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THE PLOT:

A group of teens arrive on an island for a rave--only to discover the island has been taken over by zombies.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD  (2003)

Directed by: Uwe Boll

Written by: Mark A. Altman & Dan Bates

Starring: Jonathan Cherry, Clint Howard (Ron's brother), Ellie Cornell (Halloween 4)

 

 

 

 

Review by: Unknown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE REVIEW:

There are people out there who will greenlight anything! That is the only explanation I can offer as to why the House of the Dead movie exists.

As if it matters, here's the basic jist of the 'story'. A group of twenty-somethings are so desperate to go out to some island in the Pacific Northwest  for the 'Rave of the Century' (which consists of about 8 people and un-raving music) that they pay some craggy old fisherman $1000 to take them there after they miss the main ferry. That's gotta be some rave to be worth all that dough! The fisherman warns them that the island is also known as the Island of the Dead.

First faults here. Why would a tiny little rave be held on some remote island? Why would anyone be willingly pay loads of money to get to it? Why pay even more to the craggy old fisherman to take them back when they could just come back with the others?

Once they arrive they discover that the rave (which consists of about 2 tents, a small stage and a port-a-john) has been smashed, there's blood everywhere and no one is around. What would any rationally thinking person do? Run for their lives of course. But no, these clueless, obviously blind people decide to go look for them. Soon enough they discover an old ramshackle house that's 50 times as big on the inside as it is on the outside. Another half hour of stumbling around in the forest follows, as an excuse to kill of some of the lesser characters, and after much tedium they arrive back at the house again.

Jammed into this ghastly disaster is a superabundance of gibberish dialogue, heinous acting, mumbo-jumbo exposition and zillions of clips from the once-popular arcade game of the same name. Why this was universally accepted as a good idea with the filmmakers I'll never know. The clips have no reference to any of the scenes and only degrade this trash even further, if that is at all possible.

If you cut out the swearing and pointless nudity, I see no reason why this film cannot be shown on Saturday morning TV. And where did all those bad guys come from anyway? There were only a few people on the island to begin with. I guess this justifies the reason they chose to reuse footage over and over. I kid you not, you'll see the same zombie die a dozen times.

Who's ultimately to blame for that scandalous waste of celluloid? None other than director Uwe Boll. His control over the movie is non-existent. You can clearly the see actors have no idea what they should be doing and that the zombies aren't really taking it all seriously. The actors seem like they're reading off cue cards as they constantly pause in the middle of long sentences and carry on talking as soon as they see the next card. It all feels very unnatural.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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