Review: House of the Dead

Yes our featured post of the week. For the last year it’s been our favorite review of the week. It’s been a movie, book, or video game that has really just stood out as what we enjoyed most about the week from our staff. It may be something brand new it may be something a little bit old but it’s always been something excellent.

That is until today.

I was recently discussing this pile of steaming shit that Uwe Boll served up claiming it was a film. For those of you who aren’t movie buffs let me first tell you a little about Uwe Boll. He’s made himself famous taking video game franchises and turning them into commercial successes.

For those of you who knows what kind of garbage Uwe Boll creates you may be asking how I could say that. Well FINANCIALLY all of his films have made money. Look, I don’t understand it either. What anyone who has seen ANY piece of one of Uwe Boll’s films knows is that he also creates films that are unbearable to watch, taking OK to good actors and making them do a good job at quite possible ruining their careers. He also ruins any video game to film translation in the process.

It’s amazing but because the financial portion always ends up solid he keeps getting franchises to mutilate. Let me tell you if I owned a successful gaming franchise I think I’d rather bite the bullet and not making extra money giving him the rights to film it out of pure pride for my work.

Still. This isn’t about Mr. Boll but about his work.

As I was saying I had recently been talking about this film and he bet that not only could I NOT re-watch this film in it’s entirety. (I did actually watch it through in 2004 and watched it again to create this review. Yes. I am either really brave or really stupid.) Not only could I not re-watch the film but I couldn’t find one redeemable aspect to it.

Well with a horrible director do we have anything redeeming? Let’s go through the list.

Acting? No. Only Ellie Cornell gave even a half assed performance and that was REALLY stretching it. I mean she did a decent job in Halloween 4 and 5. However she DID sign on for House of the Dead 2. Actually I can’t say anything on that. I’ve never actually watched House of the Dead 2. I’m sure however it is that it has to be better then this one since Uwe didn’t direct it but who knows. We’ll see. Someday. When I get really desperate for something new to watch.

Special effects? … hah… HAH….. AHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. Oh wow that brings tears to my eyes. So the zombie scenes mix between far out scenes of clearly poorly done zombies that morph into gameplay footage. We’re not talking about a game that just came out. House of the Dead was by NO MEANS a new game when this was filmed and they still used the zombies from it IN THE MOVIE. I mean shit it looks horrible. The zombies they do show? Like I said poorly done and I believe there was a total of one almost decent headshot in the entire film. Which was ruined from being smack dab in the middle of a horrible action scene. They speed by the only decent looking headshot to instead show horrible shots panning around the actors shooting guns and mixed in with more of the game’s graphics. Oh yes and the entire scene kept mixing in horrible slow motion that just looked wrong.

It’s hurting my brain to remember how this was filmed.

So what’s left. Plot? Well it was about a zombie infection that took place on an island in the middle of nowhere. Sounds exactly like it has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GAME HIS COMPANY SPENT MONEY LICENSING. NOTHING. NOT A SINGLE THING. I mean the film has nothing to do with the video game aside from stealing it’s name and ‘special effects’ which makes me wonder why they spent the money even getting it. Maybe the guys who owned the license at the time lost a bet.

So apparently a group of kids missed the last boat to this giant rave and pay someone off to take them. When they get to the island they have to then walk through the forest to get to the rave and when they arrive? No one is there. Quickly we realize though that the place is ruined and covered in blood. Only one of the cast members even gives a damn. Shortly (it feels like 3 hours) after we finally get zombies coming in and attack the crew of the boat that took them out to the island. Fortunately for all involved said crew were smuggling weapons and the rest of the film turned into a cast vs zombie mess that want to get into a house in a graveyard which they’ve determined is the source of the undead. Clearly the best idea.

So my friend was wrong. I watched the film again. However he was also right as I can’t say there was anything redeemable in the film. I mean we had a few nude shots in there for the male viewers and even those can’t cast a shade on the lack of quality in this movie. I mean I remember they were there. I remember it was a raver chick. I can’t remember anything past that aside from how horrible the movie is.

So. I can’t even recommend this for a B-Movie night for those that enjoy them. This is a pile of trash and anyone who has to watch it surely will agree that it’s creator should be flogged in the streets.