Review of House of the Dead (2003) by Tim S — 30 Mar 2012

Since its release, I've always written House of the Dead off as a terrible piece of celluloid that should never have been made. I have since gone back on that statement for a couple of reasons. Don't get me wrong though.

I don't consider it to be any sort of a masterpiece, or even craptastic. It still falls into the category of being an awful movie, but there are a couple of things about it that brought me around to it a little bit more.

First of all, there are, in my opinion, very overt humorous moments built into the movie. You don't catch them the first time through because you're too busy focusing on how terrible the whole thing is.

Second, it has Clint Howard and William Sanderson in it, so that's got to count for something. Third, it has Ona Grauer's amazing cleavage bouncing around at every turn. Fourth, it's a very good adaptation of the game.

Some might call me crazy for saying that, but if you've ever played the game, you know how terrible the story, the story logic and the dialogue is in those games. This movie matches that successfully.

It's not that Uwe Boll knew what he was doing or anything (Alone in the Dark proves that), but his lack of talent makes it all work somehow. I can't say that I'd want to stick this on very often, but I did find it slightly more enjoyable this go round and I guess that's the most positive thing I can say about a movie everybody is so negative about - including myself.