MOVIE REVIEW: House of the Dead (2003)

The origins of 2003’s House of the Dead is quite the story, when told in steps:

• American filmmaker George Romero is responsible for making the seminal zombie movie of the 20th Century, Night of the Living Dead (1968). This film provided significant elements of zombie lore (strengths, weaknesses, origins, etc.)
• Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa created a “survival horror” film called Sweet Home in 1989, where a filmmaking crew gets trapped in a haunted mansion and must survive a vengeful poltergeist. This was adapted into a Nintendo FamiCom (NES) video game in 1989.
• In 1996, Japanese company CAPCOM created a third-person video game based on zombie lore provided by Night of the Living Dead, while also pulling from elements of the NES adaptation of Sweet Home called Resident Evil (AKA Biohazard in Japan) and used the term “survival horror” in its advertisements.
• Japanese company SEGA thought they could do better and made a first-person shooter video game called The House of the Dead, also in 1996.
• Sony Pictures bought the movie rights to Resident Evil and made a movie of the same name in 2002, starring Milla Jovovich and directed by her future husband Paul W. S. Anderson.
• German director Uwe Boll saw how well properties from different entertainment media were doing as movies and figured if Paul Anderson can make a movie about a zombie video game, why can’t he?

The person in the last step has given us the most memorable bad movie I have ever watched: 2003's House of the Dead.

Our story opens up on a group of twenty-something teenagers going to a rave on a deserted island called “La Isla del Morte” or something like that. They miss the ferry to the island, but hitch a ride with gun-running Captain Kirk (Jurgen Prochnow, Das Boot, Ridley Scott’s DUNE) and his first mate Salish (Clint Howard, Apollo 13, Barb Wire). The teens are all flat stereotypes, per the norm:

Dead meat on the move: (l-r) Karma, Cynthia, Greg, Simon, and Alicia.

• Simon (Tyron Leitso, Bloodrayne 2, Dinotopia) the dumb, sensitive one
• Greg (Will Sanderson, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne) the dumber one
• Cynthia (Sonya Salomaa, Watchmen) the slutty one
• Karma (Enuka Okuma, “Fifteen” [TV], G-Saviour) the Black one
• Alicia (Ona Grauer, Elysium, Catwoman [2004]) the hot fencing champion and girlfriend to one of the dumb guys.

All these people are now unwitting accomplices to Kirk’s gun-running and they are all chased by Coast Guard operative Jordan Casper (Ellie Cornell, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Dead Calling). They end up on the island after all and find the rave. It’s deserted, but the beer is still fresh. While they drink and explore the island, zombies are stalking their every move. Our cast of characters eventually run afoul of said zombies and run deeper inland to get surrounded by more zombies.

*insert bad rave music here for atmosphere*

They find a small house in the middle of a graveyard, where the survivors of the rave massacre are holed up. One of them had a video account of the carnage on his camera. They all look and see the impossible on the screen: zombies are killing all the ravers. The characters assume (correctly) the best course of action is to get off the island. True, but there are ninja zombies about. No matter: they’ll just run past them like before. The kids make it to Capt. Kirk’s boat and try to get away, but are held up by even MORE zombies. At some point, they go back to get Capt. Kirk’s stash of weapons on the island to save the three people left behind in the graveyard house — Alicia’s ex-boyfriend Rudy (Jonathan Cherry, They, Final Destination 2), Hugh (Michael Eklund, Stark Raving Mad) and Rudy’s new girlfriend Liberty (Kira Clavell, My Baby’s Daddy, “Stargate: SG-1” [TV]). It’s a stupid idea to face-off against legions of ninja-like undead when most of your protagonists have never touched a gun, but I didn’t write this. THANK GOD.

Liberty (Kira Clavell), Alicia (Ona Grauer), and Captain Kirk (Jurgen Prochnow) blowing away zombies.

Somehow most of them survive the horribly choreographed yet still interesting gun battle, only to retreat deeper into the house. The house has underground tunnels that leads to a zombie-filled labyrinth and a secret lab housing an interesting plot twist: the re-animated corpse of a mad 17th Century priest turned mad scientist by the name of Castillo (David Palffy, Replicant, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever). There’s some exposition and a swordfight between Castillo and Alicia. Both of them die and the only survivor — Rudolph “Rudy” Curien — is rescued by the Coast Guard. He goes to med school with the knowledge of Castillo’s previous work and the dead body of Alicia, hoping to rekindle her life with the knowledge of undeath. Within the last two minutes of House of the Dead, you learn that Rudy is Dr. Curien from the video game series and this entire movie was a prequel to the video game.

