Alone in the Dark 2 (2008)

Powerful

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I did not like the first movie of Alone in the dark. But I really like this movie. I do not why it got a 3.4. It one the horror movie I have seen. I give it 10. I had nothing to do the first movie of Alone it the dark. Which is probably why it is a good movie. Do not see the first movie of Alone in the dark. Just see this movie. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. It is scarier then The Shining and that is not easy to do. Rcik Yune is a great actor. Rachel Specter is a great actress. This is a great horror film. If you want to see a really scary movie you should see this movie.

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.

Now THIS film should be tossed onto the dung heap of "worst films ever made". The anti Uwe Boll brigade obviously want to rub it in by giving this film a higher rating than its predecessor. Why the first AitD gets such a poor rating, while this one gets almost double is completely beyond me. In this film the story makes absolutely no sense. The actors are dreadful. The script is just god awful. The SFX are practically non-existent. I was amused when I saw that Lance Henrikson was in this film... he has this tendency to be in just about every bad movie ever made (he's managed to be in three good/great films so far - Aliens; Powder; Close Encounters of the Third Kind). So seeing his name is sort of a warning bell to me. Now, I actually BOUGHT this DVD after reading so many positive things about it, about how it was far superior to the first AitD, how the effects were so much better, the script, the acting... well, I want my money back. I'm thinking of sending a bill to everyone who posted on IMDb about this film. All that to say: rent it if it's at the video club. Buy it if you ABSOLUTELY must have everything that Lance Henrikson ever played in. Skip it if you really, really thought the first film was "bad"... because honey, this one ain't any better, it's FAR worse.

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!