Against the Dark

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.

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.

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.

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.