Horror Review #2: House of the Dead

[Drace]

This thread and all upcoming threads of The Horror Review are most likely filled with spoilers. Beware.

Prequel
Welcome to another episode of The Horror Review. Now I know these are not movies, so I can not really call them episodes, but I just want to. This week I will take the review a step up the ladder by taking more time to it than the previous one, which was just a random review of me because I was mad and angry. Also, I am still deciding on a name on how to call these threads. If you have an idea, please leave it in a comment to this thread. Also, this turned out a bit longer than I wanted too. I need to learn to not tell everything XD

Horror has been around for a long time now and it always have had its own periods in time, its own unique feeling and its own ups and downs. Great classics are easy to find these days because of the care they have gotten while they were made. But some movies just rank on a level of which you do not want to know, and which movie is better than it than House of the Dead from 2003.

House of the Dead is the famed first movie by director Uwe Boll which has blown minds away. Based on a 1996 arcade shooter it had little hope to start with, but how a budget of $9 million got wasted so bad just had me stunned. It is so horrible that I have a hard time to describe it. And sadly, because of this ‘milestone’, Uwe Boll got the change to make more movies based on video games. Now I have not seen all his movies, but of the two I saw (this and Alone in the Dark), I do see connections.

Enough prequel, on to the in depth review.

The Story
Like with Open Water, the best place to fire it up with is the story, which is very basic actually. A group of five teenagers want to get to an island in the middle of wherever because there is a giant and radical party going on. They miss the boat which would have taken them to the island and need to find alternatives. During this search, they come across a weird… freaky guy who has a serious problem with his acting. Also, he is holding a hook for some reason in his right hand. Reference to ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’? Perhaps. Honestly, this was the part of the movie where I already thought of, god… what am I getting myself into? Anyhow, the weird hook guy with bad acting is the sidekick of Captain Kirk. Yes. He actually named the captain of the boat, Kirk. They try to persuade Captain Kirk with some money as one of the guys happens to be quite rich, but also dumb. Also, again, what I am going to say now is the truth. One of the main characters narrates in the beginning of the movie and says that he is a dumb ***. But to make it even worse, Captain Kirk and sidekick boy refuse to take them to the island because it is called “Island la Muerte” or something. The Island of Death in Spanish. Dumb *** persuades Captain Kirk even more and when the police comes, they agree to go. Now, after this, it gets worse. Way worse.

They get to the island and search for the party only to find no one there. Three of them decide to go search while two of them just want to goof off there. I already want to apologize for not remembering the names. If I am going to take this even more seriously, I will watch the movie before writing it, but I just could not for now. So a guy and a girl stays behind, I guess boyfriend and girlfriend, and decide to have some hot wild rawr. They’re alone, they’re young. Why not? But wait, the guy has to go to the crapper and runs off to the toilet. In the meanwhile, the other group sees a scary house, finds a couple of scared teens, and after a short explanation of what happen they go altogether back to the party. They can’t find the guy, they can’t find the girl. They hear banging from the toilet and they find the guy, covered in ****, in it. Then suddenly the girl appears, kills one of the survivors they just found and then gets killed by a female police who also has the hots for Captain Kirk. They go to Captain Kirk’s ship, followed by lots of… erm… zombies I guess… look more like regular people with bad make up but yeah… “zombies”. Captain Kirk saves them (his sidekick has died by the way, thank god), and some of them get hurt. Also, the asian girl brutally slays one of the zombies with a freaking knife. Like WHAT THE HELL?!

Anyhoe, police girl and shitguy go to the police boat for weapons and help and shitguy gets killed. Police girl gets back with loads of weapons and Captain Kirk also had a box of weapons of his own. All remaining survivors now gear up and go on a ten minute long zombie shoot frenzy at the house they found in the beginning. Hey! There is a house in this movie after all. Almost thought the name would not make sense. The police girl dies; Captain Kirk gets injured and commits suicide afterward by going outside and the remaining people find the source of the zombies. Some weird… AIDS blood or something. I’m not sure. The zombies break in after Captain Kirk decides to blow himself up with dynamite, along with the front door and window barricades, that ***. One of the remaining survivors die, the last guy, and three survivors move on in a basement. They kill some more zombies, the asian girl dies, and they seem to have found shitguy who supposedly died in the beginning. Well, he did die. The main badguy just ripped his face off and put it on his to fool them, evil basturd.

