AGAINST THE DARK (2009) STEVEN SEAGAL FIGHTS ZOMBIES?

AGAINST THE DARK (2009) – As Halloween night creeps ever closer, let’s take a look at the most atypical movie from Steven Seagal’s Down Years. Say what you will, but Against the Dark at least stands out among the Waddlin’ Warrior’s many direct to video turkeys during his Fat Elvis phase. 

Rather than just pit Seagal against interchangeable gangsters or terrorists, this flick throws him up against unliving flesh-eaters and blood-drinkers after a disease has killed off or mutated all but a few hundred million people in the world. So, it’s still a very derivative story, just not one from Steven’s usual genre.

Viewers are thrown right into the post-apocalypse setting. A disease has heavily reduced the global population. Many are dead but many more live on as violent predators who feed on the living.

Supposedly, the humanoid creatures in Against the Dark were unambiguously zombies, but co-producer Seagal apparently felt vampires were classier opponents, hence the characters calling them vampires. They also refer to the infected as “mutants” at times.

The zombies/ vampires/ mutants alternately behave like George Romero or Resident Evil or 28 Days Later predators, but their intelligence makes them similar to the Richard Matheson creatures from I Am Legend/ The Last Man on Earth/ Omega Man. At least it does in scenes where the script remembers that they’re supposed to be intelligent. 

Steven Seagal, as shameless as ever in these latter-day movies, is very overweight and wears an enormous coat to try concealing his flab AND make it easier for his stunt double to be passed off as him as they drown in the miles of fabric that his coat consists of.

For all of us fans of Psychotronic Psteven Pseagal his voice is dubbed, too, like in so many other DTV atrocities. The man cared too little by this point to even try reciting his lines above that barely audible mumble-whisper that he had lapsed into and had to be dubbed over.   

But wait, there’s more! A late stage Seagal flick is nothing without fight scenes in which the camera jerks around like crazy while viewers get heavily edited chaos intended to convey the impression that the barely mobile Steven S. is actually doing his fight scenes. 

These fight scenes always remind me of the bit from Blazing Saddles in which the legendarily fast gunslinger the Waco Kid grabs his pistols, then there’s a shot of his opponents’ guns being hit, followed by a shot of Gene Wilder already having his pistols back in their holsters and his arms casually folded.   

That translates easily into Against the Dark as it repeatedly serves up this tableau: 1. Steven Seagal draws his sword. 2. Shakey-Cam and tight edits make what’s going on indiscernible. 3. Steven Seagal now stands at rest, sword covered in blood and his zombie opponents dead. 

With today’s video technology any of us could edit ourselves into Seagal’s fight scenes with some footage of us wielding a sword or pretending to do martial arts. Hell, there are scenes in these late film projects in which Steven fights SITTING DOWN while the shakey-cam and editing do the heavy lifting.

Sadly, I’m not joking. I guess Seagal thinks such scenes make it look like his character is so skilled and badass he can outfight multiple opponents while seated. Viewers are rarely fooled, though, and can tell that Steven’s weight means his knees can’t handle high-kicks or similar moves anymore. And that just standing up is a chore for him at times.   

And look, I’m not writing all this just to indulge in fat jokes but because it reflects how little Steven Seagal seems to care in these movies. It would be like Orson Welles expecting audiences to buy him as a deadly martial artist in his heavy years. Or Dom Deluise outfighting Burt Reynolds in a film.

Okay, now that newbies to the declining years of Seagal are familiar with the sorry state of his movies by then, let’s return to the world in which Against the Dark is set. Steven plays a character called Tao (whose name we finally learn well past the 45-minute mark).

Tao leads a quartet of highly skilled fighters – two hot women who share one line of dialogue, and Tagart, played by frequent Rock stunt double Tanoai Reed. Tanoai also doubles for Seagal in several scenes while wearing the star’s circus-tent-sized coat to unsuccessfully enhance the illusion.

In another pattern set by Steven Seagal’s DTV years, he lets his stunt double have a juicy supporting role in which they get to show off their own genuinely amazing martial arts talents. Seeing Tagart in action makes you wish he was the real main character. 

Tao and his three teammates have been sent into multiple locales to evacuate as many of the living as they can while killing off the infected zombies/ vampires/ mutants. The infected can be killed off with bullets or by chopping off their heads.     

In this particular case, Tao and company must fight their way to a hospital besieged by the creatures to extract the half-dozen or so living humans before the military – led by familiar faces Keith David and Linden Ashby – can have aircraft blow the place up to “sterilize” the area.

And though Seagal is technically the film’s star, this is more like an ensemble effort as Tao’s actual screen time runs just 24 minutes out of 93 according to IMDb. Those 24 minutes are edited in among the usual zombie set pieces in such horror films. 

We all know the drill. The would-be survivors fight among themselves and complicate Seagal’s mission to save them with their stupid decisions. AND with their selfishness. Seven years before Train to Busan, Against the Dark served up a lot of characters you wanted to see die because they were so disgusting.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

There are a few interesting bits that are as scattered as Seagal’s appearances in the movie. At one point a normal doctor immobilizes another human character so that his infected child can feed on the man. We also get two separate scenes of Tao and one of his female team members killing an infected child each. And the gore effects are sometimes impressive.   

Best of all, the pace of the film saves us from having to see Tubby Terror Seagal making out with one of his beautiful costars since there’s no time for love scenes. But when one of the barely distinguishable hotties gets killed we are shown Steven pretending to be stricken in order to let us know they were an item. It’s still better than Seagal en flagrante like we get stuck with in his other DTV films.

At any rate, throw in the usual story contradictions and unexplained stupidity so typical of the So Bad It’s Good pile of movies. In the end, Tao and precious few costars escape the hospital before the military blows it up. 

Against the Dark serves up some ultra-bloody scenes and unintentional humor in one tidy Halloween package.  

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