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“NOT VERY LEGENDARY!”
What else could I say?
Review over.
Welcome back to Bad D&D movies,
a series in which I take a look at films of
questionable quality that made use of the
Dungeons & Dragons license.
Next up on our list is 2012’s straight-to-dvd…
Urr…
“Das Buch Der Dunklen Schatten”
Umm…
Oh… that does not mean
what I thought it meant…
This is what happens when you have to
import your blu-rays from Germany!
Anyway this is Dungeons and Dragons 3: 
The Book of Vile Darkness.
And despite that number, this is in fact NOT
a sequel to the previous instalments,
no longer taking place in the kingdom
of Izmere, or Ishmere, whatever.
The only links it has to its predecessors
are that it shares the same director and writer
as Wrath of the Dragon God,
and our boy Courtney Solomon
returns as an executive producer.
I’ve been burned before,
so my expectations were pretty low.
But I was pleasantly surprised.
It might actually be the *best* of the Dungeons
and Dragons movies that I’ve covered….
BUUUUUT! There’s gonna be a lot of buts…
The Book of Vile Darkness is superior to Wrath
of the Dragon God in two important respects.
It is a better put together movie overall,
but at the same time,
it offers more flavour and more material to
rip on than its comparatively bland precursor.
One key difference lies in its
much darker tone,
aiming for a much grittier or dare-I-say edgier
narrative than we’ve seen from a D&D movie before.
Although I can’t help but feel that this is what it
looks like when you take LARP far too seriously.
This shift away from a straightforward sword-and-sorcery quest to a story that involves more moral nuance,
with the protagonist having to deal with internal
conflict and being forced to do bad things
for the sake of a greater good,
although hardly original, is certainly 
refreshing in this series.
And it gets pretty messed up at times.
Although it does fall into the trap of thinking
that being “mature” means including more
violence, blood and gore,
as well as many… big
“tracts of land” fit for ploughing,
and some other stuff that most DMs 
rightfully ban from their tables.
That aside, the plot is certainly more interesting,
and what starts out as a fairly conventional
high fantasy Heroes Journey
ends up taking some unexpected
and unconventional twists and turns.
BUT! There is still a lot of stuff that you could
poke holes in or which doesn’t make sense.
At least this time we actually get to
witness character development,
with multiple characters being fleshed out
- if only in a shallow way -
and experiencing growth and change
to at least some extent.
Including an actual character arc for the
protagonist - as opposed to this static plank,
who may as well have had
flesh-to-stone cast on him.
BUT! The most you could say about
the writing is that it’s serviceable,
with the dialogue being passable at best,
and stilted or laughable at worst.
I can be more generous about the acting.
For the most part, I do think these actors
did a decent job with what they were given.
There’s no Bruce Payne to keep us 
entertained this time,
or any other portrayals that were overacted
on the one hand or irritating on the other.
This is played more straight-faced, and given
the budget level we’re talking about here,
the cast more than pull their weight.
With that mention of money, let’s now consider
the production value in general.
Like I said, this is a
competently-crafted movie.
BUT!
The Book of Vile Darkness had a slightly lower
budget than Wrath of the Dragon God,
and while they’ve managed to do a lot with
what they had, they couldn’t quite polish
over all the cheapness.
There are some nice scenery shots, but the
cinematography and editing are nothing to
write home about.
I didn’t notice any glaring issues with them, 
and they do what they’re supposed to do.
And I would say that the combat scenes and
fight choreography are... *mostly better*
exceptions notwithstanding…
And at least the weapons don’t look
quite so obviously fake this time.
Some of the costumes are good,
BUT  others are just godawful!
A lot of the special effects have seen an
improvement since Wrath of the Dragon God,
BUT in other places they still aren’t quite
up to scratch and computer generated objects
still look out of place.
The movie sh*ts the bed a bit
harder with its makeup.
While the tattoos don’t change
position this time,
it *does* look like they were drawn on with a sharpie.
“Are you mocking me?”
“Yes!”
Wounds look like someone threw
a tampon at the actor’s face.
