House Of The Dead is about a group of 5 twenty-somethings that miss their ferry, so they drop $500 so Captain Kirk, a fishing boat captain, can take them to an island so they can go to a rave. Once they get to the rave, after the blond shows her tits, of course, they find that everyone has up and left the rave where it stands. So, the group splits up. The blond stays at the rave with her boyfriend to fuck, while the rest of the group goes off into the woods in search of the party. They come across an old house, so they go in and find very panicky people with a video of zombies attacking the rave. The group believes it’s all a joke and go back to find their fucking friends. But, the blond is now a zombie so now they believe in zombies. A cop appears and saves the day by killing the blond zombie. They go back to the boat, which has zombies on it that all jump off and attack them. Good thing Captain Kirk has been running guns and hiding them on the island. So they get his stash and head for the cop’s boat which has been burnt or something. They figure they can’t go back to Captain Kirk’s boat since there might be zombies on it and they only have an extensive arsenal at their disposal, so they head back to the house. Presumably this is the house of the dead. Well, the front yard being completely crowded with zombies doesn’t stop them from wanting to go back to the boat which only might have zombies on it, so they fight tooth and nail to get into this house that they know nothing about. This scene is this gratuitous kill-fest complete with slick wrap-around freeze-frame shots and slow-motion bullet sequences set to metal and techno music (the scene’s so long that they ran out of metal song). They get into the house and one by one each member of the group sacrifices themselves for the good of the group until they’re down to one couple (yes, they fall in love) that have to fight the centuries old mad man behind all the zombies who is a franken-zombie himself.

House of the Dead is supposed to be based on the first-person-shooter video game of the same name. Having played the game in numerous arcades and bars all I have to say is: You could have fooled me! The video game was about a couple of agents going to a house full of zombies because of some kind of missing person case. The only thing that this movie seems to have in common with the game is the inter-spliced scenes from the game, of zombies being shot, that segue from chapter to chapter.

Most of the zombies that you see close up in this movie look pretty good. They have a healthy dose of blood, gore and decayed flesh that was well done. Some of the zombies look like guys in snow-suits wearing bad skeleton masks while being doused with lichen and moss. I’m guessing that the really bad looking zombies were meant to be more in the background and for some reason made it up front in to the position of featured zombie. One thing that bothered me was that most of the kills on the zombies were obtained by body shots, not head shots. And somehow they acquired the ability to jump really far in the woods, as if launched by some kind of spring board at their prey. Another stray from general zombie law, the head zombie’s body, after being decapitated, gets up and fights the hero until his head is crushed. What the hell is that?

It was said the director Uwe Boll meant for House Of The Dead to be campy and fun. Instead it just came off as stupid, trite, cliche and hokey. Morons will like this movie because there are boobs in it. You might like it because there are zombies. I didn’t like it because I felt dumber after watching it. Don’t bother.

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