House of the Dead...who saw it?

Cafe Society
1

I haven’t, but I’m sure I will, because that’s the sick kind of masochistic bastard I am. When I first heard they were making a movie of this game, I was excited, because the game was pretty damn cool. Then I learned what they were doing with it, and it looked like utter, utter shit, and I was sad that they ruined such potential, but glad that it looked too terrible to ever hit theaters, so I wouldn’t have to waste that much money on going to see it. Now, it’s in theaters, and I just know I’m going to spend too much to see it, because I’m a huge zombie fan and I hate myself.

So, who’s seen this monstrocity and what do you have to say about it (positive and negative comments welcome, although I’m pretty sure it will be more of the latter).

2

I haven’t seen it and have no desire to.

And the really sad part is that the plot of the game would make an excellent movie.

3

Assuming the acting in the movie was better than the acting in the game.

And from what I’ve seen, the movie has nothing to do with the game. Makes you wonder why they bothered paying a royalty, if they were going to rearrange it beyond recognition…

4

Possibly to get some money out of Sega for the production.

Yeah, the game plot would have been great, that’s why I was excited about the movie when I first heard about it. Then I went to the website and was heartbroken.

I’m still curious if there’s anything enjoyable about this movie or not, that’s why I’m wondering if anyone saw it so I can have something more to expect when I eventually break down and go check it out myself (stupid lack of willpower).

5

I saw it and it was possibly the worst thing ever stuck on celluloid since that time the projectionist ran out of toilet paper. Awful acting, horrible plot and the dialog was so bad, that at one point my buddy was almost in tears. For the first half hour of the movie I was actually writing a review for SomethingAwful.com in my head (this is not a good thing as they only review horrible straight to video releases). If I was going to give this movie the critique it deserves, I would have to book a few days off work to get it right.

All this being said, I really enjoyed it!! It was one of those ”So bad, it’s good!” type of things. Except it was more like “it’s so bad, if I don’t start laughing about it my eyes are going to bleed” things. We watched it in a theater with about 4 other people in it and they all seemed to be reacting about the same as we did. At one point, a guy in the front row asked rather loudly “Did George Lucas write this?”

So if you are the type (like me!) who can enjoy a really bad movie, this is definitely one for you.

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you!

6

That’s just what I wanted to hear, BeerDog. I’m sure no one else is going to mind so much, so how’s about giving us some spoilers? Favorite parts, stupidest scenes, crappiest line, best/worst zombie…all that good stuff.

7

SPOILER WARNING !!!

There is so much bad stuff to choose from, this could get long. Also, anyone who doesn’t want SPOILERS should skip this post.

  • The movies stars Doctor Boy and Hot Girl, two star crossed lovers who have recently ended their relationship so he could concentrate on med school and she could study fencing. That’s right, fencing! Aside from this being the most glaring sort of this-will-be-important-later plot point, I had to ask: Who the hell ends a relationship to study Fencing? The rest of the cast is just know as the I’m Gonna Die Soon players. These people are all gong to the “Rave of the year” that is being held on an island in the middle of a bay for some odd reason. Did I mention that this island is called “The Island of Death”? Sounds like the perfect party spot.

  • There is an early bit in the movie that I found interesting, they meet a guy on a boat who is wearing a yellow rain slicker and appears to have a hook for a hand. Then you see that the hook-hand is just one of those big hooks for picking up fish and he was holding it with his sleeve over his hand. This could have been a little joke at some horror story stereo-types that you always hear, the escaped mental patient hanging around Lover’s Lane and leaving his hook dangling from car doors type of thing. If they had kept up this kind of stuff it might have been interesting, or even clever…. Of course, you never see anything like this again in the rest of the movie so I’m assuming it was just an accident.

  • Another interesting point is that the Seattle Harbor patrol apparently not only gives their officers (at least the one in this movie) the usual sidearm but also a laser sighted M-16 and some hand grenades. I could almost buy the rifle, but HAND GRENADES? WTF?

  • If you are a fan of big ridiculous gunfights, then you found your movie! There is about a 20 minute gunfight (after the obligatory Commando-esque arming up scene) where the entire cast suddenly becomes expert shots, utterly immune to the laws of physics (such as recoil and gravity) and at least one of them become some sort of ninja (well, she is Asian and they all know kung-fu, right?)

  • Unfortunately the zombies are pretty unremarkable (other that the fact there are a LOT of them!) and no one re-animated corpse stood out about the others. There was one guy who you see early in the movie at the rave who had this enormous orange afro. We were looking for him through the rest of the movie because he would have made a really funny zombie, alas he never showed…. Maybe in the Director’s Cut.

