Review: House of the Dead

Credentials: 4% Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com) / 15 out of 100 (Metacritic.com) / 2.0 out of 10, #53 on Bottom 100 List (Imdb.com)

Plot: Various twentysomethings hear tell of a huge, crazy rave going down on a deserted island. Of course, when they arrive, they find the island isn’t really all that deserted after all. It’s inhabited by the reanimated corpses of Spanish sailors who died hundreds of years earlier. As is often the case with reanimated corpses, if they bite you, you turn into one of them. Along for the ride to help our twentysomethings survive are a crazy boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow), his crazy first mate (Clint Howard) and a pretty blonde coast guard officer (Ellie Cornell)… who might just be crazy.

Why it stinks: Uwe Boll.

                What? You want more than that? What more do you need than the psychotic German director behind such other craptastic wonders as “BloodRayne” and “Alone in the Dark.”

                And as awful as those movies are, “House of the Dead” is worse. Way worse.

                Thanks to some bizarre editing decisions, “House of the Dead” comes dangerously close to mimicking the severe boredom that comes with watching someone else play a videogame. The movie’s full of random videogame effects and even clips for god sakes. 

                Also, it seems like Boll was going through a bit of a Wachowski phase, or perhaps in his addled brain he thought he was the third sibling. Lana, Andy and Uwe. Either way, “House of the Dead” makes liberal use of “Matrix” staples like the 360 spinning cameras, bullet-dodging slow mo, etc. Yawn. Been there done that already Bollsy.

                Now, I know this movie is trash and you’re not supposed to pay attention to small details like this, but I can’t help it. Our twentysomethings come to this deserted island for a weekend long rave with nothing but the clothes on their backs. NOTHING! No change of clothes, no tent, no sleeping bags. Not a single luxury. Like Uwe Boll in an intro to film class, they’re as unprepared as can be! As unprepared as can be!       

                Come on people. You couldn’t have had one of the guys carrying a backpack or something? Just sell it a little bit. Put a modicum of effort into your movie.

                The acting, the story, it’s all contrived gibberish.

I refuse to address any of the rest of the actors by name, because they all stink. There’s one sentence that pretty much sums up how awful “House of the Dead” is: Clint Howard is by far the best part of the movie.

                Somewhere Ron Howard just started vomiting uncontrollably.

Worst of the worst

    

            Probably the big shootout scene on the front lawn of the house of the dead. Oh yes, the dead actually have a house in this movie. And you thought it was just a cheap line for the title. Anyway, that’s were Boll goes full Wachowski on all our butts. He pretty much manages to capture all the worst parts of “Matrix” 2 and 3 minus the philosophizing.

Video Evidence

                And there you have “House of the Dead.” Bumblebee tuna.