Ahoy, squirts! Quint here, currently typing from the Great White North where I'm lumbering about looking for something fun to do before I head back to Austin, which I've only spent 3 days of this month residing in. You see, for the last week and some change I've been lurking around Santa Monica infiltrating the American Film Market, a gathering of foreigners who buy up the distribution rights to everything from in the work flicks like SILENT HILL (which sold every foreign territory and the script isn't finished yet) to well known indies like BEYOND THE SEA to direct to video trash like EMANNUELE FUCKS THE TWO-DICKED ALIEN HORDE part 4 and now I'm almost halfway into my 6 day jaunt around Toronto. No rest for the wicked, Dr. Thompson would say. I figured I'd take a break from freezing Toronto and let you folks know about the AFM and start the chain of reviews from some of the flicks I saw there.
Roaming the halls of the Loews hotel and seeing the posters advertising the world's worst movies is in a strange way very humbling. There's an insane amount of junk out there. But I love walking the halls because hidden in the pools of shit, you'll find gems. For example, in between SNAKEWOMAN 4 and BLOODY BITCHES: PERIOD ZERO (not for real titles, but not far off, either) are pictures from DOMINO. The two I saw had Keira Knightley looking damn hot, hair cut short, face pale and a little more muscular than I've seen her before. One has her sitting on a couch outdoors with the city of LA behind her at dusk. This one was a production photo with the camera and operator sizing up the lovely lady. The other was a still from the film of Keira with a shotgun up and ready.
Anyway, long story short is press has a hard time getting into this event as it's not a festival, but only for business purposes. The few press that get in have very limited access, but I've been able to bypass all that by getting my grubby little mitts on a buyer's badge for the last few conventions, which gets me into all the screenings.
Matter of fact, it was AFM a couple years ago when I saw Uwe Boll's excruciating puddle of dog vomit, HOUSE OF THE DEAD. I gave it the most negative review in my 7 year history of writing for AICN and I don't regret one single word of it. Boll crafted the single worst, most patheticly retarded movie I've ever witnessed on the big screen, and I've seen some really shitty-ass movies. Please, give my HOTD review a read if you haven't read it, for I fear that my review of his latest gob of goo isn't going to be nearly as entertaining. You can read it here .
I am very disappointed in ALONE IN THE DARK because it's not as shitty as HOUSE OF THE DEAD, yet nowhere near a good movie. The cinematography by Mathias Neumann is actually very good. So good, in fact, that I refuse to believe that this is the same man who shot HOUSE OF THE DEAD, which looked like a pair of mentally retarded 6 year olds with a 10 year old hi-8 video camera were at the helm. This one feels like a real movie, with nice atmosphere. Unfortunately, the pretty cinematography isn't enough to make you overlook the world's worst acting (Tara Reid deserves a punch in the mouth for her performance in this film), an inane plot that goes nowhere and the most cliched overused character stereotypes Boll could have dug up. Compared to HOUSE OF THE DEAD, the film is a step up, but it's still a turd sandwich, just not a soggy one.
The plot of the movie follows supernatural detective Edward Carnby as he searches out the meaning behind the appearance of these vicious creatures that seem to be able to appear and disappear at will and aren't too fond of light. He finds that these slimy fuckers are tied into his childhood where he was one of 30 kids who disappeared from an orphanage for an undisclosed amount of time and were then returned without any memory of what happened. Carnby used to be a part of an agency called 713 and isn't on friendly terms with the current head of the organization (Stephen Dorff). Of course the two end up having to help each other out, but that doesn't happen until about halfway through the movie.
I have no desire to get any deeper into the plot of the film... not because I'm wary of giving away too much of the plot, but because I really don't want to go back over that bullshit. It doesn't help that due to Boll's amazing talent to somehow muddle simple stories the plot really doesn't go anywhere after about the first 20 minutes. Seriously, after the first reel change the characters just seem to tread water for the rest of the movie. The big reveal at the end doesn't make any sense and nothing in the climax of the film is earned, just kinda thrown in there.
On top of the good cinematography there are only two other things that elevate this film above HOUSE OF THE DEAD, even if it is only a few inches above. Their names are Christian Slater and Stephen Dorff, who are the only two actors who give a performance in the movie. Dorff does a particularly good job of somehow taking the "I'm a pissed off special forces leader, goddamnit! Goddamnit, the hero of the film threatens my ability to give orders, goddamnit!" character and making it fun to watch, if totally unoriginal. Slater does his best, but can't really get beyond a certain level of character with an untalented ass-clown like Uwe Boll as his director.
None of the positives of the film I can chalk up to improvement on Boll's part. Slater and Dorf have both been good in bad movies before, so to a certain extent they can direct themselves. Tara Reid is amazingly godawful in the movie. And no, she doesn't get naked in the movie. There is a love scene, but no nipples or asscracks are seen. I suggest hitting google if you want to see her big fake titties. You shouldn't have any trouble finding 'em this week, that's for damn sure.