Main badguy reveals that he has found a way for immortality, making himself a zombie with his private army, and wants to kill them. Then… something happens, I don’t remember, and the surviving guy and girl go outside. Bad guy appears again and they have a sword fight, because everyone knows how to fight with swords, and the girl gets stabbed in the chest. Guy kills badguy and drags girl in, makes her a zombie, and leaves the island when the Government comes. Oh yeah, he also fell in love with the girl… ugh…

I know I made the story review a little long, but it really had to with this movie. I mean, it IS total *** and I had to let you know why. Its cliché, it does not make sense at times, putting in random action scenes when you don’t expect it, and is just ugh to watch.

The Visuals
Another part I want to complain about. The zombies look so fake it irritated me to an extreme level. I mean, god. Then the stunts, there are scenes with jumping zombies. Ok, the zombies can jump. I want to believe it, but not if you can see the machine that throws him in the air  :yell:RIGHT IN VIEW. Also, there are a lot of game fragments stopped in the movie. Like the ten minute zombie shoot frenzy, sometimes when they shoot a zombie you see them die in the game. >.<

The Acting
Like said before, some actors in this movie have some serious problems. Some don’t, I liked them for a B movie, but like the Kirk’s sidekick and the first girl to die, they were horrible.

To Conclusion
I am still skipping parts of what I want to achieve for now. Next time, I will watch the movie right before reviewing but if you saw this piece of crap, you just know why I would not want to. Audio section is still missing for now, as well as an extra comments section.
But what I am trying to say with this review is that it is a really bad movie. I can enjoy a good B movie; I can enjoy a bad B movie. But some movies take it to the extreme level and that is just one step above what I can take. Watch this movie if you want to ruin 90 minutes of your life, but I suggest you do not, for your own sake. Also, there is an actual sequel to this movie that I have, thank god, not seen yet. It is better than Open Water though.

Three out of ten stars.

[White Dwarf]

I've got that too. Three words... Erica Durance Topless.

[Hell Angel]

"Horrible Horrors" Lol...

[coasterkrazy]

"Horrible Horrors" Lol...

On that subject, maybe it is a different kind of horror Drace is talking about when he does these reviews... hmm...

But yeah, I'll have to stay away from these movies.

[Drace]

I am actually using Charas as a testing ground for my experiments.

[Djanki]

Oh, my god, you poor soul.....0_o I can't believe you would do this....watching House of the Dead is bad enough, but Alone in the Dark, too?! Not even St. Peter has such resolve...!

[Prpl_Mage]

You gotta watch that old 1980s horror movie; black and white, zombies and a lawnmower. That's epic.

But then again, I'm not a fan of horror movies, they are all rather cliché.

[Drace]

You gotta watch that old 1980s horror movie; black and white, zombies and a lawnmower. That's epic.

But then again, I'm not a fan of horror movies, they are all rather cliché.

You mean Braindead? I remember it in colour and that it wasn't that bad.

[Drace]

The new review will be up either saturday evening or sunday at some random time of the day. I know most people think like, oh... ok.. I don't care, but still =P I'm informing you all for myself to keep me to it. I'm lazy.

Also, this is planned because I'm rescheduling it to the weekends. Then I have enough time to watch the movie beforehand and comment on it in more quality.

[Red Fox]

I like it. The review that is, not the movie. Haven't seen any of Uwe's movies and will not for from what I have understood he doesn't make movies. He makes rape, rape of good games.

Later when you "upgraded" your reviews and they still have this quality then you going to kick ***.

[Drace]

If you haven't noticed yet, let me make it easy for you.

DEAD PROJECT

I killed this project in order to make space for a different one. No more written reviews, next is video reviews. I am going to work on the script soon and figure out how to do this in my own way.

[Hell Angel]

I was actually keeping my eye out for the next one. Videos work too, then... Unless you're ugly...

[Almeidaboo]

I've got that too. Three words... Erica Durance Topless.

Google'd...

Boner'd.

[Drace]

I was actually keeping my eye out for the next one. Videos work too, then... Unless you're ugly...

Only voice. I'm going to show the movies with a voiceover of my review. Of course, made so that I can do something with he images. Maybe I'll show myself in later reviews, but I don't have a camera. So yeah.

[Hell Angel]

Oh, well yeah -- That sounds good.