This sequel to House of the Dead is actually better than the first one, but that’s not hard to do. The movie begins on the campus of Guesta Verde University where Professor Curien (Sid Haig) is trying to bring the dead back to life. He is subsequently bitten by his risen dead and turned into a flesh hungry zombie. So begins the zombie outbreak. This movie follows a couple of AMS (whatever that stands for) agents as they try to find the source of the zombie outbreak, the first generation zombie, so they can vaccinate the rest of humanity against a global outbreak. The agents are escorted by a group of marines some of which have more balls than brains and they’re not always reasonable, at least in the common sense. One by one the marines fall victim to the walking dead college students as the clock ticks, counting down till the whole campus is carpet bombed to contain the infection.

For the most part, this movie covers pretty well-worn territory. The new tricks they pull have been pulled before and done better. The marines are surprised by the zombies’ shambling through their usual routines as if they’re still alive (while I wasn’t since I’ve seen Dawn Of The Dead) even one that appears to be studying in the library while listening to headphones. In another scene, one of the agents gets the bright idea to smear guts all over himself so the zombies can’t smell him. I personally thought that was a good idea when I saw it in the Walking Dead comic book.

Here’s one thing that pissed me off about that scene. The two agents and the only living marine corner themselves in a room from which the only other retreat is through an air duct. The agent examines it and says something to the effect of “This can’t be open from this side”. It’s lousy air vent. The man has a gun, a big one at that. While he could blast the thing or at least use the gun to pry it off (it’s not like he’s trying to be sneaky), instead he comes up with a the plan to cover himself in zombie guts, walk around to the other side to open the vent cover so his two companions can squeeze through. Why don’t they all get covered in guts and walk wherever the fuck they want to? Nope. So, the guy, covered in guts, walks past the dead folks, around to the other side and opens the vent on the other side of the shaft. Not the vent he couldn’t open on the other side, the one at the end of the air duct that leads to the one he couldn’t open. He never even goes into the air duct to get to the other one. Ridiculous. But, this was the only thing that really pissed me off about this movie.

Somehow, Ellie Cornell reprises her role as Jordan Casper, despite dying in the first House Of The Dead movie. If I were trying to get a “No-Prize” back in the day from Marvel, I’d say she had survived as a zombie, but I’m not and that’s just stupid.

The zombies in the movie look pretty good. They’re done by the Almost Human Special Makeup FX company. I’ve seen two other movies that they worked on, All Souls Day and Gangs Of The Dead, I thought both had pretty terrible zombies in them, so I was surprised that I liked the ones in House of the Dead 2 after seeing them in the credits.

Despite it’s unoriginality and cliched everything, it’s an enjoyable watch if you’ve got the time to waste. It definitely had it’s funny moments and cool splattery gore moments too. Pick it up on the cheap if possible.

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