Against the Dark

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.

When most of the population of Earth is infected by a virus and transformed in flesh eaters and blood drinking creatures, a group of hunters leaded by Tao (Steven Seagal) and his word chases the vampire zombies to eliminate them. Six non-infected survivors try to find the exit of an abandoned hospital crowded of the infected creatures, and Tao and his group help them. Meanwhile the military command is ready to bomb and wipe out the area from the map.

The awful "Against the Darkness" is one of the most imbecile stories I have ever seen. The plot of infected human race has been told through a great number of zombie movies and is not original. Let me try to understand some of the incoherences: there is a group of four humans in a hospital trying to get some medicines, and that is OK. They meet a couple that has been living in the place for a long period but now, during the night and having less than an hour to stop the generator, they want to leave the building, otherwise they will be trapped inside. Question: why the couple did not leave the place during the previous daylight? How they have never stumbled with any infected creature while living in the hospital if the place is crowded of them? They meet Tao and his hunters that are in the building killing creatures. Question: If the place will be bombed, why risk their lives killing the creatures with sword, knives or whatever weapon? Further, the place is locked up by a gate and the vampire zombies would never leave the building. Amelia speaks and tells that the creatures are an evolution of the human race; however, they are not able to press the red button to open the gate. Why the girl has a smile on her face in the end after losing Amelia and other comrades? I could list many other flaws or holes in the screenplay. The choreography of the action scenes is ridiculous, most of them with Steven Seagal in close moving his sword in the direction of the camera in a terrible edition. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Escuridão Mortal" ("Mortal Darkness")

Continuing my plan to watch every Steven Seagal movie in order, I just watched Against The Dark (2009)

Well, this one sucked. I thought it sounded fun Seagal fights vampire zombies after a plague and must escape, before the army plans to nuke the area. But it's all so poorly done. Seagal and his team are not the focal point of the movie, despite him being the lone actor on the cover (not unusual in land of dtv movies) it's more about a group of survivors who need to escape the hospital where Seagal's stunt man and his team are killing all the zombie's/vampires (what were they?? Only one had fangs, and she did that to herself) they can find.

Seagal only has about five or six scenes in the movie and he does very little in these scenes and he might utter a total of fifty words, which are mostly not him. I should find out who his stand in, stunt double is, as he did most of the work here. The movie is carried by Tanoai Reed (who, looking at his IMDB credits is Dwayne Johnsons stunt double) and an impressive Jenna Harrison, and these two do a good job carrying what little movie there was. If it were not for them, I would have turned it off.

If you want to see a movie that moves fast, has lots of zombie/vampire killing goodness with just barely enough plot, dialog and story to link all this murdering together, then this is the one for you. Otherwise stay away.

Oh dear, Steven Seagel has been starring in very mediocre to poor straight to DVD films in recent times… and the digitally shot low-budget horror / action "Against the Dark" is another terrible outing. Actually I was expecting more Seagel, but really he's nothing more than a support character. Who does nothing much than wandering around, kicking in with some slaughter by samurai sword and whispering out inane dialogues.

The future is looking grim as the earth's population has succumbed to a virus that turns its victims into zombie-like vampires. The story mainly centres on a group of survivors held up in an abandon hospital; trying to get themselves out before the generator dies meaning they would find themselves trapped. Their only chance of survival seems to rest of a small group know as hunters led by Tao (Seagel in glory) who go around finding the non-infected and slice and dice those who are.

The premise feels like a sloppily dull mixture of ''Resident Evil", "Blade" and "28 Days Later". The predictably clichéd story has been done to death, but it's poorly drawn up (characters and situations with a script that thinks its got something insightful to say… no worthless drivel) consisting of senselessly dumb plot devices that it grows wearisome by feeling much longer than it is. What's going on is a lot of posing and little imagination to back it up. Ah there's a lot of walking/running here and then over there as the confined elements find themselves getting smaller. The gloomy visuals aren't too bad with some decently ghastly images, but when the action hits (with that overwrought music score)… it's a blotchy mess of purposely unfocused editing. The performances stand-up better (Jenna Harrison and Linden Ashby) than the pitiful material, but I found the characters reactions completely annoying.

This will be a strange review. Objectively this is a terrible film. Two bland locations are used to portray a world over-run by vampire/mutants. There is no real context just a short voice-over by one of the main characters explaining that the world has been overtaken by a virus.

A film made on the cheap, with an appalling script written by a literate infant. At one point a key character is explaining to the others just how bad things are, at least that's what he says he is doing... In truth he is stating the obvious and in fairly mild terms. Later he is wandering around and runs into the vigilante group led by Seagal and he is told that luck is liable to run out! No sh** Sherlock, the guy is locked in a manky hospital with an army of raging mutants inside and out.

The acting is mostly okay, but Steven Seagal is so wooden it is hard to distinguish him from the scenery.Otherwise it's reasonable especially at some have no lines at all, aka attendants one and two :) There is horror and action in good measure but overall the film is a stinker. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

HOWEVER, I don't mind it. In fact I've seen it a few times. The score reflects an objective review not what I think entirely. I like the feeling of being under siege by ravening monsters, I quite like gory scenes and a bit of action. In this sense it's a fair effort for me,largely because I'm weird and easily pleased, but most people will undoubtedly hate it.