Zombie Film Review:

House of The Dead

Director: Uwe Boll

Year: 2003

Tagline: The Game has just Begun

Review: This should be a good film, the score, the aerial shots, the cast (including Jurgen Pruchnow) and what was obviously a decent budget…. BUT the main problem with this horror film is the lack of horror and lack of any kind of concern for any of the characters. You want them to die to stop being so annoying…. The video game flashes are annoying and even Jurgen, over-acting as the salty Sea-Dog get tiresome. I cannot believe that someone was given this job and this much money and came up with this twaddle. Maybe I am getting cynical in my old age, but this is a poor film, which to be honest is only let down by a couple of things: The script, the acting, the blood effects, the gun noises, the lack of horror, the rave music, apart from that, not too bad! As a side note, I just wanted to add that I had heard many bad things about this film, so handed my money over with a little trepidation. I did watch this film with an open mind, but unfortunately even that didn't make it any less painful.

Zombie Quality: **

Why do zombies have glowing red eyes, did the director watch demons while he was in post production? Some of the zombies are very good, some are quite obviously influenced by some of Fulci's, but a lot of them suck and did I mention that there eyes glow?

Zombie Behaviour: *

Sprinting, tool using, high jumping zombies that make the bionic mans leaps seem a bit on the lame side to be honest, their activity does seem to be directly related to the music being played whilst they are being trashed, so my advice would be if you meet these zombies, go for Mozart and not Rage against the Machine and you should be fine. Exactly why would the insane Spanish Priest live forever and make zombies anyway ??? Makes about as much sense as the rest of the film!

Zombie Threat: *

Don't visit the Isle of the Dead, don't get in a boat with Jurgen, don't go to Raves on remote islands…. And you will be fine.

Gore Content: *

There is some gore, but the general atmosphere of the films makes the exploding heads and gun shots feel all a bit lame, but there is nothing more interesting than those and no bites of any description, well no bites on camera anyway.

Overall Quality: **

Why is every character good at martial arts and a crack shot, why are they not that scared, why is there a major amount of ‘bullet time' in the rock video interlude section in the middle of the film, why did they bring so much ammo. I was very impressed that Jurgen was in a zombie flick, but after watching it, he seriously needs to fire his agent.