HOUSE OF THE DEAD
2003
Based on: The House of the Dead series (various consoles, most notably Arcade)
Directed by: Uwe Boll
Starring: Jonathan Cherry, Ona Grauer, Tyron Leitso, and Ellie Cornell
Here we are. Another video game movie awaiting judgment, and while Super Mario Bros. may not have fared well, 'House of the Dead', a film adaptation of the classic light gun series, find itself casting a long dark shadow over not just Mario but all others from the game world who have dared to grace the silver screen. Anyone who has heard of Uwe Boll or is familiar with his work knows that just about everything he touches has an opposite Midas effect. How bad could a game, already skimping on plot, really be when it's translated to the big screen?
For a bit of a background, the original game takes place when two agents, G and Rogan, find themselves investigating a large mansion to find out the cause for many disappearances and strange goings on. They become wrapped up in a house littered with zombies and other creatures, hence the title. With five entries under the game's belt, all of them just as ludicrous as their counterparts, one would guess that there is ample plot to work with in some way. Sometimes, a movie wins points for originality, though.
That would not be the case here. While the concept is intriguing, it takes an awful lot to believe this would actually happen- or even happen in a video game. See, the biggest rave of the century is going on at a small isolated island and everyone wants to be there, including our hapless 'heroes'. After chartering a fishing boat for $1000, Simon (Leitso), Alicia (Grauer), and a bunch of other fodder find themselves en route. Not only that, but to add unnecessary tension, Rudy (Cherry) is there, and as Alicia's ex-love interest, he's none to pleased to see her there, let alone with Simon. He'd be happier, one would bet,
if the crew didn't show up to a wrecked rave site when only a handful of people have survived a zombie massacre (which our group was warned of before even boarding their boat, as a reminder). That's where the fun begins.Everything plays out as one would expect, though in horrifying sequences of intense rock music and seizure inducing editing. The actual 'house' spoken of in the title is barely used, and the 'heroes' of the story are mostly unlikable brats, save for one character, Karma (played by Enuka Okuma), who is still not terribly likeable but at least fun to watch. The only real saving grace to this movie, in my opinion, was seeing Ellie Cornell (of Halloween 4 and 5 fame) appear as Jordan Casper, a National Guard type officer who tries her hardest to stop the kids from getting to the island and tries even harder to protect them once they're there. While not exactly Meryl Streep, you can see that, just like the rest of the cast, Cornell is just phoning it in. Half of the lines in the movie are disjointed, and the other half of them are so dumb, they should have been cut. This is, by the way, no fault of the actors, who certainly have shown their acting chops in other ways throughout film and television. Perhaps it was the stilted dialogue, or the half-hearted (if even existent) direction. Your cast is only as good as their source material, though.
The one thing the movie could have done right was the violence. Not only is this a zombie movie, but this is a zombie movie based on people shooting zombies. Nothing more, nothing less. The problem here is that they overdo it. 'How?', you might ask. Picture it. Our group (or what's left of them), find themselves at the edge of a forest, faced with the
task of reaching the house. What lies between them? About thirty feet of graveyard. Nothing more, nothing less. With the appearance of zombies, one would assume this might take five or ten minutes tops for all of these able bodied people to reach the house. Not so. If I remember my timing correctly, it may have been somewhere around seventeen to twenty minutes of rehashed shots looping and weird video game-esque cutaways before even one of them finds their way to the door. Not only is this incredibly dull, but it begins to mess with your senses and you zone out due to all of the flashing and cutting and loud music. Now, take that and stretch if throughout 85 percent of the movie.Yeah.
Certainly, I can say that Uwe Boll hsa a gamer's mind. You may hate him- as do most video game and cinema buffs- but there are interesting ideas strewn throughout. At one point, a character dies and it shows one of the classic cutaways as the screen bleeds to red. It's reminiscent of a 'game over' screen, and while it could have been handled better, it is only used once and comes off as incredibly stupid as a result. He also places actual scenes from the game throughout. This, though, is not really up there on the interesting ideas. While trying to stick with the idea that the movie is essentially a video game, the viewer rarely wants to see images from said game in the movie. Either Boll is a hardcore game fan or he used a lot of gimmicks to cover up the fact that this movie is about as fun as pushing a steak into your eyes and locking yourself into a room with hungry wolves.
As a huge fan of the game series, it disappoints me to see this happen. While I know it's not particularly based on one game or another (Spoiler Alert: The movie ends by surprising the audience that it's a prequel to the game series), other movies of this ilk have some kind of redeeming quality. This one, though, cops out on just about every angle, replacing anything even halfway fun with over the top dialogue, video effects, and anything else it can find to appeal to twelve year old boys who've been hit one too many times with the medicine ball.
Well, maybe it could be good for one thing. I'm sure a drinking game set to this would be fantastic.
0 comments:
Post a Comment