Watching Liberty use kung fu to effectively fight zombies in her American flag jumpsuit and white go-go boots is the only thing that kept me sane while watching the film.

CHOICE CUTS

• Kira Clavell as Liberty and Penny Phang as Tyranny. A double dose of sexy Asians? I’m reminded of Fook Mi and Fook Yu, the Japanese twins from Austin Powers in Goldmember.
• Kira Clavell is a raging hottie. House of the Dead sucks, but it’s better than the worst movie ever because of her.
• I remember Enuka Okuma back when she worked on the teen drama “Fifteen”[TV] and was replaced with Arseman. C’mon, who gets replaced by a person whose name begins with ‘arse’?
• Canadian musician Bif Naked is only on screen for seconds at a time, but I remember her distinctive look: tattoos, tank top, cargo pants and a jet-black bob to contrast her blue eyes and shiny piercings. One in a million, that Bif. If only she had some lines…
• I wonder if this movie is where Dawn of the Dead (2004) got its idea for “fast zombies”.
• The gunfight was horrendous with its over-used “bullet-time” and “circle cam” (a camera setup that circled around a character whenever they died in combat and faded to red), as well as the scene where one of the girls jumps and fires a shotgun in slow-mo…but doesn’t immediately go flying back like a rocket and breaking her neck in slow-mo.
• The movie editor had the gall to intercut video game footage from the arcade edition of The House of the Dead into the gun fights and scene transitions. It looked so very bad.

*BORK-BORK-BORK* *WHOO~OOM* If you were there and played the game, you know what those sounds are about and you can hear them clearly.

• The making of this movie should qualify as a crime against humanity. All who saw House of the Dead IN THE THEATERS should have a refund of their money spent on a ticket for the film, and a reissue of any free movie coupons used to see this film. In addition to the compensation above, each person should receive a written apology for making House of the Dead signed and dated by Uwe Boll.

PRICELESS QUOTES
When I first heard about this movie, I was counting the days ’til it opened. I thought it was going to rock. When I would talk on the phone with my buddy Jim, I’d always say the same thing at certain intervals:

[mouth on phone receiver, doing the announcer voice from the arcade] “THE HOUSE…OF THE DEAD”

Such was my youthful enthusiasm. I know better now.

Before we leave, I present Kira Clavell as Liberty, everyone: GOD BLESS AMERICA. ALSO: Bif Naked is DJ-ing in the center panel behind Liberty as she shakes it to the music.

I end this review with good news and bad news.

• THE BAD NEWS: Uwe Boll cornered the market on video game movies and made films based on the following properties: Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne (previously reviewed here) both in 2005, Postal and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale in 2007, and Far Cry in 2008. Since he held the movie rights to the video game properties, he was able to milk the titles and intellectual properties for sequels (Bloodrayne and In the Name of the King got TWO sequels each, while Postal got one sequel). Nearly every Internet movie fan challenged his creative abilities and final products and poor quality; one detractor threatened to assault Uwe Boll for being bad at his job. Boll took to the challenge and set up a match in Las Vegas open to all comers…and promptly whooped every challenger (because Herr Boll is a skilled boxer — a secret he kept to himself until needed). He was never put under the jail for making House of the Dead or any other bad video game movie.
• THE GOOD NEWS: The movie adaptation of the video game Hunter: The Reckoning was slated for 2007, but was thankfully cancelled.
  It was later revealed that Herr Boll was taking advantage of a German tax loophole to make his movies, so the German government closed the laws in 2005 to make the exploitation impossible by the same means. When the change to the law went into effect in 2006, all the movies above had been in the can for a while so nothing could be undone. All the same, no more movies from Herr Boll were made in the same manner. In the same vein, movie-goers got wise to his schemes and put him on blast with every release — ensuring Herr Direktor would find success in Germany, but not in international markets as he once did as international investors found him a risky investment.
  On top of that, Uwe Boll’s films are used as educational examples of how NOT to make a video game movie adaptation.