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House of the Dead

House of the Dead

List Price: $18.00
Your Price: $18.00
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Watty is wrong THIS MOVIE IS GREAT
Review: ... Everyone that I know that saw it thought he acted very well. Therefore, there's nothing wrong with the movie, there's something wrong with you. The movie was very good, the acting was pretty good as well, and the soundtrack is awesome. DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE LIKE WATTY, THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: SOUNDTRACK IS NOT STOLEN FROM MORTAL KOMBAT
Review: The mid-90s Technosoundtrack is not stolen from Mortal Kombat!
Its a Techno-Track with a Synthesizerbassline and 4/4-Drumloop!
In Mortal Kombat they used also a TB-303 for the Bassline and its
a little bit faster. I guess 150 BPM!?
ITS AN OTHER TRACK!!!!!!!
DONT TELL LIES MOVIEFAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Bad Zombie Flick
Review: You should know that any movie based on video game is doomed for failure. For example, "Super Mario Brothers", "Street Fighter" and "Mortal Combat". "House of the Dead" falls in the same catagory. It is based on a shot 'em up game, and there for plot is secondary, which is ok for an interactive game where you're where your busy keeping your self alive. But in a movie, where the audience member can only sit and watch, it's a little more important to create a stimulating story. The plot is that some kids go to an island to attend a rave. When they arrive, everyone is dead or missing. The missing have been turned into zombies, and the kids are simply trying to survive. There are several inconsistancies, like how party oriented kids become seasoned zombie killing warriors in about thirty seconds. At least the writters came up with a plausable reason for there to be lots of guns on the island. Another thing I found distracting is the use of images from the game to intercut (and sometimes replace) the action in the movie. The zombie make-up was alright. The gore is there, but light. The acting is non-existant, and dialog is minimal. I did like the back story of how the zombies came be. I wish that they could have explined the process a little better, though. All in all, it could have been better.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Shed of the Dead. 1 star for the movie, 1 for the laughs.
Review: Check your expectations at the door, or chuck them altogether:if you don't, you're going to make the tagline to Uwe Boll's zombie flick "House of the Dead" a self-fulfilling prophecy: "You won't last the Night." That's optimistic, because if you go into "House of the Dead" expecting a jolly little romp akin to Romero's classic zombie trilogy, then you'll probably not last 15 minutes.

By all conventional cinematic standards, "House of the Dead" is an execrable, miserably edited, laughably acted, mercilessly bad trainwreck of a movie. But going in with the attitude that you're going to see a glossy, professional little horror movie is the wrong attitude altogether: jettison your expectations, damn the film criticism torpedoes, and go in to be entertained by this raucously bad little $12 million grindhouse of a zombie film, and you'll have some good, cheap fun and a ton of laughs.

"House of the Dead" is about a bunch of good-looking hardbodied nubile teens, a super-secret island rave in the San Juan de Fuca Islands (north of Puget Sound), a cursed 19th century pirate and mad scientist who was into gene-splicing when gene-splicing wasn't cool, a horde of running and hopping flesh eating zombies, and what appears to be an antique shed (the film's eponymous 'House', though only the most eerily glass-is-half-full real estate agent would describe it as such). It's a big ol' undead Tuff Shed.

Oh, and there's a mystery on this island, the Isla de los Muertos: how on Earth did talented veteran German actor Jurgen Prochnow get lured into this thing?

No matter. Teens get a ride to the island rave by way paying an exorbitant amount of money to Captain Victor Kirk (Captain Kirk---get it? get it?---played stoically to the end by Prochnow) and his sidekick Salish (played horrifically by the Ice Cream Man himself, Clint Howard). From there it's by the numbers: Teens find rave deserted, Teens split up, Teens meet Zombies, Teens get eaten, Teens turn into wire-fu machine-gun toting killing Machines.

I started off feeling I had made a terrible mistake, consulted my flask, and by the end of the movie's run time I was enjoying myself thoroughly and laughing like a lunatic. Basically, "House of the Dead", in my opinion, is Uwe Boll's demo reel of what he could do (possibly) with a larger budget and some acting talent, and to tell you the truth, Boll has a gift for getting in some eerie shots in this mess---and he's as good as Ridley Scott with the old fog machine. He's also willing to lay the gore on thick: we get zombie heads blown to pieces, severed heads, a victim torn in two, and a good old fashioned zombie head stomping, and much, much more.

