Uwe Boll might not be the worst film director in the world, but he is certainly among the most hated. Much of that sentiment has fermented among horror video game enthusiasts who have seen their favourite franchises ruined or disgraced by Boll's notoriously bad film adaptations. He started this process with The House of the Dead, a zombie shooter game series originally started in 1996. In 2003, he directed House of the Dead, an action horror film that serves as a prequel to the game series.
The plot, narrated by Rudolph “Rudy” Curien (played by Jonathan Cherry), begin when group of five college students miss the boat that was supposed to take them at a rave party at Isla de Morte, island of the coast of Seattle. Instead they are forced to hire service of Victor Kirk (played by Jürgen Prochnow), shady gun-smuggling boat captain. Students at the island find themselves attacks by zombies and, after pairing with few surviving rave attendees that include Rudy, begin fighting for the lives, while discovering the terrible secret behind the zombie outbreak.
House of the Dead is better than its reputation might suggest, but that doesn't mean much considering that it is an Uwe Boll film at the end of the day. It is still a bad film, with Boll almost looking like he was seeking every opportunity to make the wrong creative decision and making a few right ones only by accident.
The budget of the film appears to be very low, and it is, to a point, reflected in the poor quality of the special effects, with deliberate use of nighttime scenes that make them more effective. The film features some sloppy continuity, and Boll's direction seems uninspired. The script is quite messy, with the opening narration all but spoiling the rest of the film. Boll attempts to pay some sort of homage to the source by randomly inserting video game footage into the film. It becomes quite annoying after a while, as does the major action scene during which characters perform Matrix-inspired bullet time, which is poorly made and only makes the film look like a failed "art" experiment. The cast, selected mainly for their youthful looks, doesn't add much to the film. The only exceptions are German veteran actor Jürgen Prochnow as the boat captain and character actor Clint Howard as his assistant, but their presence isn't enough to elevate this film.
However, there are a few moments when House of the Dead shows some hints of campy fun and gives the impression that it could work as a self-parody, thus earning "it's so bad it's good" status. Boll, sadly, refuses to go there, making this film a waste of time for both fans of action horror films and The House of the Dead enthusiasts.
Despite receiving predictably abysmal reviews, House of the Dead somehow managed to turn a tiny profit. In 2004, a direct-to-DVD sequel titled House of the Dead 2 was released, and in 2006, a quasi-sequel, only loosely inspired by the video games, premiered on the SyFy Channel under the title Dead and Deader.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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