Ponytail Pain: Against the Dark

Anyone who knows me knows one thing about me: I hate Steven Seagal. It all goes back to watching the E! True Hollywood Story on him and learning about how much of a douche-bag he is. The short version: Steven married a Japanese woman so that he could own a Dojo, left her to go make movies, divorced her when he wanted to marry Kelly LeBrock & left her for the babysitter after he knocked her up a few times. This might be something I could ignore if he made good movies. Alas, this is the man who brought us Half Past Dead, so no such luck there. Today's film is one of his more recent films and I only rented it for one reason: to see Seagal fight vampires. A silly reason, mind you, but a simple one. Of course, given the man's track record, you know that something will be done to mess that up. This is...

Against the Dark

The film begins by immediately telling us that the world as we know it has ended. Wow, that was sudden. No build-up or anything, guys? Okay, I guess there is a zombie/vampire plague. I say it with such confusion because the movie is not exactly clear. They run at you like crazed vampires, but don't exactly suck your blood. They're not really 'Rage virus' zombies either, since they are far too passive for that. They behave like Asian stuntmen and wait their turn to attack. They're awfully-considerate that way, aren't they? Anyhow, our 'story' is about a small group of survivors wandering around a gray environment. Movie cliche or survival horror game cliche- you decide! While they do that, we also get a second story. You know, when you already have one uninspired one, adding a second does not do you any good! This one involves Steven Seagal and his leather-clad friends walking down alley ways and fighting zompires...er, vambies. That's about it. No, really. The film just decides to jump-cut from our survivors wandering around to these guys having pointless fight scenes. Mind you, these are more entertaining, but still...

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Finally, the movie decides that our parallel plots should connect. Hurray! So, basically, the people that can fight meet up with the people that can run away and scream. They combine their skills (or lack thereof) to get out of a hospital...that they ran into. Clearly a plot they stole from Akira Kurosawa! We get some good zompire attacks, but they are mostly dramatic due to our heroes being dumb-asses. 'I hear a sound behind me, but I'll just ignore it.' The action is pretty good at times, but mostly feels overly-rehearsed. When you have seen as many kung-fu movies as I have, this is a pretty easy sight to spot. Steven relies on his sword to cover up for just how damn slow his martial-arts have gotten these days. I should also mention that he is named Tao by the way. So yeah, our heroes get away from one place and, um, the day is saved...I guess. The End.

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There's really not a lot to say about this movie. The word sub-par comes to mind. Mind you, that relates to any Seagal movie post-1998. In spite of that, the smug bastard just keeps going, even getting producer credit on this crap now. The plot is, well nothing. Maybe it was made to emulate the game 'Left 4 Dead,' although it fails to even have that much plot. That game had four different locations! Of course, when you consider that he also has a movie where he plays a Russian novelist, what should we expect? The idea of any martial arts action star in a film where he fights vampires/zombies is a good one. Only Seagal could make it so listless and generic. Just for that, I condemn you to make direct-to-video bullshit for another ten years!

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Next on the chopping block, a movie about space marines battling vampires and monsters. Set your disappointment levels appropriately, gang! Stay tuned...