May 23 2004
Movie: “House of the Dead” (2003)
House of the dead (2003) directed by Uwe Boll
Starring Jonathan Cherry, Tyron Leitso, Clint Howard and Jurgen Prochnow.
Zombie Film Rating:
Summary: A group of teens arrive late to attend a rave held on a remote island (Isle de Muerto), they charter a fishing boat (The Lazarus) owned by Captain Kirk (Prochnow) and when they arrive they find all the other party goers have disappeared. They naturally split up to search the island, and one of their party is attacked by zombies.
A coast guard (or police or something) member enters stage left, it seems she is after Captain Kirk for smuggling, and she escorts the party back to the harbour where Kirk dropped them off.
During this time Kirk and Salish (his first mate) have come under attack, and at the arrival of the party Kirks whereabouts are 
unknown. A shootout with the zombies takes place, and Kirk makes his reappearance. More importantly he reveals that he has been smuggling guns, and arms the entire party.
The party, now heavily armed, makes their way to the only structure on the island (Um, the house of the dead), and in a dazzling use of the same special effect over and over and over again, they reach the relative safety of the house.
More zombie shenanigans ensues, and eventually the only survivor is rescued. Of course we knew he was the only survivor as he told us this in the first 2 minutes of the film.
Critique: Holy crap…where to start. I first saw this movie when it came out in theatres (I believe I am personally responsible for 15% of this films revenue based on that one attendance), the 
theatre had one person other than my GF and me in it.
This movie is bad. Not good bad, but bad bad.
Filmed in Vancouver (this was a little difficult to extract from the directors commentary, as they spend 5-10 minutes discussing starbucks coffee), the movie is barely a zombie film. While it does feature the mandatory gratuitous nudity in the initial stages, there is no suspense and the characters are beyond plastic (latex?).
Clips from the video game are randomly thrown in, as some sort of homage to the inspiration to the film, but beyond possible causing some sort of epileptic seizure in the audience, they serve no purpose.
Worse, the main character (generic tough hombre cum sensitive male number one) tells the audience in the openning scene that EVERYONE ELSE IS DEAD, which kinda takes away from any suspense we may feel as they die during the film.
Yep…this movie is a stinker…
3 Responses to “Movie: “House of the Dead” (2003)”
Earlier in the list you said “Raiders of the Living Dead” was the worst you’ve seen, but I would contend that “House of the Dead” was 90 min. of my life that I will never get back, and would be willing to come up north (the film was made in Canada), and personally demand that whoever made the movie pay for my therapy. I mean, a movie based on a video game is an iffy prospect, but they didn’t even try to make it terrible. Hell has a place for them, I’m sure.
Hey Sam,
Technically it’s “later” in the list, as it’s in descending order of date, but that aside even “House of the dead”, diseased bodily discharge that it is is a smidgen better than “Raiders of the Living Dead”. While Uwe Boll should suffer some atrocity, raiders lacked any redeeming qualities what so ever…. 10 minutes at a stretch with no dialogue, the pacing was murderous, the acting horrific….
So yes, as much as it pains me, there are worse films out there than this one, if it’s any consolation we’re comparing different shades of excrement…
UWE BOLL’S MOVIE PROJECTS.
Uwe Boll ia a worst film maker in the world.
Boll ruined House of the Dead movie which it is total shit and Alone in the Dark will be worst as well.Boll has made Bloodrayne movie which is not going to be good also working on Far Cry,Hunter:The Reckoning,Dungeon Siege,Fear Effect and he can stuff up Namco’s Ninja Assault game and turn it into a crap movie.
F##@ YOU Uwe Boll your movies suck scumbag.
BRUCE ACOSTA
AUSTRALIA.