Against the Dark

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.

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.

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")

After seeing many of Seagal's movies, this one just doesn't seem to fit in with what I have grown to expect in a "Steven Seagal Movie". I felt that it put Steven Seagal in a lower class of films than he deserves. However, if you want blood, gore, and dead bodies, this is a movie for you. Definitely a low budget film and many actors names that I do not recognize, but everyone has to start somewhere to be seen or found. I don't feel that the purchase of the DVD movie was worth the money. I'm not into this type of movie. I purchased it solely because it was a Steven Seagal, but ended up disappointed. I do not recommend this movie, unless you're just collecting "Seagal Movies" and want to be able to say that you have all of them. You might wait and see it on TV, before you buy it.