another Clint Howard classic!!

House of the Dead

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What would Hollywood do without Clint Howard? Or video games for that matter? If it wasn't for these two things, we wouldn't have gems of movies like House of the Dead.

There have been a long list of video games turned into movies. Some are good like Doom or Super Mario Brothers (I like it because its so bad). Some are bad like Wing Commander, Double Dragon and the Mortal Kombat series.

House of the Dead falls in between for me. Its so bad... its good. But its bad, man. Real bad.

A group of people decide to attend a rave on a deserted island, the ominously called Isla del Muerta. After missing the boat ride there, they miss all the fun. And the killing. Of course, once they get there, most everyone is dead and there seem to be a terrible hoarde of zombies running amok on this island, making more zombies and ruining rave-type fun, like sex and beer drinking. And Clint Howard sees some boobs and becomes a zombie himself.

House of the Dead is based on an old Sega video game. One I think I remember playing, but I'm not sure. This one is full of blood and guts and terrible special effects and, for some reason, intersperced with scenes from the video game, which end up eating about five total minutes of screen time in this 90 minute masterpiece.

What I couldn't believe watching this one was the special effects. There were a lot of close-ups of heads exploding or being crushed or limbs being eaten, but it all looked like really bad props. This would be fine if director Uwe Boll (apparently the Ed Wood of current directors) didn't use Matrix-style bullet-time technology for fight sequences. It looks ridiculous and I think that chunk of budget would have been better spent on the gore.

Let it be known that this movie is terrible. There are gaping plot holes, dialogue that doesn't make sense (one character exclaims to another, 'What were those things?' one second, and then a second later says something about 'damn zombies' when no one said anything about zombies), bad acting, bad directing, bad casting, bad zombies (one of the looked like a zombie Kim Mitchell!) bad back story, yadda yadda... but I can't help but like it. Because its bloody terrible. Last night, I reviewed Inside Man and gave it three stars out of five, but said I would most likely never watch it again. Tonight, I review House of the Dead with two stars and I know I would watch this one again.

Uwe Boll is the new Ed Wood. House of the Dead is as terrible as everyone says it is. It deserves to be on iMDB's Bottom 100 Worst Movies of all Time list (No.# 24 ). And I loved it.

See it. You'll hate it.

Side Note: I drafted this review, and have since found out that there is a direct to Tv/DVD release called House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim . If someone would like to send me a copy of this to watch, I would appreciate it.

Second Side Note: there are aparently plans for a third movie as well...