# New D&D movie on SyFy tonight - Book of Vile Darkness



## NewJeffCT (Nov 24, 2012)

tonight at 9pm EST, the Saturday night B movie on SyFy is Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness.  Not expecting much, and I've never heard of the actors.  But, you never know.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1733125/synopsis


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Nov 24, 2012)

I expect they'll get the "dark" and "vile" parts right, not necessarily in that order.  But I'll still watch.  SyFy is doing a whole dragon movie marathon (of dragon B-movies, that is).


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## NewJeffCT (Nov 24, 2012)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I expect they'll get the "dark" and "vile" parts right, not necessarily in that order.  But I'll still watch.  SyFy is doing a whole dragon movie marathon (of dragon B-movies, that is).




well, even the best dragon movies haven't really been great stuff.  But, I know the one with Danny Glover as Ahab seeking the great white dragon is on now.


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## Sorrowdusk (Nov 25, 2012)

I'm watching it now.

What is that silver painted dude? Is he not a human?

Also they say it Pel-or, I always said it  "pay-lor".


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Nov 25, 2012)

"Paragon, or heroic?" - LOL.


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## Sorrowdusk (Nov 25, 2012)

Okay, the scene with the slaymate like undead kiddie was creepy as heck.

The height of the special effects budget I think.


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## Sorrowdusk (Nov 25, 2012)

ALRIGHTY a few things I dont get


1 -The treasure splitting/thing that was pulled
2- the sudden ending
3- I think this is one of the few times in a movie, where I never really learned any of the characters names.......................................


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## Dykstrav (Nov 25, 2012)

It was better than I thought it'd be--but then again, the first two D&D movies didn't exactly set the bar very high.

I've got to admit, I'd like to see what this story could've been with a bit higher budget and some big-name actors.


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## Sorrowdusk (Nov 25, 2012)

Dykstrav said:


> It was better than I thought it'd be--but then again, the first two D&D movies didn't exactly set the bar very high.
> 
> I've got to admit, I'd like to see what this story could've been with a bit higher budget and some big-name actors.




Same. (I Read the in Mr. Burns voice btw)

Also...............I thought there was supposed to be a mindflayer in this film? Did I miss it?


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## Cyrian (Nov 25, 2012)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> "Paragon, or heroic?" - LOL.




They were also playing Three Dragon Ante in the tavern in the beginning of the movie.


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## Wycen (Nov 25, 2012)

As if you didn't see from the posts above this, this thread/post is spoilerish.

Soon as they went into the magic item shop and did that heroic or paragon business I realized it was 4E based and so pretty much everything I expected out of characters was thrown out the window.

While I was trying to IMDB the bug guy's name, Bezz, which should have just been Buzz for some humor, I spoiled myself on the "helmed horror" except I don't know if I'd have known that was supposed to be a helmed horror if I hadn't been spoiled.

I do think the scene with the undead child was the creepiest and best part.  One gripe, the child pounding her fists on one of the characters when she threw a fit would have been more "realistic" (to me at least), but I'm guessing that would have required more budget than they could afford.

I admit I wasn't paying full attention to the movie, so can someone tell me what the hell happened in the end?  

Oh yeah one last thing, blurred butt cleavage.


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## Stormonu (Nov 25, 2012)

So this thing has finally been unleashed upon the world? I remember to contest WotC had for the 'design a character for the big battle' does anybody know what character won that contest and if it actual was put into the movie?  

And how would folks compare this A) Overall and B) to the first and second D&D movie?


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## frankthedm (Nov 25, 2012)

"Miserable excuse for a dragon" Yeah, even the movie recognized that scaleless, soft bellied, mutant wyvern could have been designed a lot better.  

I'll give the movie props for trying to give insight on how evil thinks in universe. The delivery of the lines themselves could have been better most of the time though. Shame they followed it up with the Love=Good cop out.

Weak by the numbers ending with little pay off beyond a laser light show.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Nov 25, 2012)

Sorrowdusk said:


> I'm watching it now.
> 
> What is that silver painted dude? Is he not a human?
> 
> Also they say it Pel-or, I always said it  "pay-lor".




That's better than the alternative: "Pee-lore".

Edit: Finally finished watching the DVR, so here's the best and worst (spoilers, but it's a bit late for that):

(+) D&D-worthy

- Opening background sequence (though who splits a completed book into three parts consisting of cover, pages, and ink?)
- “Gather Information” in the red light district
- Joining and following the adventures of an evil party
- A vermin-lord in the party
- PvP killing during party assembly in the tavern
- Dragon special effects
- Wizard eye spell special effects (ewwww….)
- Just like in real parties, the PCs have names but don’t actually use them
- “Favorite forest creature?” “Zombies!”
- Inter-party assassination plus a body in a bag of holding
- Undead child suckling
- Checkov’s gun – er, the ring of force – makes its appearance
- Mage hand trumps all other spells

(-) Cringe-worthy

- Most of the dialogue
- Knights of Pelor – a sun god – conducting their rituals in the middle of the night
- Hooker with a heart of gold
- Magic mart with a going out of business sale (“Paragon, or heroic?”)
- “Shaddar-kai witch” is a human with some facial ink and piercings (but as we see in a later scene – no tats or piercings anywhere else!)
- Silver-skinned goliath dude
- “Evil” equals head tattoos (but the citizenry ignore the obvious signs)
- First wandering monster the party encounters is a dragon.  No, wait, it’s actually a wyvern
- Math -- “Sixty thousand gold” split five ways “That’s almost 12,000 gold each!” Uh … how about exactly?
- DM is a Monty Haul – a vorpal sword? But we never get to see any vorpalness, so this particular Checkov’s gun never goes off.
- “Extract the liquid pain” felt like a “Princess Bride” flashback
- Evil witch suddenly turns good and loves the cleric
- Abrupt ending – the budget ran out before the script

I'll give it this: it was better than the first D&D movie, though I think I preferred "Wrath of the Dragon God" to this.