The acting is atrocious, and that's half the fun, but I found the actors faced "House of the Dead" in one of two ways: Good Sport & Bad Sport. The raver kids (Ona Grauer and Jon Cherry come to mind, since most of the raver kid actors just blend together) just had fun with their roles: they spew stupid dialogue, they kiss while flesh-rending zombies close in, and one guy worries about his pretty-boy looks being ruined while flesh-eaters rip through the walls. Funny stuff! Best of all, Jurgen Prochnow is the Best Sport of all: he takes those zombies down with a bad laser-equipped automatic rifle, tosses out terse little quips, and smokes Cuban cigars while tending to his zombie ravaged leg. Way to go, Jurgen!

On the Bad Sport side, we had the two 'veteran' actors: Howard and Elie Cornell, who phone their performances in---Howard is so bad you're thrilled to see him die, but Cornell eventally grew on me. Oh, and we get Kira Clavell in a red-white-and-blue leotard and rave dancer Liberty. Good times!

Yes, Boll inserts horribly pixellated screen shots from the video game on which the movie is based into the film. That's a bad enough sin, but to do it when the sanguine action is roaring? Horrible, and unpardonable, since it takes away from any kind of suspense and atmosphere the movie's action sequences are working hard to build up. If Boll had the good sense to remove the video game screenshots, this would have been a dumb, spare little B-movie zombie film and I would have tossed in 1 more star.

Finally, the high-points: 1) "House of the Dead" features that horribly under-used staple of the B-movie zombie classic: the Underwater Zombie! Welcome back, Squishy! 2) Some of our teens try to get back to Prochnow's boat, only to see a couple of zombies, their flesh sloughing off, walk out of the wheelhouse. Their reaction? "That's not Captain Kirk!" I was still laughing hours later. 3) The 10-minutes of pure, unadulterated bloodletting in bullet time. Listen, it's a movie about a VIDEO GAME!---and the fight sequences, as well as the squished and exploding zombie heads, was fun. 4)Finally, the bald zombie villain with the predilection for tights and cutlasse-fighting was hysterical: watch the final climactic fight sequence and see if you don't roar with laughter.

"House of the Dead" did its job: it took my money, it got me in my seat, and it made me laugh for 90 minutes. Is it a bloody car-wreck of a movie? You betcha---rubberneckers enjoy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: PRETTY bad...
Review: I saw this movie, knowing the bad reviews it had gotten on this site and by critics, just for fun. There wasm't much else to see and I went with a friend, so it was pretty much just for amusement. The first 20 minutes aren't too bad; the plot (not much) is told and about 15 naked women are seen, and one person is killed by a pack of FAKE looking zombies. Then more people die. Pretty soon, all that's left is about 5 kids, each HORRIBLY acted. There's also a sailor and his captain. Yeah. Need I say that the guy who plays the sailor is one of the worst actors I have ever seen. Never before have a been to a movie and actually wanted something to happen to get rid of someone just because of their acting. But this time I did. I just wanted a zombie to come up and bite his friggin' head off. It annoyed me it was so bad.

Anyway, there is one cool thing about this movie. When the zombies get shot. However, even that can grow tedious.

Anyway, these kids are complete idiots in the first part of the movie. They don't take a damn thing seriously and just want to party. However, a few minutes later, they all have to use guns to protect themselves from the zombies. It's like their the Terminator now. They walk around, standing straight up, showing no fear what so ever, completely silent, just killing any enemies in their path. And they all know how to load up their guns and everything to. Hey, I don't know about you, but I'd run from the damn zombies if I was in that situation, no matter how fake the looked. The main fight seen, in which all the kids and the captain & the cop walk towards the zombies in slow mo has to be the corniest thing I have ever seen. Then the camera freezes and circles around each one of the individualy. Maybe if this was the Matrix this would be cool, but in this it's just ridicoulus. It's as if the filmmakers didn't know that there is nothing to be taken seriously in this movie at all.

Also, the random haggard flashes of the game every minute can ruin a fight scene.

