Crimes
• Squandering the wackiest B-movie cast ever assembled, including Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Udo Kier, Billy Zane, Meat Loaf, Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Paré, and Geraldine Chaplin
• Attempting to cover up completely incoherent action sequences with fountains of gore
• Cajoling "Lady Terminator" Kristanna Loken into a hilariously gratuitous bit of acrobatic dungeon sex
Defenders: Director Uwe Boll, producer Shawn Williamson, actor Will Sanderson, and Loken
Tone of commentary: High-spirited. As with many group commentaries, there's a lot of joking around, mostly at the expense of Romanian food, lodging, actors, crew members, and even "very uncooperative" horses. Boll also frequently pokes fun at his last terrible videogame adaptation, Alone In The Dark: An expository scene with Chaplin "saved us from having to do another two-and-a-half-minute opening crawl," and a training montage with Loken made him happy that he never had to do a training sequence with AITD star Tara Reid.
What went wrong: The food was terrible, the Romanian bit players were so bad that even the "second-best actress" had to be overdubbed, and it was hard to communicate with the unseasoned crew. Boll and his dog had to be moved from one apartment to the next, including one above a McDonald's with a door that wouldn't open. And one night, a courtyard shoot went so late that it ruined a wedding scheduled the next day. (That's okay, Boll says, because "the bride was really fat and ugly.")
Comments on the cast: Shooting in Romania let Boll cast local actresses for $100 a day and naked extras for only $50 more. For a scene in which Meat Loaf ("the Hugh Hefner of vampires") is surrounded by naked women, Boll didn't ask questions when the extras were escorted to the set via "some sort of wagon."
Inevitable dash of pretension: To set the mood, Boll juxtaposed Kingsley's visage onto Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco de Goya paintings. Too bad his face looks like it was airbrushed at the local fair.
Commentary in a nutshell: "This was a re-shoot after we recognized that the movie made no sense."