Throwing shade at the only Rotten Tomatoes critic who gave Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark a fresh rating

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 5, 2013

By Steve Newton

When people, knowing I’m a horror freak, ask me what my fave scary movie is, the answer never comes that easily.

The obvious choice, The Exorcist, comes to mind, but more recently I was totally blown away by The Cabin in the Woods.

And I never tire of watching Bruce Campbell do his Elvis thing in Don Coscarelli’s 2002 adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s 1994 novella, Bubba Ho-Tep.

But when people ask me what the worst horror flick I’ve ever seen is, there’s little hesitation. Uwe Boll’s cataclysmic 2005 stinker, Alone in the Dark, immediately rears its butt-ugly head. (It’s not to be confused with Jack Sholder’s awesome 1982 movie of the same name, an overlooked horror gem to be sure).

That’s why I always find it fascinating to rediscover the fact that, of the 117 Rotten Tomatoes critics who reviewed Alone in the Dark, only 116 ranked it as “rotten”. One person, namely Eclipse Magazine editorial director Michelle Alexandria, gave it a “fresh” review.

Clearly, she only did that to shock people.

Sure shocked the hell outta me.

So today—with way too much time on my hands, apparently—I sent out a tweet drawing attention to Alexandria’s eight-year-old misstep.

And she responded 14 minutes later:

“How old is this movie?”, she Twittered. “Let it go. How about forming your own opinion than just saying everyone else hates it.”

Ignoring her less-than-spectacular grammar, I took the high road, Colbert-style, with “apology accepted…begrudgingly”

But that wasn’t the end of it. A few minutes later Alexandria got the last shot in:

“Honestly though, haven’t watched it again since that review,” she tweeted, “so who knows maybe my opinion has changed. Could go from like to Love”

Okay, Michelle. I give up. You win.

And when Uwe finally gets that Academy Award—maybe for his next work of art, In the Name of the King 3—your status as a visionary film critic will be irrefutable.

To read more than 350 of my reviews of horror movies released theatrically in North America between 1988 and 2018, go here.