then some of the people
that you kind of met at the perimeter, they go
and everything like that. There's a spot where
there's blood on the camera and it's definitely
like a guy acting like he got killed. It's not
very good because you can't see the creature
because it's in the darkness and everything like
that. It's just really bad. The small group with
the three heroes and then like one other soldier,
they find the experimentation room. And they
find out that it's not just Hudgens who's been
behind these experiments, but Bureau 713 has
been behind it too. And they find a monologuing
Dr. Hudgens. He's basically telling them all
about how we can be better. We can be these sleepers,
half man, half creature and everything like that.
He also is holding a rifle on them and he's using
the scope and he's basically point blank from
all three of them. So Hudgens. Basically, holding
them at gunpoint gets all the relics he needs.
He needed three relics to open the door so he
can release all of the Xenos. Basically, he was
getting them all like one at a time or something
like that. They were finding a way out or something.
Now he's able to get the millions and millions
of them. He's able to open the dark world and
let them into our world. As the door opens, Burke
is able to toss a knife into him and kill him
immediately without him getting a single shot
off at any of them. The Xenos don't really do
anything. They're just kind of there and they're
just like hanging out. They don't really move
towards the door or anything like that. Nothing
happens after Burke has killed Dr. Hudgens, but
they know they need to destroy it in order to
save the day and everything. They close the door.
Hudgens goes out, finds a mine or like a time
bomb kind of thing. And it's basically like,
you guys go, I'll be behind you. And as Edward
and Aileen are going kind of realize it's one
of those like sacrifice situations, like Burke's
going to sacrifice himself. The issue is he has
a time bomb and like he can set it probably for
a lot more than he did. He sets it for five seconds.
They were able to close the door to the Zenos.
They could probably still get through somehow,
but he knows like he needs to open it and make
sure they get all of the kaboom. So he opens
the door. He throws the. uh he was able to shoot
at them toss the bomb in and basically then runs
away so horrible cgi explosion and you see him
kind of slow motion diving edward and aileen
are being chased by fire in the cave system and
everything like that we see them open up like
these storm doors that would be for like a tornado
in the midwest kind of thing that are going underneath
they're able to open these like barnstorm doors
they are free and they're basically unharmed
and then we see burke and he's actually alive
down in the experimentation room somehow somehow
he's made it it doesn't come back maybe he's
in alone in the dark too but he doesn't die in
this one as edward and aileen are getting up
off the ground after the explosion They realize
that these storm barn doors were right under
the orphanage the entire time. Bureau 713 definitely
knew about this. The orphanage was set up there
as a way to get experimentation, children, that
kind of stuff. Sister Clara is dead in the orphanage,
and they realize that the entire city has been
evacuated. And so they're walking through the
city and it's completely empty. There's not a
sound. And they talk about when they opened the
door, the Abkanis were wiped off the face of
the earth. Now that the door has been reopened,
has it happened again? Because they're thinking
it was evacuated at first. Now they're wondering
if the people are just all gone. And then a Xeno
comes out of nowhere attacking at Edward. It's
the camera POV and end scene. That's Alone in
the Dark. And there's a sequel to this, Alone
in the Dark 2. It doesn't have any of the same
cast, but it does exist. Yeah. Where do I start
on this one? I mean, we can start with the cast
first. Let's talk about that first. Christian
Slater was like the stereotypical 90s action
guy and everything like that. So I guess he makes
sense. Tara Reid, terrible casting. Stephen Dorff
was miserable. The one I liked the most was the
security guard, I think. I think he was the one
I liked the absolute most. Everything else after
that was just kind of like, yeah, this is all
right, I guess. Christian Slater probably was
okay for this movie, for the level of cheese
and everything like that it needed. Was it great?
No, not even close. And obviously... they didn't
want to be in the second one or they didn't need
to be in the second one because alone in the
dark 2 had a completely different cast none of
these guys made it to the second movie which
is probably for the best for them honestly so
this movie was nominated for a couple awards
and i just want to give you what awards they
were nominated for and which ones they won they
were nominated for the dallas fort worth film
critics association awards worst film And they
were the winner for that in 2005. Worst Director
and Worst Actress nominees for The Razzies for
Tara Reid and Yuva Bull. Golden Schmoes gave
it the Worst Movie of the Year nominee. And the
Stinker's Bad Movie Awards, we had the winner
of Worst Picture, the winner of Worst Sense of
Direction, nominee for Worst Song or Song Performance
in a Film or End Credits, and the 2005 winner
for Least Special, Special Effects. So there
you go. There's some of the... The great things
that it won awards for. The funny thing about
this movie is that it was just predictable and
it was boring. That's usually a death sentence
for a movie, especially something like this where
it could have actually been a lot of fun. And
a lot of people have problems with it because
it was definitely astray of the video game players'
feelings of it. YuvaBall made a movie that he
just wanted to make and they tied it in by calling
it Alone in the Dark. I don't think it actually
is an Alone in the Dark movie, if you understand
what I'm saying by that. I love the fact that
this movie is described as a horror movie. It
falls into the action horror sci -fi stuff. There's
nothing scary about it. You can show it to a
toddler and they'll be fine, except for probably
the blood. Truthfully, this movie is very harmful.