And one character’s face oozes with what
I’m guessing is meant to be pus, but…
tell me it doesn’t look like something else!
The music is completely forgettable, in that
I completely forgot that it was there.
And as for the sound design, it’s fine,
but I’d be very surprised if they did any
of their own foley,
and it seems that they took all their sound
effects from a stock library.
But how does it fare in terms of being
a Dungeons and Dragons movie?
Well, while Wrath of the Dragon God is a 
straightforward traditional party-focused adventure,
the Book of Vile Darkness feels
more like a solo-campaign
in which a lawful good player character has
to fall in with an party of evil NPCs in order
to achieve his goal.
I could see this translating well to a video game,
but not to a group experience on a tabletop.
Otherwise, the film is faithful to its source
material in that it includes references that
will make knowledgeable players go “Oooooh!”
BU- I- You get the idea…
Some of what they do with the lore
is a bit questionable.
For example, the Book of Vile Darkness is both
the name given to a supplementary sourcebook
for 3rd edition D&D,
and a powerful magic item in the game.
The contents of this foul manuscript of ineffable
wickedness are the meat and drink of those
in evil’s thrall.
No mortal was meant to know the secrets it
contains, knowledge so horrid that to even
glimpse the scrawled pages invites madness.
Damn. Sounds like your kinda thing.
But the Book of Vile Darkness in the film
bears little resemblance to its tabletop counterpart,
and there are more than a few other 
examples of stuff they got wrong
that I’m sure at least one nerd has
popped a blood vessel over it.
So thus far, the Book of Vile Darkness is
a very mixed bag to say the least.
And as is the usual practice here, the nature
of that mixed bag will be more clearly demonstrated
by giving it a closer look.
The introduction makes use of
animated sequences that look okay,
but certainly more washed out and boring 
than those in Wrath of the Dragon God.
And it goes on for WAY too long.
Although the exposition of the opening narration
is intersperced with the opening credits,
five minutes is far too much time for
what is essentially a slideshow.
Long story short, two thousand years ago,
a supreme asshole called Nhagruul the Foul,
fearing his own death,
had himself transformed into the Book of Vile
Darkness so that his soul would live on.
I mean, most powerful sorcerers would have
turned themselves into an immortal lich.
That seems like a much more convenient
solution, all things considered!
But having your skin flayed and made into pages of a book sounds metal enough to make up for it.
Anyhow, the Book drove everybody around it
insane and turned them evil,
but eventually an order arose
called The Knights of the New Sun,
and Pelor, the God of Light, gave them the power
they needed to defeat the followers of Nhagruul,
who then disassembled the book into
its pages, cover and ink,
with only the ink later being
discovered and destroyed.
And since that time, everyone forgot about the
Book and the Knights pretty much gave up on
themselves and became a joke.
We then see the remnants of the Knights performing
a ceremony to pledge their service to Pelor.
And it’s here that we’re introduced to
our protagonist Grayson, played by Jack Derges,
who bears such a resemblance to Nicolas Hoult
that once I saw it, that was all I could see.
He’s hardly convincing in the lead role,
and he always looks like he’s one good slap
away from crying.
Although his character has more
of a personality to speak of than…
I’ve actually forgotten his name, wow…!
With his father leading the proceedings,
he swears an oath to Pelor,
but the altar doesn’t bless him, as it hasn’t
blessed any of the Knights since time immemorial.
He laments the downfall of the order and has
a little winge about having his hopes dashed.
While his father tries to give him a pep talk,
their camp is attacked by lightning-wielding
mages and barbarians,
and after some piss-poor LARP combat, 
Grayson and his dad rush back to help,
and they do that ‘Fade to Black’ bullsh*t that’s
become an unfortunate trope in fantasy stories.
Grayson wakes up - after being conveniently
left alive - to find the rest of the order dead,
and not seeing his father next to him, immediately
assumes that he has been kidnapped,
and sets off to find him.
Passing by a completely necessary smoke 
machine on his way back to town.
He strips off his WWE gear in an
attempt to disguise himself.
Despite leaving several symbols of Pelor very
obviously visible, so what was the point?!
