User reviews

I wish I hadn't paid the on-demand fee for this one.

As my title states, the effects were decent for a low budget film.

The worst element, however, was the ridiculous dialogue, particularly from one of the rescuees who whined and complained about everything rather than showing any fear or nervousness which would be entirely natural given the circumstances. I only kept watching so that I could see her get her come uppance.

I agree with the other comments about it blending aspects of Aliens and Resident Evil. Unfortunately, since it is so obvious it only serves to highlight how much this film is lacking.

Skip it.

Alright, first of all the movie was also known as "Alien vs Zombies". What was up with that? That title couldn't have been further from the truth. Okay, given there were some weird aliens in the movie, but zombies? Hardly qualified as zombies. They were mutants.

The movie cover, at least the one on the Danish DVD release, looks so much like an actual Alien movie cover, that it should be illegal. But of course, that is done to lure people in, to sucker people into buying it. Which I did, of course.

Let's get on to the movie. The storyline was actually good enough, though there were some obvious lacks here and there, and you also sat there after the movie ended with a thought like "why? why was this movie necessary?". There is a lot going on in the movie, but a lot of it actually doesn't come full circle, and just is left hanging there, hoping the audience will forget about it.

In this movie "The Dark Lurking" you will find a lot of cliché stereotypical macho he-men running around, all of which oddly enough, have really low voices. I guess having a rough, low voice makes you more manly? And you don't really get any real introduction to the people in the movie and why they are there in the first place. And also, what was up with the multitude of different accents being present in the movie? It just added to the confusion.

The acting was actually good enough, though the movie suffered from series of halting dialogue. At some points you just wanted to yank out hair at the root at some of the stuff people said.

What worked best for me in this movie was the dark and brooding environment. The scenery was fantastic and there was a good sense of claustrophobia in the movie. And also there was a lot of action throughout the movie. And the special effects worked quite nicely as well.

What didn't work for me was the alien lifeforms. Wow, that was so hilarious and so unimaginative. And you just got to love those oh-so-obviously-fake-plastic spikes that were protruding from its arm. And the "zombies" (as they want us to accept them as being), well they were somewhat of a lukewarm thrill. They were mutants, plain and simple. Mutated humans, not zombies! They had lots of blood splattered on them; nice! But they looked like something from a cheesy sci-fi movie gone bad.

Actually I was sitting and waiting for Bruce Campbell to just pop out of nowhere and start kicking butt!

In overall, this movie had some good elements, but it failed to punch through, and it ended up being a confusing, lukewarm experience that you would rather not have gone through.

Well, watching this movie isn't the greatest pleasure on earth, to put it mildly.

After the first half hour i began to regret the decision not to do something (anything!) else. The acting varied from terrible to mediocre. Although i have to say; Tonia Renee (as Lena) wasn't that bad. If the other actors were anywhere near her performance (which i would describe as adequate), then this movie could have been something worth watching.

Could have been. The story of 'The Dark Lurking' in a nutshell really. Or perhaps 'should have been' is what describes it best.

First, there should have been (done) proper casting. My first impression says it all: "did they cast the actors straight out of a local pub or what?". Poor doesn't begin to describe their performances. Especially Davyd Williams (as Canning) and Cassia Rosenstraus (as Jen) were absolutely horrifying. And not the good kind of horrifying. The kind one would expect to see in these sort of movies. No, this was horrifying as a synonym to terrible, abominable, dreadful, you name it. Overacting is the first term that springs to mind. Closely followed by: 'completely out of place', 'unrealistic' and 'plain stupid'.

Good thing it is a survival movie, meaning: people die. A blessing for the movie really.

The second 'there should have been' regards the choice of locations. Or the lack of it. How many times can you move around in freaking ventilation shafts and pretend it is a different one? Quite a lot, i know now. One or two rooms and a couple of meters of shaft, there's really not a lot more to see...

The third and final 'there should have been' is about the script. Which is weak. Especially the storytelling. The story is unfolded in about a minute time and doesn't explain too much. Far too little actually, even for an action flick/thriller. And maybe i missed it, but i never saw the aliens. Plenty of zombies around, but no aliens. Anyway, besides that; the overall quality of the script is (as i mentioned before) weak, bad even, although better actors would probably concealed most of it. Still, i expect much better for a million dollar budget movie.

Despite my previous critics, it wasn't all bad. It seemed like the movie makers came about halfway through to their senses (probably sobering up), making the movie more or less watchable. Not in the last part because of the 'removal' of the worst actors. The action was still kinda cliché, but acceptable and Tonia Renee definitely showed she deserves better. And the ending was - although not something i haven't seen before - quite surprising actually.