The bottom line is, even if you love the game, do no see this piece of crap. I cannot express enough how bad it was. If you want to go to the movies to enjoy yourself, this is not the movie to do it to. I swear, this has to be the worst movie of 2003.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: coolest than Day of the dead!
Review: It was the greatest movie than the romero movies. It was the coolest! I can't wait for the soundtrack and the sequel:),plus "house of the dead 4" the game:)!!!!!!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How did this film get the Green Light.!!!??
Review: This was the worst excuse for a film that I've ever seen in my life. I've seen Skinemax films with better acting and content. A lot of great effects were wasted on this movie. I would go as far as saying, Army of Darkness Blows this movie out of the water.
I'm an action junkie myself, and I can enjoy a good horror flick, but the action didn't make up for the horrible acting and the blood wasn't enough to call it a horror flick. All in all, the great effects were drowned out by the garbage one liners, and cheesy situations.
Who wrote the story anyways.
A bunch of kids who might have gotten into one fight in highschool, all of a sudden knew how to handle grenades and high power weapons and shoot pretty well with them. The asian chick is awsome with a knife (that she pulled out of thin air). What's worse.....? The zombies, my goodness. At first these zombies were quiet, quick, and cunning. Later in the movie when they surround the "victims" they were obvious, sluggish and down right dumb.
Don't waste your money on the movie theater. I would have gotten a refund on the movie if I hadn't arrived late at the movie already. I would suggest renting it with a bunch of the fella's(in order to split the costs......Yeah it's that bad), and laughing at it hysterically.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Pure Entertainment & Adrenaline Pumping Action
Review: It is very interesting to see the film version of SEGA's hit shoot 'em up zombie game HOUSE OF THE DEAD. This is exactly what you get, lots of zombie action ... along with the set-up story or pre-quel to the games! It is quite ambitious and impressive for an independent production, especially in the special effects department. I'm not really a fan of this particular genre, but I did find it quite entertaining, especially having played the arcade game a couple of times. It was kind of cool to see the zombies from the game come out towards the end of the movie. I felt like killing them myself! :)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No zombies were harmed in the making of this film ha ha ha..
Review: Wow, this could possibly be the worst film I've ever seen, and I fancy myself quite the connisewer (misspelling intended). Where's Olga Karlota's eyeball when you really need it. Is this what Hollywood thinks is a scary movies? This coloscopy of a film is a severe waste of money, etc. Pearl Forrester wouldn't make me watch it. What were these people thinking. A part of me wants to love it for all its misguided WRONGNESS, and yes, I do realize it's based on a video game, so I'll kind of have to go with that- but I have tried my hand at the game, and have pretty much been creeped out in a Resident Evil (game) type way. Having read a Fango article on it I thought what the hey (note: one star for having a coupla zombie explosions). At least I can say I've seen the remake of Jerry Warren's "Teenage Zombies". I can almost say there was an almost retro-cheesiness in all its badness. But all I can say is that there wasn't even enough things going on to yell fun stuff at the screen. Ten people in the theatre, all of them hated it -we actually talked about it on the way out!! Lame... Another horror movie that's afriad to be a horror film, with some pretty decent makeup effects to boot. Mr. Boll should be ashamed of himself in making a horror film that has no atmosfear, no empathy for characters, and finally, no respect for the genre!! Maybe years from now we'll hear somebody re-edited it or something behind the crew's back... that has been known to happen, but I feel wronged as a horror enthusiast somehow that this got greenlighted as something someone thought we'd like to see (even the dismal Wrong Turn was at least a love letter to the genre and a step in a wonderful direction). So, whoever made this dreck should think again before speaking down to an audience this badly. I actually went and hung out in the lobby twice in this film just because I was bored.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Refreshing
Review: This movie was a refreshing one for me. I love zombie/horror movie's as much as the next guy. I love them to be gory, daring, different.etc, but every now and then I just want to see a good 'ol fashion shoot 'em up movie.
This movie starts out kind of slow, but give it a chance.
Plot: Rave on an island. Zombie's live on Island. A bunch of people/zombies get killed. Awesome.
This movie also pulled a Resident Evil. It seemed to be a prequel to the video game and left itself wide open for part 2.
Don't knock this movie until you've watched it with an open mind. Only TRUE horror/zombie fans will appreciate this movie right off the bat.
For those who haven't already gone to RE2.com, you also get to see the new preview for Resident Evil 2.


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