Alone in the Dark 2 (2008)

Paranormal investigator Edward Carnby is approached by a drug dealer who claims to have information on a rare occult dagger that can grant its owner powers & who wants to see the remains of three people in the hospital morgue. Carnby assists him in visiting the stiffs but is stabbed with the dagger in the process. As soon as he is stabbed, a group of mercenaries led by the family of an old witch hunter arrive & rescue Carnby before his wound gets too severe. Once at their fortified compound, Carnby begins to see visions of a witch who haunts the family, trying to claim the body of the family's daughter Natalie. At night the family & most of the mercs are attacked by the witch & almost wiped out, but only Carnby & Natalie survive. Seeking help from a former occultist who has renounced his past & now works as a vet, the pair try to find the witch's body & destroy it before Natalie's body becomes the host for her.Uwe Boll's Alone in the Dark was the second film in Boll's now infamous "Unholy Trilogy" of video game adaptations (the others were HOUSE OF THE DEAD & BLOODRAYNE) that were widely pilloried for their lack of finesse & poor filmmaking. Having said that, the films made a surprising amount of money & all the negative press has worked wonders for Boll's career, to the point where he is now a sort of cult icon in his own right (sort of a 21st Century version of Ed Wood). All three films have had sequels done & this is also the case with Alone in the Dark.Alone in the Dark II is, if you want a capsule definition, an occult thriller with shootouts thrown in for novelty value. The plot was the same kind of stuff that wouldn't look out of place in an old 1970s Hammer film but conducted here with a smidgen of science fiction in order to give it some leverage. Of course, the problem here is that the plot is too ordinary & too passé to work for these days. Not just that but the original Alone in the Dark became famous for its lack of writing skill, which made gave it an almost instant cult profile, something the sequel has bettered but given its mediocre script makes it sort of pointless.The film's one redeeming aspect is that the cast recruited all give professional performances. In fact, the film is very low-key, giving the actors plenty of room to stretch their theatrical legs. Lance Henriksen, an actor who is legendary in the profession due to his consistent batting average in many classic & cult genre films, gives the film a quiet dignity as the former occultist who assists in chasing the undead witch.

This movie has absolutely nothing in common with the first, except for its name. And unlike the same trick when tried by the makers of "The Skeleton Key 2", this one is thankfully much, much better than the first.It's still not what I'd call "great", but it's watchable. It's just that the first "Alone in the Dark" sucked SO MUCH, that almost -anything- would be much, much better in comparison.While there aren't a ton of special effects, the few that exist were done very well. The main male character's acting was flat, but then so were his well-defined and oft-shown abs, so I guess he can be forgiven that.All the characters were rather shallowly written. Lance Henrickson and Bill Mosley are the most well-known stars, but even their characters were written to about the same degree of quality as the lesser-known actors. They played them well, but there really wasn't much all that impressive to play.Still, like I said, it's watchable. It'll keep you entertained to some degree while it's on, just don't expect to be blown away.

A group of highly armed investigators end up somewhere in park escaping into a restroom. One of them suffers from some condition that makes his veins pop out. They are being chased by some smoke that also materializes into a woman. We find out that she's a witch. Some dagger is of importance, a dagger that has a piece of the witch's heart in it. Some guy ends up witnessing the massacre of this group by the smoke.Later he's stumbling through New York as he suffers from the same vein-popping condition. He finds an expert in occult matters who perhaps can help him, named Edward. But the investigator ends up infected himself. Another group of investigators comes to their rescue and takes them to the country. This group involves the leader, played by Bill Moseley, his daughter played by the delicious Rachel Specter, Danny Trejo, and the giant Ralf Moeller. They are trying to capture the witch but are somewhat overwhelmed so they seek the help of someone who has faced the witch before, a retired expert in the occult played by Lance Henriksen, who reluctantly agrees to help.It all turns into a race to kill the with before Edward dies. We learn the witch is after the Rachel's character. In flashbacks we learn that a relative of hers confronted the witch before.There's a lot of story in this movie that gets somewhat confusing. The dagger is important, the piece of heart in it, the witches heart itself, the flashbacks of Rachel's relatives, and so on. One gets the impression that the story doesn't work out quite well. But we're dealing with witches, ghosts, and the supernatural, so perhaps it's pointless to expect realism and logic. The special effects are very good. The menacing smoke looks very neat. Rachel Specter is so gorgeous, she steals the show. She has a great body, not just skin and bones. And while her acting is iffy, Lance Henriksen's acting makes up for it, and then some. His acting is just superb. This movie has its moments and highlights but also its weaknesses.

I always rate films I turned off as the lowest possible, and with Alone in the Dark 2, I could bear no more after only 35 minutes!I'm not a harsh judge of films, and I like to give them a chance to improve (hell, I sat through the entirety of the first one), but when the writing is such an absolute mess as this was, I knew already after 10 minutes that it had the go, and had totally given up on it after 20. The next 15 minutes were spent on me trying to use The Force to get the controller from the table.Hmm, so what's this film all about?Who cares? No, seriously, if you're curious or dumb enough to give it a go, you'll soon realise that this is a spot-on assessment.Some people die, there's some CGI mist, meant to be a ghostly witch, a dagger, some kind of infection, some weird racial transformation of the lead from the first film, some boring stuff, some nonsensical stuff... You get the point.Anyway, my summary above really does sum it all up, but for those who still need further warning: AVOID!