House of the Dead (2003)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply Perfect

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

With a 2 rating on IMDb and only 4% on Flixster, I was curious to see if it was really that bad. Damn I really need to stop being so curious! While it probably isn't the worst film ever made, it surely is one of the worst zombie ones.At time it just seems like really bad music video. The flashes of scenes from the video game really don't help. Especially as this is meant to be a prequel of the games?I gave this a rating of 2/10. The only reason it has a 2 not a 1 is for Jurgen Prochnow. He has some great comedic moments. Well great for this film!Don't Be Curious!

Another Uwe Boll video game adaptation means yet another inept effort at making a watchable film. This time we take what I'm sure is a heavily plotted, intelligent and character driven game that demanded a film adaptation (not really) and make it into a boring, generic zombie movie. It's "House of the Dead" people, and it sucks.The plot begins with a character informing us that he will be the only survivor. I love it when bad movies spoil their own endings, it's the equivalent a kid with no legs challenging a pro soccer player to a game. Simon (Tyron Leitso) introduces his soon-to-be-dead friends: Greg (Will Sanderson), Alicia (Ona Grauer), Karma (Enuka Okuma) and Xynthia (Sonya Salomaa, possibly playing some kind of alien that happens to look like a human). They want to go to an awesome rave party taking place on an island but little do they know, the place is overrun by zombies. Hitching a ride there by paying two smugglers (Jurgen Prochnow as Captain Victor Kirk and his first Mate Salish, played by Clint Howard) they are chased by a harbor police officer named Jordan Casper (Ellie Cornell). It's a struggle for survival and a struggle for the audience to resist falling asleep.The only good thing about this film is the makeup effects, which are actually pretty convincing. There's a huge army of zombies attacking our heroes and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. We've got aquatic zombies that can swim, moss-covered zombies that hide in the dirt, ancient skeletal zombies and even fresh zombies that basically look like regular people but with some blood all over them. If there's one good thing that could come out of this film, it's a recommendation to any aspiring horror filmmakers to hire the costume and makeup artists that were involved in this movie. Everything else is downright terrible.Not only does the movie drop the ball from the very beginning by telling us exactly who is going to make it out alive and who isn't but it commits the biggest sin in cinema "show, don't tell". We don't learn in any way that's organic who the main characters are, we are simply told exactly enough information to distinguish the actors from each other with exposition at the beginning of the movie. Considering the fact that the acting is pretty weak here, maybe it was a last minute decision by director Uwe Boll to avoid as many scenes of the actors talking as possible. Some would give props to the man, but I say next time, just hire real actors.The plot is utterly predictable, not only because we are told ahead of time what is going to happen (no, I will not let that go), but because it doesn't do anything new when it comes to the zombie horror genre. Basically every scene of people talking is just an excuse to tie together an accompanying scene where the humans are running away from or shooting at zombies. To remind us that this is a video game movie, and also presumably to obliterate any tension that might arise, the film constantly flashes to video game-y scenes. We've got clips of the game the film is based on, as well as "game over" type screens for some of the characters that end up biting the dust. I wish I could make up something as stupid as this. Can you imagine if someone re-edited "Saving Private Ryan" and called it "Call of Duty" by adding "game over" screens whenever someone was shot down? Even that movie, which is widely accepted as a masterpiece would be laughed out of theaters, so what chance does "House of the Dead" have with its undead-like acting abilities and paper-thin story? The movie can't even stay consistent because only some of the actors are dignified with a death screen. Meanwhile, we get 32 nearly-identical shots of polygon-based undead creatures getting shot in the face.It's never particularly scary and even if what the hacks in charge were aiming for was a horror-action movie, leaning more towards action it would still suck the big one. There's a big scene where all of the characters have found an ammo crate (get it? Like in a video game!) and suit up for battle. They make their way to the mysterious "house of the dead" and encounter a huge army of zombies. For a while, it's pretty cool to see. Our remaining heroes take down legions of undead using various weapons and fancy fighting moves but the scene drags on and on. It begins by being kind of cool (maybe because before then you were falling asleep) then becomes ridiculous and funny and finally ends by being totally boring.Even the ending of the movie ends in a big WTF moment that doesn't really make any sense. Even if you had the lowest standards imaginable, and I have been known to exhibit this illness, and basic zombie action with frequent moments of "girls gone wild" type nudity would interest you, the plot is so badly written, so poorly acted that there is no way you can enjoy yourself. I laughed at a moment where a party goer refused to go skinny dipping with a hot woman just so he could get killed by a zombie but like so many of Uwe Boll's films, you can't even enjoy this film ironically. It was a chore to get through and while I can, once again, praise the special effects, the surrounding story is terrible and you shouldn't waste your time with "House of the Dead". (Director's Cut On DVD, June 6, 2014)

I watched this last night whilst playing on my PC. I actually started concentrating less on the game and more on this film as it went along, I even got my friend tuned in to watch it with me whilst communicating via a headset. The reason I've scored this a 2 is because its bloody comical. I don't actually know if it's supposed to be funny, but if it isn't it's that awful that it is anyway. Wait till you see the part where one of the shocking actors picks up the half eaten carcass of another shocking member of the cast and drags her in through the window... Both my friend and I were in absolute stitches.Is no point going on and on about the actors, the set, the dialogue etc. Its a proper cheapo film, end of...How it made it to the big screen is totally beyond me, but if you want a really good laugh then get a couple of beers down you and watch this with a few mates. The film does have one saving grace and that's in the form of several half naked attractive girls... oof.

Good points So bad you can only laugh because it is actually meant to be a serious movie. Bad points The plot - until the last 20 minutes of the film there is no plot, its just random nonsense, the action scene was ridiculously long and boring, am I really expected to believe that a bunch of party goers are skilled weapon users, seriously come on.The Characters/Acting - You get a brief run down of a few characters at the start of the film, during the course of the film that group expands, as people are inevitably killed off, the little to no emotion at the loss of friends.Cinematography - wasn't all bad, but the flashing between action scenes was harsh on the eyes.Writing - Plain old crapOverall - 1 hour and a half of your life you will never get back