House of the Dead
Year: 2003
Director: Uwe Boll
Written by: Dave Parker, Mark Altman
Threat: Zombies
Weapon of Choice: Axe
Based upon: video game
IMDb page: 
House of the DeadYear: 2003 Director: Uwe Boll Written by: Dave Parker, Mark Altman Threat: Zombies Weapon of Choice: Axe Based upon: video game IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
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The tyranist's thoughts
Way back in the glory days of 1998, when Rish and I still lived close enough to one
another that we could hang out three to five nights a week watching horror flicks and
dreaming of one day starting this website, a video game hit the local arcade. No, I'm
not talking about that second generation Gauntlet game, although we did pump our
fair share of quarters into that one. I'm talking about the game that I would drag Rish
into the darkest corner of the arcade to play, CarnEvil. 1998 also saw the debut of
another game, House of the Dead. It looked and played much the same as CarnEvil,
but it lacked the uber-cool title. In fact, I think I only played it once. Probably when
some kid who should have been in school was occupying the CarnEvil machine.
Anyway, this is a screen adaptation of that other video game. The true problem with
adapting anything for the screen, be it novel, short story, comic book, video game or
just plain bad idea, is finding a way to put it on the screen that neither betrays the
source material nor sucks. Very few films are successful on both accounts and a lot
of them accomplish neither one. This particular movie at least accomplishes some
level of faith to the source material.
Okay, so a bunch of people arrive on an island for an entirely spurious reason only
to find that it is occupied by more zombies than you'd think possible for a little tiny island
that none of the locals will sail to. Much running and shooting and subsequent shooting
and running occurs. Then there's a ludicrous made up bit to try to formulate a plot
before the movie ends. And then the movie ends.
Long stretches of the movie reminded me quite exactly of playing this kind of video
game. In that, they did not fail. Unfortunately, that kind of video game just doesn't
translate to the screen all that well. At least, when they tried to adapt
Resident Evil they had something of a background story to work from.
The original here was pure shooter with no background. At least none discernible by
the casual arcade patron.
Aside from the video game stuff (which honestly was about 85% of the movie), there
were some interesting moments that hinted at a story. Those were quickly given up
though in favor of more video game violence.
Way back when I first saw the trailer for this one, I knew that there was no way in
hell Rish was going to see this movie. I also knew that at some point, I was destined
to bite the bullet and suffer for you all. That said, I had super-low expectations going
into the movie and they were largely met.
I wouldn't recommend this one unless you like mindless violence that isn't centered
around any kind of plot whatsoever. Of course, I believe there's a whole generation
of kids being brainwashed with exactly this kind of "entertainment." You can probably
pick out which crowd you belong in and decide for yourself if this is worth watching.
Total Skulls: 27
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup |  |
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| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title | |
|
| Bad premise | |
|
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | |
|
| MTV Editing | |
|
| OTS | |
|
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | |
|
| Wanton sex | |
|
| Death associated with sex | |
|
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | ||
| Secluded location | |
|
| Power is cut | ||
| Phone lines are cut | |
|
| Someone investigates a strange noise | |
|
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | ||
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | ||
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | ||
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | ||
| Warning goes unheeded | ||
| Music detracts from scene | |
|
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | |
|
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | |
|
| Killer wears a mask | |
|
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | |
|
| Blood fountain | |
|
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | |
|
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | ||
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | |
|
| Unbelievably crappy ending | |
|
| What the hell? | |