First rule of movie making: Don't make your movie based off a video game. Ask anyone who has had the pleasure of sitting through such cinematic classics like Double Dragon, Super Mario Bros, or Street Fighter, and sure enough you'll get a large majority with the same response. "That was 2 hours of my life I'll never have back." Enter Uwe Boll's "House of the Dead."
A group of the most inept teenagers (played by complete unkowns) to ever walk the face of the planet decide on going to a rave party. Ironically, the party happens to be on one of those zombie infested islands you hear so much about in the papers. After paying a large sum of money to a guy (who just happens to be a weapons smuggler) to get them there, they arrive. Shockingly, beyond the audiences belief, everyone has dissapeared. Why, where have they gone? After a few get picked off, they end up at a house where the final showdown can begin.
Let's get one thing straight right from the start. If you honestly went into this movie expecting anything more than what it was, your an honest to goodness idiot. I mean that. This is a completely brain dead, grade-Z zombie movie in its purest form. The acting is hilarious, the script even dumber, and the action never seems to stop. Every concievable camera trick is used somewhere in this movie, blatantly ripping off countless other decent films. Mr. Boll obviously found it interesting to splice in footage of the video game during the action sequences (note he couldn't even pay to play the game since the words "free play" are seen flashing). Words cannot express how utterly illogical this is since they have nothing to do with the movie, and the movie has little to do with the game. They come fast and they come often no matter how jarring it may be.
If everything above wasn't bad enough, the countless goofs and bad edits just make it worse. Camera tracks are very obvious in numerous shots, rain stops and starts again within a timespan of 3 seconds, and characters dissapear and re-appear when the camera cuts away from a shot. Strangley enough, even after all of this....I kinda enjoyed it all. This is as low as filmaking can go. At the begginning, it's nothing more than a breast-fest. However, the insane amount of gore, priceless dialouge, and plain campy feel by the time it's all over can easily be enjoyed by fans of low-bugedters. This is by no means good cinema and I certainly can't recommened it to the masses, but the few of you out there know who you are. (** out of *****)
Article comments
1 - Bruce Darren Acosta
HOUSE OF THE DEAD.
House of the Dead is the worst movie with alot a bad acting and a crap plot of the rave and the Collage students hiring a boat by a Smuggler that takes them to the island,When they arrived on the island they were too late and theay have to stand up for themselves to stop the blood thristy zombies and surive to get off the island.
Thank You.
BRUCE ACOSTA
AUSTRALIA.
2 - Orsi
I dont care what everybody says i did like this shit!