First part gets 1/10. Anything above that is just an insult for any self-respecting movie-maker out there. But the second part gets 5/10, because of a significant overall improvement. Still, the movie is substandard - to say the least - and is really nothing special. It's for most people one and an half hour of wasted time. I like post-apocalyptic movies, but i won't see this one again. Meaning to forget about it as soon as possible.

Verdict 3/10.

Come on Aussie film maker guys, genre film makers in Australia are getting closer by the day. this is another one that almost got there, just like Gabriel. first off i found out how much the real budget for this film is and it sure as hell was a lot less than $1mil and that's why this movie deserves a good pat on the back. like Gabriel, this movie looks great.(its a bit dark in some places but its a dark aliens movie so i'm not gonna carry on too much about that) Unlike Gabriel this movie knows how to blow stuff up and splatter the screen with alien slime. Big time! There's my big gripe though and this is where the movie falls down. It should have embraced that and had even MORE than what it had. there's probably 40 minutes of wasted screen time trying to slightly differentiate itself from Cameron's "Aliens". But it didn't need to is what i'm saying. People get that its borrowing heavily from aliens but so what its an exploitation film and aliens was 25 years ago man, let it go. there's a 2 minute action scene on you tube floating around that kicks ass, and that's what i'm saying: the whole movie should have been this, and there is a lot more of this in the film to be sure, hell yes. but...it half is half isn't still. Its like they thought they'd get in trouble for just going nuts. If the movie really cost what they say it did it would have been, i'm sure! Somebody buy this movie so these guys can get a budget and make that exploitation movie that you know they're dying to do. but a 5 will do for now, to me 5 gets you in the green zone and is a good movie. hopefully the next movie is an awesome 7.

This is another movie about experiments that go terribly wrong (Yep. Those craaazy scientists again!).

As a rule, Boloxxxi does not spoil (not knowingly, anyway). It is my every intention to continue this noble tradition. So I have to ask you this question: Would it spoil it for you to know what sort of experiments these afore mentioned crazo scientists were up to? ---If the answer is yes, then STOP RIGHT THERE!! Proceed to the next reviewer and God bless. However, if your answer is no, then forge on ahead good soldier and may God have mercy on your soul.

In an underground facility in outer space somewhere scientists, using human test subjects, perform UNGODLY experiments in order to bring back the "Fallen Angel", or less poetically, "The Devil". Some aspect of him anyway, using some ancient DNA from where he landed on his ass after God gave him the boot (I'm not making this up folks, it's in the movie!). Why the HELL would they want to do this, you ask? Beats the HELL out of me. I guess curiosity sometimes trumps good sense. Anyway, as might be expected, the human test subjects turn into horrible, toothsome monsters who see potato chips where they should see humans.

I actually liked this movie even though it was unoriginal, except for how the monsters are explained (the product of a fearless imagination, no doubt). As well, the acting, writing, and the general presentation was a bit amateurish. --But who cares? I thought it was suspenseful enough and the monsters ugly enough to hold my attention. I found myself rooting for the little horror film that could because I liked the people and the effort. Finally, if this movie were a meal, it would be fast-food. It's health benefits may be questionable, but it tastes good. So, again, who cares? Love, Boloxxxi.

First when I saw it in the movie store I was like "Wow, a new Alien vs. (something random) movie, just have to see it". Then when I started it up and saw the really f***ed up filming I almost went to get my binoculars just so I could turn them around and be a bit further away from the screen. It's like the director wanted to catch every single drop of sweat that the actors left behind. To give you guys a slight idea on how close it was, it's the type of close you only let your girl get too.

That combined with awful acting, not one can say they did good on this movie, not really easy though when the camera is pushed right up in your face. Still no excuse.

I couldn't stand to watch more than 15 minutes, so if you don't want to waste as much time as I did, just don't watch it. If you do want to watch more than I did, embrace yourself, your eyes will start begging for mercy pretty quick.

Yeah i just got a look at it. Very cheeky, i know but there is some REALLY good gore and lots of action. The last 25 minutes is fast. Has that typical Alien feel but thats a good thing IMO. Its not Alien, not even close but its a start. Better than a lot of other trash like AVP (i know someone will have a problem with me saying that) but its got no budget and holds up to something like a bigger budget. In a lot of ways i wish it had a bigger budget so we could see more monsters and more spaceships, was cool to see models being used btw. I give it a 6 for being better than it should. Hope the DVD has some special features when it comes out.

Oh dear oh dear, bargain basement dvds are us I am afraid, dreadful, dreadful and dire, Australian actors or swiss or German? They could not really decide and kept changing their accents whenever they felt like it, and the sync seems to be out with the speech so perhaps this made the feel of the film non existent, I never felt for anyone in it so again not much to write home about…set on a ship that is also dreadfully designed in a fashion similar to that mr blobby may have built, armed with only machine guns killing strange creatures…if there is anything positive to say about the film its that the creatures, at times, especially during close up, can be quite scary, so if you watch it, do it for that reason only (and the odd bits of gore fest), as the film lacks anything worthwhile for me to remain captivated. Poor all round for me.

