House of the Dead (zero stars)
review by Jon Waterman

Off on a deserted island somewhere lies the most awesomest rave party probably ever! So all these post-college kinda-too-old-to-be-searching-for-a-killer-rave kids pay some dude to take them to the giant event on his boat. It takes some convincing, because the captain knows something they don’t. The island is inhabited by zombies. Everyone at the party is now dead, yet walking around and wanting to make everyone else dead as well. Can these near 30 year-old teens find a way out without the help of Scooby Doo?

Everything about this movie was ridiculous to an amazingly large extent. I’ll start slow and work my way up.

The acting and the script were horrendous. I’d even say they were scarier than the film itself. The movie is full of a bunch of no-names that now have no chance at getting more parts. Clint Howard is also in it, proving that his camp value lasts about ten seconds. No one even comes close to speaking naturally. I can’t imagine how acting could be this bad. The only thing that could logically explain the bad performances all around would be if they were like that on purpose. It’s relatively evident that this is not the case, though.

Of course, the script was totally laughable. It starts off with over-acted, lamely written narration about how they never should have gone there. If only they knew. I don’t really know the game the film’s based on, but the explanation of how the zombies came to be didn’t work. Back in the 1600s or something like that, a guy went crazy and started doing experiments on dead bodies so he could figure out a way to live forever. Why it had to be set on a Spanish Armada-like ship, I have no idea. It could have just as easily been more modern. Did they think adding age would add class or credibility? Let’s hope not.

Let’s move on to the fight scenes. Not only were they long and boring, but they were too involved. Each non-dead character got his/her own little matrix wraparound sequence. That was about 6 or 7 characters. The novelty was over before it even happened, but perhaps it was in their contracts. You could pretty much tell that they didn’t spend much money on makeup. They had people in plain clothes walking around and staggering in the background, and if they were a certain distance away, they got no special work done. It was pathetic. A quick way to put more people on screen and make the movie look bigger than it was. Ok, and after one of the supporting people dies, thus ending a giant zombie shooting sequence, we were treated to a two or three minute flashback recalling the fight we just saw with absolutely no new footage. So dumb and way too long.

It’s all about flashy, sensationalistic filmmaking. The worst crime that this film perpetrated against the viewing public was using screenshots from the video game it’s based on. At first, a flash of the game would be used to transition scenes. Near the end, game screens showing zombies getting shot took the place of showing zombies dying on film. The audience was even treated to a screen that said “Reload.” Now, to an extent, it’s okay to recognize the medium a film came from. "The Hulk" almost got it right with their comic book panels. But this just…words can’t describe how wrong it is. Director Uwe Boll is working on two more video game movies as well. Ugh.

There’s a reason few critics took this one on. I’m sure that no advanced screening was held and most people realized there were better things to watch by the time it came out. When I saw this gem, there were ten people in the theatre. A group of five friends walked out halfway through. By the end, everyone that stayed was openly joking about the film. Strangers were bonding over the crap on the screen. It was a fierce competition, but this one broke into my top 5 worst films of all time. I can’t wait to hear the DVD commentary rationalizing this one

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