He goes to visit the only person he can trust,
which is apparently a local prostitute,
to question her about the barbarians
who seemingly just ran a train on her.
You see what I mean about those “mature themes”?
She gives him a lead that the barbarians 
were bragging about a valuable hostage,
but before they go any further,
they do what every new adventurer does and
head straight to the magic items shop.
Whose owner has clearly had
enough of adventurer’s bullsh*t.
“All prices are final, rock bottom!”
He buys a bag of holding - plus some other
items - and pays with a pouch of plastic money
that he looted from his dead comrades.
The hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold makes him buy a
bottle of poison in case the barbarians capture him
by which time it’s probably
going to be a bit too late.
She then tells him that a Shadar-Kai witch
named Akordia and her crew
have been hired by a certain Lord Shathrax,
who also hired the barbarians who kidnapped
his father.
She suggests that he join Akordia’s crew
to earn her trust and hopefully be led back
to his father.
As she now disappears from the movie,
he goes into the Green Dragon Inn.
[Merry & Pippin - ‘The Green Dragon Song’]
Whatever was in that ale, it must have been
good enough to yeet that head wound
into the shadow realm.
He spies Akordia and her crew
discussing their next job.
The gang consists of Seith the
assassin, Vimak the Goliath,
Bezz - who they call the Vermin Lord for…
reasons…
and who regularly dispenses his 
soundbites of sardonic wisdom.
“Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth
shut and have people think you are a fool,
than open it and remove all doubt.”
And there’s this guy in a wig, who dies
in a minute, so who cares.
The Witch casts some scary-looking magic,
but noone else in the inn seems to give a sh*t.
Grayson goes over and they tell him “you
can’t sit with us” and call him a boy-whore.
And no, that’s not me making a joke.
“They’re better suited for employment
upstairs, with the other catamites.”
They demand that he kill one of them in order
to join them, so he wisely picks the one with
the worst fashion sense.
Just another Tuesday night.
“The reward is five thousand gold. And one twelfth
of all the treasure we acquire along the way.”
“One twelfth? I only see six.”
“And I only see half a man.”
*Snorts* “I’m more than enough for you!”
They’re gonna bang, aren’t they?
They set out on their mission to find an item
in a dragon’s cave, only to find the Dragon
terrorising the nearby town.
So they decide to wait until the Dragon has
finished gorging on the peasants and falls asleep.
“No, why aren’t we attacking now before
it eats and regains its strength?!”
*Magic pimp slap*
“You will speak only when spoken to!”
I can’t be the only one getting some serious
femdom vibes from her, right?
When they get to the dragon’s cave, Bezz
does some freaky eye-magic, which is one of
the legitimately best parts of the movie.
But in doing so, he triggers a trap
that alerts the Dragon.
NECKBEARD VOICE: ‘Um ACKTUALLY, ACKTUALLY, it’s not a dragon, it’s a Wyvern, it’s wings are on it’s arms!'
Yeah, okay, whatever.
After getting their asses handed
to them for a bit, they kill the *Wyvern*
with Grayson delivering the coup de grace.
Rocks fall. Wyvern dies.
After checking the Wyvern’s chest for traps
- naturally - they find that it contains a horn,
about which the assassin starts preaching
a social-darwinist prophecy about how the
strong will triumph over the weak,
which everyone quickly gets sick of.
Grayson finds some of the Wyvern’s prisoners
are still alive, and the assassin wants to
sacrifice them for being weaklings,
but Grayson makes a persuasion roll to convince
them to take the survivors back to the local
town in exchange for a reward.
They’re greeted by the mayor, played by
Dominic Mafham, who portrayed Dr Petruger
in Doom: Annihilation.
What a weird connection.
The Goliath spends his money wisely,
while Bezz uses a ring that he took off one of the wyvern’s victims to track down the man’s family.
He gives the wife the ring, which shows her
a vision of how her husband was brutally murdered!
And then he infects the son’s
teddy bear with an insect!
This serves no purpose to the plot whatsoever.
That’s Chaotic evil for you…
MEANWHILE, AT THE TAVERN...
some local floozy starts
aggressively hitting on Grayson,
but Akordia gets jealous and
tells that thot to begone.