And the fact that somebody was allowed to make
it and somebody was allowed to let this happen.
And not only did they make it, they made a sequel
and more movies like it. This movie is just a
waste of time. It's an hour and a half. That's
the good thing. And not great. I don't know what
I can say about this movie that hasn't been said
already about it. It's the creature design is
awful. The CGI is terrible. The line dialogue
is. The dialogue in this movie is awful. The
acting is atrocious and over the top. And I don't
know how you expect it to be different. That's
the thing about it. It would be one thing if
these guys did something different than what
they normally do. It's Christian Slater and Tara
Reid. They're going to do the performances you
know they give. And that's not a bad thing for
certain movies. Certain movies, you want that
kind of thing. This movie... You knew what you
were going to get with the lines of dialogue
that you put in there and the actors you have
in the situation. And that's my issue with it
is how did you not see it coming? How did you
not see it as a red flag? How did you not understand
where this was going? Especially because you
were given multiple scripts and that's another
thing. How did you not see it? That's the worst
part is I think they did because one of the conversations
about this movie was the fact that somebody wrote
a proof of this script and Uwe Boll turned it
down saying there's not enough car chases. So
you can say, oh, I expected to see this and be
like, oh, it was exactly what I expected because
it's just what I expected. And then there's people
that are like. This is exactly what I expected
because this is what we're going to get no matter
what happened. So Uwe Boll, I feel like, knew
where this was going. And that's the funny thing
about it all is I think we could have gotten
a much better movie if somebody in this process
would have looked at it and said, hey, dude,
you don't know what you're doing. So yeah, that's
Alone in the Dark. I'm going to give it a...
God, I feel bad because obviously we have the
Mitchell Zero, which is a .5. But I feel bad.
I can't give it a .5. I can't. And I know there's
so many people that worked on this movie that
deserve better because I'm sure they were just
happy to be working on a movie. But I'm going
to give it a zero. I just have to. I absolutely
have to because this movie was terrible. It is
currently sitting at the fourth worst movie I've
watched. For this podcast. And it has bad company.
And. The only reason I say it's fourth worst.
Is because there are some parts that actually
made me laugh. In it. I don't think they were
supposed to. But there were some parts where
I actually kind of chuckled out loud. And. Enjoyed
part of it. Or at least smiled at part of it.
The other movies that are at the bottom of this.
They didn't even do that. So I'm going to give
it a zero out of five. And I'm going to give
it. chest bursters that don't burst out your
chest, because that's what the Xenos were. That
was definitely what they were trying for anyway.
It's down in your stomach. They didn't ever burst
out, but that's what they were trying for, I
think. So yeah, that's Alone in the Dark. That's
the worst movie ever released in January of all
time, or one of them anyway. If there's one you
want to see for February, obviously we're going
to do a lot of Razzie's coverage of the movies
that came out this past year that... are nominated
for worst picture and worst actress and stuff
like that. Worst actor, because I don't want
to just do worst actress. Tell us some movies
you think we should have on our list if there's
some worst of February or worst Valentine's Day
movies. Rom -coms, there's a bunch of terrible
ones that we've done in the past. There's a bunch
of terrible ones we can continue to do. Vampire
Boys and Vampire Boys 2 was part of our Valentine's
Day love episodes. So we definitely have some
fun ones like that. One of the ones that came
to mind immediately was the hottie and the naughty
starring Paris Hilton. Tell me if you guys got
some ideas, reach out to us at game for a movie,
basically everywhere. Yeah. So there you go,
friends. I hope you had a great time listening
to me talk about alone in the dark and more specifically,
of course, you have a bowl because let's face
it. Somebody needs to talk about this crazy,
uh, psychotic man. Psychotic. Jeez, I can speak.
Hey, I have a podcast. I can speak words goodly.
Somebody needs to talk about this psychotic guy
because let's just face it. He needs more attention
on how crazy he is. But I hope you guys enjoyed
the episode Alone in the Dark. Please let me
know what you thought of the episode. If there's
something I can be doing better, please let us
know that as well. I appreciate you guys listening
to the Game for a Movie podcast where we ask,
are you game for a movie? I've been your host,
Mike, and I will see you next time for Game for
a Movie. Have a good one.