Review of Against the Dark (2009) by Jeffrey L — 25 May 2009

In this Steven Seagal vampire movie, the world is overran with 'vampires' (I use the term loosely, as they're actually just fast-moving zombies that only come out at night), and we follow two sets of characters - one is a set of survivors trying to escape a run-down hospital overran with zomb...oh, sorry, I mean vampires, the other is a team of Hunters that hunts the zompires. The leader of that team is played by Steven Seagal in quite possibly one of the cheesiest roles he's ever played, and that's saying a lot. He tries SO HARD to come across as a total bad ass, complete with walking in slow motion with a tuff-guy look on his face and a sword in his hands with rock music playing behind him - but it just comes across as overly cheesy. Also, apparently they had to have another actor dub over his lines because he was SO bad in the role. Also, why does his character have a Japanese name? Despite Seagal not even closely resembling Japanese? Also adding to the cheese factor is another member of his team that is mad to look almost identical to Wesley Snipes from when he was in the Blade movies.

There is plenty of gore here, but it all looks overly-fake, like a micro-budget flick, and the acting isn't much better.

However, the sets were actually pretty well-constructed, and the zompire effects were really good as well, and there were some decent action sequences. As cheesy as Seagal was in this movie, you can't argue that he's actually pretty good with a sword.

With the cheese factor of this movie so high, this would actually make a great drinking movie with some buddies around to join in the fun.