Boll didn't learn any lessons from HOTD and still seems to want desperately to make a Paul WS Anderson and/or a Wachowski movie. The action is masturbatory and made seemingly without any idea of how to use slow-motion effectively. He'll slow-mo random people during a car chase over and over again... that type of shit. He does it because he thinks it looks cool, but obviously has no clue how to make that style part of the story or at least part of the flow of the action.
As for his boner for Paul WS Anderson, I really don't know what that's all about. I could understand Paul WS Anderson loving Boll, just as a plain looking man loves his ugly friend or a chubby girl would love their 550 pound friend. Next to Boll, Anderson looks like a genius, a master of the genre. If you somehow catch yourself viewing ALONE IN THE DARK, which I DO NOT ADVISE, you'll think someone slipped a copy of RESIDENT EVIL onto the screen at the end. I shit you not, the movie ends with Tara and Christian walking around an empty city, with crashed cars and no people. Throw in an amazingly shitty EVIL DEAD ending rip-off instead of a Milla racking a shotgun and you can imagine what bullshit this is.
I don't know why any sane person would give the adaptation rights to their game to Boll. HOUSE OF THE DEAD never recouped any of its money, even counting foreign box office and DVD sales and no one, even Boll himself, admits it's anything but a shitty movie (although Boll said that it's a good movie because it's so shitty, that being so shitty was what he meant it to be, so then that makes it good, right?) The man has no talent and I'm convinced he's funded by long buried nazi gold. He's a taint on the genre film community and yet Lions Gate films keeps picking up his shitty movies. HOUSE OF THE DEAD cost $12 million to make. Twelve Fucking Million Dollars. Consider that SAW cost one million and SHAUN OF THE DEAD cost $4 million. HOTD cost $12 million and looks like 2 month old bum piss, so I can't even imagine how much money he spent on ALONE IN THE DARK which actually looks like a movie. I'd bet it's at the very least double the budget of HOUSE and I know the film won't pull in $24 million plus P&A. So, how does this fucker keep working? Can someone explain it to me? Hate Michael Bay, hate Paul WS Anderson, but at the very least they make movies that make money. Boll makes shitty movies that lose money and he's still working. Go figure.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about this, but I'd like to take a Q&A with Boll that IGN did(if you think you can tolerate a whole Boll interview, read it here) and respond to some of his statements. From this point on the bullshit starts getting deep, so buckle up your rubbers, squirts!
GN FILMFORCE: What is the status of Alone in the Dark?
UWE BOLL: We did the test screening and the movie's not finished… It will go out in February, but we did a test screening and then two or three Internet freaks sitting in the test screening [started] writing s**t about the movie. The thing actually is, everybody who saw it really likes the movie
Obviously not "everybody" or else you wouldn't have these negative reviews. Nobody who sees your movie and writes a bad review is secretly loving the movie on the inside, dude.
, but it is a complicated movie. I didn't want to do another flat movie like House of the Dead, where it's only fun but no story.
HOUSE OF THE DEAD was fun?.
And I didn't want to do a movie like Alien Vs. Predator,
No, you just keep wanting to make RESIDENT EVIL over and over again.
where you have that totally easy set-up, everybody gets it, and it's only like, 'Rule number one, rule number three.'
Am I the only one who doesn't understand what the hell that means?
Alone in the Dark is a complicated game and it is about finding keys, finding answers and the H.P. Lovecraft novels, they're all, let's say connected to the end of the world and to what we do with civilization. I thought it is good to make a movie where you have to find out on your own what the story's about, what the background is. We don't have only creatures around, we have also things going around that are connected to Edward Carnby's history, the thing with Christian Slater… I'm really pissed right now about a few Web pages.
IGNFF: We're not one of them, are we?
BOLL: (Laughs) No, this is the point. Look, it's hard enough in the Hollywood studio system, that people are not getting it, how powerful videogames are. It's hard enough to convince people in the studio to make a big release for a movie. So right now we have two majors [who] want to do it and we have to figure out this week who's doing Alone in the Dark, who's doing the release. The main point for me is, the same people writing that s**t on the Internet, these are the people that should be happy that someone is doing it, because the studio [doesn't] give a s**t, they would do only Erin Brockovich movies mixed with Van Helsing. You see all the comic book movies, yeah this is what the studio executives are "getting." 'Oh, I know it, because I read it 25 years ago.' But videogames, they have no lobby… We have that great new thing in the market… That videogames are the best selling books of the younger generation, videogames are also influencing the whole entertainment industry, but it's not true. It's infiltrating, it has a connection to, like, us, but it has no connection to the studio people. They didn't even know what Alone in the Dark is… What I don't get, what the strategy of these geeks is. I tried to be in a dialogue with the guy… Right now, here online, AntoFreden, BobaFett38, FatGuy2, Melon5555. These are all people, they are online for horror [and] zombie forums… They are in contact with me, they are emailing with me. They are on my buddy list. I try to be in a dialogue with these guys because I am interested what the fans think. But what I really want, because other directors are not doing it this way, but what I really want is, really before they write bulls**t, they should think a little about it, they should look out in the theater. There were 280 people in the test screening and only these five idiots think it's a bad movie…
So, let me get this straight... If we love video games we should support Uwe Boll through his self-masturbatory, terribly directed films that have nothing to do with the original source material anyway? How does supporting bad films help anybody? Keeping all opinion out of it, let's look at the numbers like we were a Hollywood bean counter. Studios look at money. Money, money, money. Numbers: $12 million production budget. $10 million advertising. Total of $22 million. Total WORLDWIDE BOX OFFICE for HOUSE OF THE DEAD: $13,818,181. You're not helping your cause by making a bad movie that fails at the box office. Box office doesn't mean everything, of course, but the quality of the film is sub-substandard on top of it. IMDB has a user rating of 2.3 (out of 10) from 2,806 votes cast. It barely edges out JAWS: THE REVENGE and COOL AS ICE on the Top 100 Worst films by rating. How does that help video game movies? Uwe, if you somehow make a good movie, we'll support it. Not because it's a video game movie or a horror movie or fantasy movie or whatever. If it's a good movie, that isn't made to placate the director's ego, then you'll see people lining up to support you. Not until then.
