Against the Dark (2009) Reviews

• Horrible

  tardigrade812009-02-12

  Well I watched this movie last night with my girlfriend.... And Ill say right now one reason it might have seemed worse to me is because I was watching it with my girlfriend and she sat there the hole time saying how bad it was, and how much weight Seagal has put on lol. HOWEVER this movie straight up was just horrible. I am a huge fan of Seagal HUGE... I even liked some of his movies most people didn't, like Mercenary For Justice, Shadown Man, and Attack Force... lol OK jk about the last one. But this movie........ there just was nothing good about it. It started off VERY boring, showing these people walking through a hospital and the one guy who played the Stonner (I thought) did a terrible job of acting. It would show a little piece of Seagal and his crew just to remind you that they are still in the movie... The final I would say... 20 minutes was decent with some good fighting. However the movie was SOOOO dark you couldn't see a thing which was very annoying. I could get into every single detail, but you catch my drift. This movie (as lots have mentioned) Is NOT a Seagal movie. I actually heard from a few people that he took the script just for fun and support this movie. Skip this piece of crap and wait for Ruslan to come out, as that actually looks like it could be in comparison to Urban Justice and Pistol Whipped.

• Seagal against zombie vampires! Worst movie idea of the decade!

  Anonymous_Maxine2009-03-06

  I have noticed that some people are glad to see Steven Seagal move his career in a slightly new direction by leaving behind his traditional style of roles in favor of something of a vampire hunter in his new film Against the Dark (or "Last Night," depending on whether you're looking at the cover box or watching the cast and crew interviews), in which he is the leader of a small group of people who stalk through the night dispatching the vampires that the entirety of the human race have transformed into as a result of a viral epidemic. Really? Someone was glad about this? Seagal has been one of my guilty pleasures for almost 20 years now, and while the vast majority of his movies are undeniably awful, there is always an element of fun in them that manages to come through even the stupidest story lines, but not this time. There isn't even any of Seagal's traditional style of ass-kicking prowess to be had here, he just walks through dark hallways occasionally hacking vampires to death. Oh, and don't get me started on the vampires. The movie was written by a Mathew Klickstein, whose work displays a massive lack of even the slightest bit of writing talent. The movie begins with the explanation that a virus wiped out nearly all of mankind and that there were no vaccines and no immunity. Minutes later, a voice-over explains that "some of the wounded were immune, others just changed." Nice. I like the narrative consistency. Later, after meeting several examples of what the human race have transformed into, one character explains, "Everyone thinks they're vampires, but they're not. They're mutants." Is this for real? Vampires. Does anyone think these things are vampires? These are typical, badly performed zombies straight out of any cheap zombie movie. To suggest that they are vampires is to display a spectacular lack of understanding of one of the most basic tenets of horror movie lore. Vampires, among other things, drink blood. They don't tear out entrails in mindless feeding frenzies. In one scene, one of the "vampires" tells one of the uninfected characters something like this, "We have evolved. We think, we talk, we plan…" Yeah, but we know all about our evolutionary history, but we don't understand that we're zombies, not vampires. Consider, for example, Brad Pitt's and Tom Cruise's brilliant vampire performances in Interview with the Vampire, an immeasurably better movie. They are educated, they're philosophical, they radiate class and style. To say that the things in Against the Dark have evolved from them is quite a statement indeed. So let's just refer to the creatures by what they really are, shall we? Steven Seagal's first line in the movie, by the way, comes after he and his team rush on screen and cut up a bunch of zombies that are closing in on a young boy. After killing all of them, Seagal says, "We're not here to decide what's right or wrong, we're here to decide who lives and dies." What does that even mean? It doesn't matter, the entire script is stupendously dumb, and the movie reduces the destruction of all of mankind to a handful of people wandering around a darkened hospital trying to avoid getting eaten while they wait for Seagal and his crew to come save them. The United States Military, headed by Keith David (the movie's one completely wasted talent), waits outside for Seagal to do all the hard stuff. If you were to make the sad mistake of watching this thing, I would actually recommend watching the extra feature on the DVD that talks about the making of the movie. Sometimes these making-of featurettes can be helpful in slightly changing your opinion of a bad movie, but in this case it is more interesting than the movie itself just to watch how completely deluded everyone seems to have been in making it. I can't understand how anyone at any moment of production could have tricked themselves into thinking that they weren't making a spectacularly bad movie, but they did it, man. They really believed they were onto something with this mess. Miss it!