World, this is a warning.

This so-called movie's current IMDb rating - 3.6 out of 10 - is an affront to cineastic taste and decency. It is absurdly too high, and will go down. This is one of those movies that have zero reason for existing, whose every aspect of production is A JOKE of derivative and artless incompetence and desperately and despicably amateurish commercialism of the most contemptible kind. There are nary a redeeming value to be found in this piece of offal masquerading as a movie. The main movies it rips off are Event Horizon and Alien, but of course it does so without having any technical competence of any kind, giving the impression that all aspects of the production were presided over by 12-year-olds.

The characters are never introduced or established (there IS no characterization), and there is no discernible plot; no explanations for either the zombies or the aliens. Or if there is, it doesn't come across. This movie is physically and mentally painful to look at, and I feel that humanity as a whole must be warned against it. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

I would give this movie several minus points if I could. Still, I will say one good thing about it. The zombies (or whatever the bloody hell they were) were well-made. Quite capable gore effects there. But that's all the praise I can muster for one of the absolutely worst movies I have ever seen. Please do not waste time, and especially avoid wasting money, on this screaming stinker. It will have you writhing in agony, and possibly resorting to gnawing off a limb for solace. Please understand: This is not so bad that it's good. It's just plain awfully, unendurably, insultingly BAD.

First of all if you see the screen-shots of this movie on IMDb then you get idea that you can better not expect too much from this movie. But this movie is much better… OK it is still B-type movie even if the special effects much better than other average B-type movies, with get much higher vote than this one. I find it kind of strange because the other B-types movies are worse and still get high vote even if special effect are very bad CG. Now in this one you see nice juicy blood, some intestines and some enemy's look kind of Diablo like and more. Just its shame that actors are not so good. Not all of them but some of them cannot act and there is some camera view in the beginning of the movie which is bad. But still I had some fun to watch it not like other movies with are not worthy of MY TIME!!!

(B-type movie = Scifi,action,horror)

I thought Australia had a tendency to produce pretty good horror films. But maybe thats just because only the higher quality ones are distributed much outside Australia.

Anyways, immediately this movie reminded me of "The Shadow Walkers", a film even less watched than this, actually. It started off with masked troops shooting members of a presumably secret organisation. Fortunately the story was much more coherent than "The Shadow Walkers".

Unfortunately, when they finally reveal why what's happening is happening, well, I was left wondering "okay, and what motivation could the perpetrator possibly have?"

Early action scenes featured too many flashing lights and were pretty incoherent. The creatures weren't bad; well what I saw wasn't bad anyways. The characters are completely bland and leave the audience without reason to empathise with them, yet a character dies for "impact" very early on. I assume the scene was supposed to be sad. Unfortunately it didn't work primarily because that happened before the characters even became distinguishable!

I wish I could say something positive about this flick but unfortunately it's not the case. I wish I could agree with someone's post who stated the performance of the actors and the story compensate for the cheesy "special defects", but once again, I can't. This is the kind of movie you can watch in 15 minutes. References do "Alien" and "resident evil" are almost everywhere. Unfortunately they ( the filmmakers ) could not deliver it, and references are lost. It could work for a "trash" or "D" movie. However it does not have any humor ( which could save this movie, but, once again, it is not there ). It is basically a whole lot of what we have already seen. I am truly disappointed, I had better expectations towards this. Well, at least they tried. Let us all hope some lessons are taken from it and that future productions could be done in a bit more careful way. There was someone posting we "should pay attention " for a series or sequel. This is not going to happen. This is one of the worst movies I have seen this year. My advice: do not watch it, don't waste you money and time.

Is this a joke or is the joke on us?

The first problem one will encounter once this film is rolling is the setting: the film is extremely dark and mostly hard to watch. This, of course, contributes to the restless and uneasy mood it tries to set, but it takes that idea to the next level - a level that didn't need to exist. The lighting is, however, the least of your worries. Ye be warned.

Technically the film is ruined by the camera angles and editing. It is very rare to actually see anything, not only because of lighting, but also due to an extremely fast paced editing and very, very close close-ups which destroys your ability to appreciate the action. When they try to pull off a montage it seems rushed and lacks the polish perfected by nearly every other director out there. Also the costumes lacks inspiration. The audio-visual elements of the film is just distasteful. Its a #¤%& mess.

Another problem is the acting. The acting goes beyond being bad, it manages to set the lowest score I have ever experienced. The characters are shallow and uninteresting. Their actions are, to some extent, credible but the performance will constantly be a pain in the behind. At first, at least, but then it actually gets kind of funny, and hopefully you'll spend more time laughing than crying. But. Believe you me: this is the worst acting you have ever seen.