Does this count as a tavern brawl?
I think this counts as a tavern brawl.
“Let’s get this over with!”
Wait, what?!
I was joking! I didn’t think
they’d actually do it!
“You saved my life. By Shadar-Kai law, 
you’re entitled to my body.”
“You may ravish me however you see fit.
Do you want me on the bed?”
I don’t remember this from the lore!
This is their excuse to have these two characters
smash together despite having no chemistry.
He resists for a little while, but she goes
all nice girl and threatens to destroy him
if he rejects her.
And while she was getting changed,
he used the circlet through which she 
communicates telepathically with her employers,
and sees that his father is still alive,
so he decides that for the greater good,
he needs to get in deeper.
(hehehe)
The assassin finds the town’s treasure
vault and helps himself to all the loot,
justifying this by saying
“it’s what my character would do!”
But as they prepare to sneak away the next
morning, the townsfolk intercept them.
Akordia holds the mayor hostage with an explosive
charm, but he gives approximately zero f*cks.
But Grayson succeeds on another persuasion
roll to convince the mayor to let them walk
away with half the treasure.
"The calmer heads prevail. Take half the treasure."
“Go in peace!”
*Magic words*
I told you man. Chaotic evil...
So then they’re forced to
slaughter the entire town.
Grayson drops down a well, finds some children
hiding down there, and leads them outside the city.
although we never see what happens to them.
“Then we'll run into the forest, okay?
What’s your favourite forest creature?”
“Zombies.”
Well, that’s [laugh] that's an… interesting answer!
After it’s all over, Bezz basically says:
“I was just doing what my character would do,
I’m jus- I’m just a better roleplayer than you!”
Before Akordia creates an exit.
“FUS ROH DAH!”
*Skyrim Theme*
“Anyone foolish enough to pledge their life to a god
that doesn’t give a damn deserves what they get!”
“Thank you Pelor, you’ve opened my eyes.”
They then go to split the treasure.
He gets given a vorpal sword, since it was
his idea to go to the town in the first place.
For that reason, he’s very
reluctant to take it.
Akordia says she’s going home, and that
he can go with her if he wants,
or go with the Assassin if he
still wants to meet Shathrax.
“You don’t have to decide now.
Let me convince you.”
But a nightmare about his father reminds him
that bros are indeed before hoes.
So wait, did they just f*ck out in the open
where the others could see?
That’s some next level powergaming!
After the goliath offers a bit of backstory
that reminds you that he is indeed a bad guy,
Grayson poisons him with
the vial he was given earlier,
then stuffs his body and all the money
into the bag of holding.
Which is pretty cool if I’m honest.
Since the evidence points to the
goliath f*cking off with the gold,
Akordia agrees to carry on with their original
mission, despite her suspicions about Grayson.
They need the horn for the mission,
but she refuses to hand it over to the assassin
now that he has no gold to trade her for it.
So he takes Grayson hostage.
But Bezz stings him with a scorpion.
He begs for mercy - which is ironic - but
Grayson refuses to grant it.
And the three of them decide to
carry on with their quest.
They use the horn to activate some
kind of evil arcane lock.
This summons a creature
which is never explicitly named,
but is apparently a monster from
3.5 Edition called a Slaymate,
an undead child that was betrayed in life by its guardians, or neglected or abused until it died,
and now must feed off of negative energies.
And that is as f*cked up as it sounds!
Botchling levels of f*cked up…
Now, credit where it’s due, this was
meant to make us feel weirded out.
And tell me it didn’t succeed…!
It feeds off the Vermin Lord, which you’d
think would be enough for it considering how
messed up this guy is, but it demands more.
Plus it’s a test to prove that they’re evil enough to deserve the piece of the Book of Vile Darkness they’re after.
The bad sh*t that Grayson has done
allows him to pass the test,
but Akordia fails because
she’s in *lurv* with Grayson.
Which technically means that
she’s in the friendzone right now.
The enraged Slaymate summons
a Helmed Horror that kills Bezz,
but Grayson eventually manages to
slay it with the vorpal sword.