  • At one point Hot Girl and Doctor Boy are doing the classic running in slow motion from an explosion thing. I’m sure it’s meant to be a riveting and exciting scene and it is, just not for the reason you would think. You see Hot Girl is quite well endowed (obviously not with acting talent), and she is wearing a little club shirt that doesn’t seem to give a lot of support to the girls. This results in the most facsinating display of Newton’s laws of Motion that I have seen in a while. I’m assuming that most of the special effect budget was spent on a matte artist who had to touch up this scene to keep those puppies sheathed. After this scene was over, my friend said “Nice explosion.” To which I replied “There was an explosion?”

These are just some of the exciting high points of this movie. It is actually kind of enjoyable in a “Plan 9 From Outer Space” way. I could go on, but my boss had this unreasonable expectation that I actually do something around here every once in a while, so I have to go pretend that I’m working.

Later Gators!

8

Jeez, where to begin. This movie was filled with every stereotypical horror/zombie line and character, it wasn’t even funny. I don’t mind a little stupidity in my zombie flick characters, but come on…

  1. Hmmm…let’s see…creepy island…guy I was with mysteriously disappears…walking through the jungle alone…come upon a creepy old house, so I’ll go inside. Uh-huh…sure.

  2. Same house, different set of idiots, now at night, and all the torches are lit up outside…still all want to go inside…yeah, that’s smart.

  3. Oh, I’m hurt , but I’m going to get up, un-bar the door, and blow myself up. Which leaves the doorway destroyed, and everyone else vunerable.

  4. I’m harbour patrol, I’ve seen all the zombies, things are really wack, but I’m going to go off with just one other person, that really doesn’t know how to use the gun I gave him. Then we’ll split up and run madly in different directions. Yeah, that makes sense.

  5. Show up at this big rave, to fine everyone gone, place trashed, but all the beer intact. No questions asked, just start partying. :rolleyes:

  6. Not sure how a single bullet would explode black powder. I’m almost positive that wouldn’t really work.

  7. A colledge kid that pays a grand just to get a boat ride? Like there were no other boats available?

  8. This island has a bad rep, and we’re scared of it, but we’ll take our smuggled goods to it, and just set them under a tree for safekeeping. On an island full of drunk kids…

The list just goes on and on and on…unlike BeerDog, I didn’t have anyone with me to make fun of it with, so it was just bad. I didn’t think anything could be worse than Cabin Fever, but this movie proved me wrong.

And I hated the game screens that were interspersed with the movie. Distracting as hell. Although there was some nice eye candy near the beginning. Gotta love the high nudie chick factor of a good zombie flick.

9

Yeah, this movie definitely benefits from having some with you to give it the MST3K treatment.:slight_smile:

I wondered about this myself, especially since it was 400 year old black powder that had kept in a wooden barrel in an open courtyard. I guess they really knew how to make stuff that lasted back then.:rolleyes:

This is one of those movies where any attempt to apply logic to the plot will result in massive brain pain. My friend (who didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as me) kept trying to point out all the things that were wrong and wound up with a sore finger and a headache. I just lost myself in the sheer horribleness of it all and had grand time!

10

I haven’t seen this movie yet. I did like this review of it on rottentomatoes.com.

Although, I must say I like BeerDog’s review much more. :smiley:

Specifically,

11

So, I finally went and saw it this Sunday, and I gotta say…it was just as bad as I hoped it would be.

The big thing, I thought I read the guy decided against including screen shots of the video game in the movie. Amazed to see he changed his mind, kept them in, and this thing still managed to make it into theaters. Holy CRAP, what a stupid fucking idea! I think the only part in this movie where I got startled was when they suddenly had a screen shot of a screaming zombie jump up on camera. Other than that, the film was a complete piece of shit.

First off, what the hell was up with the “rave”? I was laughing at the fact that the “Rave of the Century” was taking place during the day? No good raver worth their salt would be at a rave during daylight. Come to think of it, no good raver would be caught over the age of 20, for that matter.

And I like how the world’s top underwear model was hanging out with average college kids. Huh?

Also, for a zombie film, what was with the lack of headshots? Since when do zombies die from an axe to the stomach? Still, it did have some fun little moments. I liked the big shoot out on the way to the house, that was a lot of fun, actually. Although, I didn’t quite get the whole point of that damn montage when Liberty died. “Just in case you forgot what little bits of plot actually occurred so far, let me show them to you again.”
I also liked how each person had their own little Matrix-esque little action shots. I also loved how half the time, they had different weapons :slight_smile:

And although it was used way too much, I did like the use off all that “bullet time” filming when it came to the final fight. I actually thought that was rather cool. My favorite part, though, was when they find the lab, and on one of the shots of the zombie on the table, you can see the actor’s nose sticking up threw the zombie’s “nasal cavity”.

Overall, worth the matinee price to see on the big screen, but MAN what a piece of shit. I loved it.