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## NewJeffCT (Nov 25, 2012)

Sorrowdusk said:


> I'm watching it now.
> 
> What is that silver painted dude? Is he not a human?
> 
> Also they say it Pel-or, I always said it  "pay-lor".




I always said Pay Lor, too.

And, the silver dude is a goliath.


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## JeffB (Nov 25, 2012)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> "Paragon, or heroic?" - LOL.




Turned the channel after I heard that exchange in the Adventurers Vault.


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## Jester David (Nov 25, 2012)

Saw it. And it didn't suck. 

The SFX were not that bad. TV quality, but not bad movie-of-the-week. Much better than some other Sci-Fi (read: SyFy) movies I've seen. The costumes weren't bad and the number of sets was impressive, putting it well above a fan film in quality. If you can sit through the SFX in Gamers: Dorkness Rising (or the acting in the first Gamers) this is a step up. 
The acting had some rough spots but not as many as you'd expect and some of the actors were decent. The dialogue was terrible, but I wasn't expecting much.

All that might be detrimental to the movie's success. It's not bad, which also means it isn't so bad it's good. There's less of a cheese factor adding to the entertainment value.

The plot is pretty unspectacular. The Book of Vile Darkness plays into it but is really a MacGuffin for the character journey. Yes, it's pretty much a character story. The Book could be replaced by any evil artifact and isn't really treated like the book in the game. Much like the second movie, there are the nods to D&D lore that don't feel entirely right, like a bad homebrew world. It can feel like someone is just layering Wotc-owned terms like "Gloomwrought", "Shadowfell", "Pelor" and the like over an otherwise generic fantasy script.

The trailer is unquestionably ten times worse than the actual movie. Really. Skip the trailer. Don't watch it again. It's full of spoilers anyway. It's a great example of making the movie look worse than it actually is. You'd be hard pressed to make a worse trailer.

At the end of the day, it's probably the least bad of the three movies. If you tolerated the second, this one is even easier to tolerate. And is even enjoyable at times. There are some fun scenes, if slightly dark and/or creepy.

If you missed it, it's airing again on Thursday and there are probably worse ways to spend a couple hours and dumber things to watch.


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## Jester David (Nov 25, 2012)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> "Paragon, or heroic?" - LOL.




It's a terrible joke, but it's a terrible gamer joke. No one will otherwise get it. It was a great example of humour someone would only know if they played the game a little.


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## Hand of Evil (Nov 25, 2012)

Did not see it (watching the Gamecocks) but the "dish nfo" listed a Mind Flayer in it; how was it done?


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## OpsKT (Nov 25, 2012)

*{Reposted from other thread}*

I saw this movie last night on SyFy. It was glorious in how terrible it was. 

First off, during the knighting ceremony (err, Paladin... Knight is a fighter, no gods required) you could see the looks of the guys faces every tiime they called out to Pelor. It was the 'Who the  writes this ' look. 

Later on, he literally goes to a store called the Adventurer's Vault, and buys things by referencing tiers, I kid you not. 

"And that suit of knight armor."

"Heroic or Paragon?"

"Paragon." {With a look that says I have no idea what this means}

Oh, yeah, whores in Points of Light must get paid really well, cause our hero gets his  paid for by the helpful whore. Yeah. 

How did we have a Shadar'kai with no mention of the Raven Queen once? Unless I missed it in the horrible dialog. 

The Shadowfell looked cool, except for the fact that it looked more like the elemental chaos raped the abyss and then deposited their baby on the Shadowfell's doorstep. The Shadowfell is a dark reflection of the world, not floating islands, last I knew. 

Yeah, it's terrible. There was a sex scene that SyFy did the blurry bits for, that implies this was supposed to be direct to video. But it still doesn't help. Also, since when were Shadar'kai females fans of 50 Shades of Grey?


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## smiteworks (Nov 26, 2012)

I liked it, but I admit that the bar was set pretty low for me. I also found mild entertainment in the references to game elements -- although those weakened the script for serious viewers, I'm sure.

The script and story played out much like adventures my gaming group have actually run through.  In fact, I've been a player in evil campaigns where the players behaved similarly at times.  If you replace the lead female with a drow priestess, we pretty much had the same group once before.  Similarly, the drow priestess in our group also just wanted to be loved and/or lusted after.


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## Greg K (Nov 26, 2012)

JeffB said:


> Turned the channel after I heard that exchange in the Adventurers Vault.




So did I. I heard Adventurer's Vault and then "Paragon and Heroic" and wanted to vomit (okay, this a hyperbole, but not too far off).

I turned it back on later to give it a try and thought it was smoldering pile.  I'll actually place it on par with the first one.  I take  that back. As bad as it was, I'll take the first one with Snails, Jeremy Iron's horrible acting and the rest of its issues over this.


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## Cyrian (Nov 28, 2012)

OpsKT said:


> There was a sex scene that SyFy did the blurry bits for, that implies this was supposed to be direct to video. But it still doesn't help. Also, since when were Shadar'kai females fans of 50 Shades of Grey?





Wiki says that it was direct-to-video in the U.K. earlier this year.


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