• The poor man's Blade

  ericthered012009-01-27

  I was intrigued by this film and it's premise. You have Steven Seagal fighting vampires, I mean that alone should interest any martial arts movie fan since he hasn't really done anything like that before. The film also stars Linden Ashby who can hold his own in action movies such as Mortal Kombat. But within the first five minutes of this film I came crashing back down to the reality that this is 2009 and Seagal has been relegated to the direct-to-DVD market. This movie is so low budget that almost the entire movie takes place in a hospital that is crawling with "vampires"; although we are told at one point that they are more like mutants. Actually they are more like a hundred extras running around with pointy teeth and fake blood around their mouths. This movie is so low budget that it makes Jean-Claude Van Damme's direct-to-DVD movies look like summer blockbusters. Linden Ashby and veteran character actor Keith David spend all of their scenes yelling at each other in a military tent. Ashby's character wants to give Seagal and his vampire hunters time to clear the building and get the survivors out while David's character wants to blast it ASAP. If these scenes took more than one day to film I would be surprised. Seriously though, if I had Linden Ashby and Steven Seagal in the same movie I would at least have them in a scene together, not to mention a fight scene. Ahh, the fight scenes. Seagal walks around holding a sword for most of the movie. When he uses it, it's mostly close-ups of him swinging it at the camera. He uses a couple of guns too, but it's nothing special. He throws a few mutants around towards the end of the movie as well, but again it's nothing special. One member of his hunting crew who is on the show American Gladiators actually steals the show as far as action goes. His action scenes are actually pretty good and the only reason to watch this poor man's Blade. However it's not enough to recommend this movie.

• Steven Seagal Ginsu's plague mutants by the score !

  elang-12009-01-19

  Against the Dark staring Steven Seagal is certainly a departure from the standard formula employed in his passed movies. In this nonsensical yarn, the rotund Seagal plays the urban legend street fighting hero as always, but instead of battling drug dealing thugs or terrorists, Seagal is out saving the last vestiges of humanity from blood thirsty cannibal plague mutants. Seagal and a party of mostly lethargic companions prefer to make use of swords and knives to slice and dice their mutant antagonists which makes little sense since if the mutants were contagious with a dangerous communicable disease, drenching themselves in their blood would seem to be unwise. However, the courageous multi-chinned Seagal braves the endemic risks to rescue a pitifully helpless band of plague survivors (one has to wonder how in the world they managed to survive at all given their utter helpless condition). As usual, Seagal's marshal arts skills are showcased and he demonstrates that even the likes of Orson Wells or Raymond Burr could have been marshal artists despite their physical handicaps. The real stars of this movie are the mutants and you might find yourself routing for them before it is over.

• Things I learned watching this film.

  stormofwar2009-07-13

  1. Katanas are actually scimitars. 2. Ex-military folks don't speak much. 3. Ex-military folks must wear black leather when "hunting", and the gals must wear high-heeled boots. 4. People who survive virus-induced holocausts are either immune or not depending on the whim of the director. 5. People who survive virus-induced holocausts have no real need of a method of self-defense like, say, a gun. 6. Stock footage of planes flying over deserts and oceans are believable for use during depictions of bombing runs. 7. All sword masters don't really do much swinging or moving. They just walk everywhere. 8. This is the fulfillment of Seagal's contract with Satan for his stardom. 9. There are more clichés in Hollywood then I realize. 10. You can survive a bombing run of planes by driving in an old pick up truck, which you don't have to see on screen to know they survived. 11. Vampires look and act a lot like zombies, and then spontaneously evolve for no apparent reason. 12. Seagal has the acting versatility of an oak tree. 13. There was a voice over credit for Seagal's character for no reason I can fathom. This movie is just bad, bad, bad. The scripting, acting, technical aspects, and artistic values of this pickle are all bad. The only saving grace is Midwinter, who does surprisingly well with his time on camera, both acting and action wise. If you are a fan of him, pick this film up. Otherwise, don't bother. You have been warned.