And they retrieve the cover of the Book of
Vile Darkness from its body.
Seems like an odd place to keep it, but okay.
And so they get teleported directly
to the temple of Lord Shathrax.
Whose mouth is for some reason stitched closed
as he speaks through two enslaved cheerleaders.
The dubbed voices don’t match their mouth movements, and while I’m fairly sure this wasn’t deliberate,
it certainly adds to the creepy,
disorienting effect they were going for.
After being welcomed into Shathrax’s service,
Grayson sneaks off and frees his father.
Akordia walks in and realises the truth, so
Grayson yeets her out of the room.
Using the magic powers that he… now has, I guess…
They try to escape, but realise that they’re
in the middle of the Shadowfell, with nowhere
to go and no means of getting out.
His father reveals that Shathrax is trying
to reconstruct the Book of Vile Darkness,
and they want to torture him so
they can use his pain to make the ink.
Which is a bit strange because doesn’t this
mean that the pages are blank, and they'll have
to re-write the whole thing from memory?
What use is the book without its contents?
And what about the pages? The ones
made from Nhagruul’s flayed skin?
I guess they must have found those as well,
but they don’t really mention it.
But anyway, disappointed in his son
for breaking all of his oaths,
his father wants him to kill him so the bad
guys can’t use him to make the ink.
That’s a- that’s not the appropriate
face for this situation!
But Grayson refuses to allow everything he
did to be for nothing, and wants to fight
to the death instead.
His courage causes the holy symbol to glow,
and he uses its power to defeat the attackers.
But Bezz, who is somehow still
alive, paralyses him.
And he decides that Grayson would make a better
specimen for extraction, because he’s the
first true knight of Pelor in 800 years.
He wanted Grayson all along and
used Akordia to help achieve this.
The more we thing about that plotline, the
less sense it makes, so let’s just go with it.
So they hook Grayson up to some bondage gear
and start torturing him so they can extract
his liquid pain to use as ink for the Book.
But in an ending that’s unfortunately anticlimactic,
Akordia uses her mage hand powers
to get Grayson his amulet back,
then his faith activates its divine intervention
powers and it kills all of the bad guys in one go!
Really? Really?!
Akordia offers to take Grayson to her home,
but he refuses, having now completed his arc
and become a knight of Pelor.
“And if our paths should cross again,
would you try and kill me?”
“In self defence.”
“I can’t promise anything. Farewell.”
And that’s it. That’s actually
how it ends.
Maybe they ran out of money or something,
but this is one of the most rushed and abrupt
endings I’ve ever seen.
And I hope that portal has
some instructions on it,
or he’s going to be stuck in
the Shadowfell for a long time!
I don’t have that much to say in conclusion
besides what I’ve already discussed,
but I will re-iterate that The Book of Vile Darkness
is the closest thing we’ve seen so far
to a decent movie based on the
Dungeons and Dragons license.
Despite it’s inevitable flaws, for the most
part it does accomplish what it sets out to do.
It was never going to be a masterpiece,
but we have to temper our expectations to
the level of resources available, and considering
that level, it’s a fairly respectable effort.
BUUUUU-
Having said that, for me personally, this
movie falls between the 2000 self-titled movie
and Wrath of the Dragon God.
It’s more funny-bad and therefore
more enjoyable than latter,
but the former still takes
the cake in that regard.
Because how could you ever top this?
“LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”
I can still recommend the 2000 movie
as something you can get drunk and laugh at,
but The Book of Vile Darkness is a hard sell
to anyone that isn’t interested in the franchise.
To sum up then, if we’re talking about quality,
this is how I’d rank the D&D movies.
But if we’re looking at fun factor,
it would be more like this.
And that’s all of the movies that were direct
adaptations of the Dungeons & Dragons license.
However!
There were other movies that focused on D&D.
But in a different way.
Next time, we’re going to take a look at…
The Moral Panic Movies.
This should be fun.
“I HAVE SPELLS!”
BUT-BUT
BUT-BUT
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BUT-BUT-BUT-BUT-BUT-BUT-BUT-
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