Review of House of the Dead (2003) by Lange G — 14 Oct 2007

IMO 3rd Worst Movie Ever Made:

Just when you thought that the next movie on the list would be another title that bastardizes the word 'verses', I bring you House of the Dead. This movie follows the adventures of a tightly knit group of college coeds who are looking for good time. Meaning copious amounts of sex, drugs, alcohol, and some serious techno music. I assume that we have all been to week long raves on secluded jungle islands that are being used as a black market weapons cache, so I am not going to bore you with all the details of this particular plot.

The simple truth is that this movie is bad. I mean really awful. It's horrible...or...it's art. If that is true, however, then it is art that I just don't understand. Art that my limited subconscious cannot seem to grasp. I will let you decide as I list the five things that I feel make House of the Dead come in at number three.

5) The Zombie Template: The outline of the template is as follows: The movie has zombies in it. Simple, isn't it? The zombies in House of the Dead attack from the ground, the air, and even the sea. Yet somehow, this movie fails horribly. There is a century old conquistador zombie. There is even a scene with an acid spitting zombie, and it still falls miles short of being entertaining.

4) Germans are Hilarious: House of the Dead's all star cast of seasoned actors features the grizzled facial features of Jürgen Prochnow. If the name doesn't ring a bell, he played the U-boat captain in the movie 'Das Boot'. I personally remember him as the villain from Beverly Hills Cop 2. Look him up on IMDB. (Here is where the line between art and crap blurs) In this movie he plays a surly German fishing boat captain who secretly smuggles black market weapons. Get this: the name of his vessel is 'Das Boat'. His first mate is a short guy dressed like Padington Bear with a hook for a hand. If it isn't beginning to feel surreal yet, keep reading.

3) Crying Rapier: House of the Dead is willing to take risks and go where no other zombie movie has gone before. When a typical zombie movie finds its climax, it usually does so with a flurry of bloody scenes that rapidly depict the dramatic deaths of the remaining characters. Leaving only a few who survive to the end of the movie and go on living. Not House of the Dead. No. This particular zombie movie reaches its climax with a fencing match. That's right. In the blue corner, the sadistic and ancient alchemist Zombie Lord. In the red corner, the movies token super-hot and ultra-tough fencing slut. Taking into account that every thrust and parry of the sword makes this womans breasts bound and leap across the screen, the fight is lame and poorly choreographed. It makes you cheer when slutty-girl is stabbed in the gut and dies instantly.

2) Virtual Inanity: If you have yet to see this movie, please believe that these last two points are not of my own creation. When the cast is busy killing zombies with the myriad of weapons that have suddenly been made available to them; there is blood, guts, gore, and 3D freeze fame 360-degree sweeps of the camera. Seriously. There is no reason for it at all, it doesn't help to progress the plot, or even enhance the pathetic action scenes. It's just there. For instance, the main character will be posed heroically while blasting a zombies brain to bits. Just at that moment, the director will freeze frame then spin the camera around the character a full 360 degrees. Jump split-kicking a zombie in the head while wearing a full body suit sporting a motif of the American flag? FREEZE FRAME! 360! Is it art? It's as if the director is easily distracted by shinny objects because just when you thought this movie couldn't get any more random, shit like that happens. By the way, maybe I should have mentioned this at the beginning of the review, this movie was directed by Uwe Boll and seems to have been aimed at kids with ADD.

1) Arcadian Artistry: After the awe inspiring visual effects that are displayed in the previous scenes, our diminished group of coeds enters the literal House of the Dead. At this point the movies slows down for long enough to allow the actors some time to spit out their predictably typical dialog. "What are those things?", "How are we going to get out of here?", " Oh no! Tommy has been bitten! We need to get him to a hospital!", "We're all going to die.", and so on and so forth. Inevitably though, the zombies find a way in and even more coeds die in even more ridiculous ways. It is now that the director pulls out the big guns. Believe it or not, while the actors fight zombies the movie is inter cut with actual footage from the original House of the Dead arcade game. For real. A movie that is being adapted from an arcade game that allows a gamer to use a blue or pink plastic revolver to shoot zombies is paying homage by reminding us all how bad the graphics where back then. Which is really a startling metaphor because back then you would also pay $13.50 in quarters to get to the end of the game, leaving you feeling sad and ultimately cheated out of spending your money on something better. Like a bag of manure. It's this that makes me wonder if I am just missing the ethereal artistic lesson of House of the Dead, or if it's just an instinctual defense mechanism my body brain uses to fight off massive failure due to high levels of suckage.

*Final Note:*.

It's not Art. It's barely even a movie. House of the Dead is only watchable if you want to experience it's completely inane random stupidity for yourself. Really, when I was trying to remember which movie I had previous ranked at number three on the list, I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was. House of the Dead was so bad it was that forgettable. No cool scenes to speak of. No good one-liners to repeat to your friends later. The only good thing was a no so quick shot of this movies hottie topless. Sadly, that still couldn't save it from being awful.