“Against the Dark” Review

Filed Under Movies

I am an unabashed fan of Steven Seagal. I make no apologies for this. That being said, I’m extremely disappointed by how Seagal has been slumming in DTDVD films for almost a decade now. Meanwhile, John Cena — a pro-wrestler with no discernable acting talent — has starred in theatrically-released motion pictures. This is unacceptable to me. Seagal bitchslaps evil like no other.

Crestfallen that I couldn’t watch the debut of Seagal’s new A&E reality series, “Steven Seagal: Lawman,” I finally rented one of his more recent straight-to-video flicks, his first foray into the horror genre, “Against the Dark.” The DVD box art boasts a sword-wielding Seagal and giant, hissing vampire heads. How could this film go wrong?

Well…where do I begin?

The greatest crime “Against the Dark” commits is that it’s a Steven Seagal movie that Steven Seagal’s barely in. I wanted to watch Seagal smack around emo vampires for 90 straight minutes. Instead, the movie spends the bulk of its running time on a ragtag bunch of no-name actors stumbling around a hospital, looking for medicine for the sick child in their group. Vampires periodically pop up to thin them out, but there are no surprises here. Actually, what’s most surprising is that they ultimately never get the sick child any medicine. *Spoiler!*

Steven Seagal is part of a unit of black-clad vampire killers known as…The Hunters. One of them is played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s cousin, Tanoai Reed. Incidentally, Reed does most of the heavy-lifting in the action sequences. I rented a Steven Seagal movie and saw The Rock’s cousin do pretty much all of the ass-kicking. That almost sounds like a country-western song. Anyway, the Hunters skulk down dark corridors and ultimately cross paths with the small band of survivors inside the labyrinthine hospital.

Now, I should talk about the elephant in the room. Seagal’s kind of let himself go. I think he’s probably tipping the scales at about 300 pounds. He’s starting to look like Brando — Brando in all-black with a ponytail and a big-ass sword. As such, Seagal’s size makes him a fairly inert action hero. The editing has to compensate for his sluggish movements. Gone are the wide shots from his earlier films where he tosses bad guys around like rag dolls. Instead, it’s all tight shots and, ironically, slow-motion. Or maybe he’s moving at full-speed and it just looks like slow-motion.

I was hugely let down by “Against the Dark.” This flick had a ton of potential that it failed to live up to on every level. I don’t understand why DTV features seem to be indifferent towards going all out. I guess they just figured putting Steven Seagal and vampires in a movie together would be enough to dupe folks into renting this slapdash affair. It worked.

-Brad Lohan

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