IGNFF: So the reaction otherwise was good?
BOLL: Yeah, absolutely! The point is, what we need is more support for these kinds of movies if they want to get bigger and better movies made out of videogames. They shouldn't talk the movies dead before they even get a release…
Did you ever consider we'd be less apt to "talk the movie dead" if there wasn't something dreadfully wrong? We'd talk the movie alive if you made something worthy of such effort...
One guy on awful.com or whatever the home page name is, he wrote that I was there. He wrote [that] I was at the test screening and talked to the people… I'm in Romania shooting BloodRayne! I don't fly to LA for 10 hours and then go back. This is another point where I really thought about, 'What the f**k is this guy writing here?!? It was also a little funny to be honest. It's just all that stuff. [Loud exhale] I just have it in front of me, general comments from the Alone in the Dark [test screening comment cards]: "Just like Resident Evil except Alone is better," "It's a guy movie, it's a great movie, the best part was the ending," "Definitely fun," "It's fun to go to see," "The end with all the killings was a bit too long..."
Not a good comment.
(Laughs) And "Good popcorn movie," "Great! I almost jumped out of my seat during several scenes…"
"Almost"? This is not a positive comment.
"I think that the monsters are very good, but the zombie people were really cool…" "Laughs and suspense, but I'm not a big fan of guts and gore..." (Laughs) "The monsters are too funny," one guy says.
Also not a positive comment.
"There are many parts of the movie that make you think…"
I suspect that one isn't positive either. Make you think of what? Slitting your throat?
"If you like sci-fi movies, this is the one to see…" Christian Slater got the best response. A lot of people said, 'This is definitely a comeback movie from Christian Slater, he's so great.'
If by great you mean elevated by the shortcomings of all the other speaking roles (excluding Dorff). It's no performance for the ages, but it ain't bad either.
If the movie is so sh***y, what the guy is writing [on the website], then why are the people saying something different,
Because it's an opinion, jackass. There is no right or wrong.
this is the point… I'm really pissed about it, still… If there's only that crap out on these Web pages, then everybody is talking about only that thing. It's pissing me off…
I'm happy about that. Maybe one of these days you'll take these comments to heart and either A) Drop out of the game or B) Improve yourself. It's actually very simple to please fans. Treat the material with respect, have a vision and tell a competent story. You're starting to get real actors. Slater, Dorff and now Ben Kingsley (which I'm still baffled about, but hey... he also accepted THUNDERBIRDS) with BLOODRAYNE. I doubt you'll listen to anything I have to say being that you've already brushed off the others that have written about your movies as "not getting it." We get it, trust me.
In closing, if Mr. Boll (I refuse to call him Dr.) really wants to help video game movies then he'd stop making them. He's arrogant in interviews and in person (I saw him speak before he showed HOUSE OF THE DEAD at AFM and he was bragging about how the movie would make more money than RESIDENT EVIL and how they had spent so much money on it), but unlike some other famously arrogant filmmakers, he doesn't have the goods to back him up. For the love of God, the best movie he's made is one that is just not shitty enough to save it from being unbearable. His defenders are either his investors or people who claim he's the new Ed Wood. That's high praise to him, but once again totally unearned. Ed Wood, at his core, loved films so much that he had to make his own. There was a love and respect for the genre and that showed through in his hilariously bad movies. I get the feeling Boll is in this for the fortune and glory. His aping of Paul WS Anderson and the MATRIX flicks doesn't feel like someone in love with those films. It feels like "Hey, this is what's popular and I can sell this market if I have enough spin-around effects..."
Now, after having my annual Boll bitch-fest, the dude is going to be out of mind. I really don't consider him significant enough to bother writing these rants, until I'm subjected to his movies that is. ALONE IN THE DARK made me want to vent a bit and I'm sure you won't see the last of me beating up on poor Uwe. He's got BLOODRAYNE in the pipeline and he's always busy trying to get his grubby little mitts on potentially cool adaptations, so there will be more bitching to be done, but until that day this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