The story is just as thin as you'd expect. It brings nothing new to the table and never manages to be anything other than uninspired. It lacks the depth and suspense we have come to love in this genre. Suspension of disbelief is a term widely known but in this film it would be the annihilation of disbelief. It's simply not scary, interesting or even logical. The characters do silly things to keep the plot moving along at the viewer's expense and endurance, and this becomes extremely troublesome. The film is only 1 hour and some 30 minutes but trust me: it feels like an eternity.

This film must be avoided by anyone, unless you're looking for the perfect blueprint on what not to do.

NO SPOILERS (this one couldn't be spoiled anyway :D) First of all.. I didn't pay for this one, I thought this was funny etc. but I bored in middle .. graah.

Nice acting, horrible dialogue, stupid plot, OK effects etc, crappy screenplay :| and some "ripley" kinda wannabe there.

Well with these things this deserves 3/10 at least :D not much else to say. The could name these little 'sensible'.

After all I didn't get much out of this, stupid "zombies" running around in weird plot, stupid directing, clichés and all argh. :) Didn't even laugh.

3/10 from me maybe some kids like this, zombies looked like some fkn Er. whatever :D

And here i thought that one could not find a movie with such bad screenplay and acting that it actually makes you wish that you would rather have spent your money on a Uwe Boll Production instead of this one. The acting alone leaves you wondering if any of the filmmakers actually watched it before releasing it since its so bad that i wouldn't have tolerated such poor skill even from kindergardeners performing a play for the Deaf&Blind.

Next we have the screenplay, how on earth they dare lure people with the pretense that it would have anything to do with the "Alien" movies is beyond me, although i kinda laughed mid-film when suddenly the movie, just out of nowhere, becomes more like a sci-fi sequel to "the Exorcist" and in doing so throws all of the earlier "Alien" references straight out the window. I actually upon returning the movie to the rental place tried to make them change the very misleading box-cover since here in Sweden its named "Alien vs Zombies" when it clearly comes closer to being "Species vs The Exorcist".

Well they didn't want to change it so here i am writing this "review" or rather "warning" wishing that nobody else wastes their money renting something this horrible.

The only reason why this didn't get the absolute bottom rating from me is that the I've seen worse special effects even tho these don't even come close to being mediocre considering this year and age, and also mainly because after watching this i probably will appreciate the next movie i watch even more.

The Dark Lurking is a clear blend of elements from the original Alien, Aliens and Resident Evil. Although not in a space station as in Alien, the dark halls of The Dark Lurking have the flashing lights, steam outlets and industrial feel of Ripley's famous vessel. The underground facility and crazy zombie-creatures are very similar to the deadly challenges faced by Alice in the underground Umbrella Corporation hive in Resident Evil. The soldier characters are vaguely familiar – the tough-guy, the whiney dude and the dashing gentlemen…much like the rag-tag marines from Aliens.

The real strength of The Dark Lurking is in the action and gore. Pure adrenaline, yell-out-loud "cover your face and catch your breath later" scenes with zombie-like creatures chasing down people and literally ripping them to shreds. I watched scene after scene that had my heart beating so fast I swore to take up yoga.

And those zombies! Not only were they over-the-top grotesque but the actors were well coached – just the way that they ran was freaking me out. There is one scene in particular where a lone zombie-like freak is running down the hall with a light shining behind him – and the very movement of the thing was enough to put me over the edge. I think I watched that one short sequence 10 times. Anthony Edwards puts in a perticualrly strong performance and many of the actors need to be commended for making up for million $$ budgets with gritty performances.

The creators of The Dark Lurking are all action junkies, and it shows. Producer and Co-producer Stewart Wall and Bret Kennedy worked with Writer, Director and Co-producer Greg Connors on Netherworld, which won "best action short" at the 2005 New York International Film Festival. Dirk Fowler, director of photography, brought advanced knowledge of stunt work to the table.

This comes across as an extremely low budget Australian sci-fi/horror. I am a huge fan of Australian horror, it can be quite brutal. As you begin to watch this movie the acting style hits you in the face as being pretty terrible but as the film progresses you kind of begin to like it. The characters are likable and entertaining, the bickering between them is a little irritating.

The plot is good, not your average chemical error or mutant disease but a fallen angel. Of course none of them other than the crazed scientist believe this.

Lots of blood and gore, cool monsters and quite a good ending I thought.

I felt compelled to review this whilst writing school reports with the horror channel in the background. I understand the nature of b-movies and all that. But this was painful. Really bloody painful. I have never in all my life seen such bad acting, bad dialogue and bad dubbing. The acting was so painfully and fantastically bad as not to be funny. The actors playing the security dudes and the woman playing Yutani should all be shot. They should never be allowed in a studio again by their unions for the good of all mankind. Whoever casted them was playing some tremendously bad joke.

Sheesh.