House of the Dead (film)

Infobox Film
name = House of the Dead


amg_id = 1:282966
imdb_id = 0317676
writer = Mark A. Altman
Dan Bates
starring = Jonathan Cherry
Tyron Leitso
Clint Howard
Ona Grauer
director = Uwe Boll
producer = Uwe Boll
Wolfgang Herold
distributor = Brightlight Pictures
released = October 10 2003
runtime = 90 minutes
language = English
budget = $9,000,000
followed_by = "House of the Dead 2"|

"House of the Dead" is a 2003 film adaptation of the successful 1996 light gun arcade game of the same name. The film was directed by Uwe Boll and was released on October 10, 2003 in North America.

Plot synopsis

A group of teens want to reach an island where a rave is being held. They pay a smuggling ship-owner, Kirk, to take them to the island despite the fact that he is being pursued by the police. Once they arrive at the rave they find no one. It is only later that they realise that zombies have attacked the rave and killed everyone. The zombies also seize Kirk's boat preventing the teens from escaping the island. Teaming up with Kirk's nemesis, Jordan Casper, and arming themselves with Kirk's smuggled goods, they attempt to fortify themselves in an old house in the middle of the island.

Characters

*Alicia (Ona Grauer), the female protagonist and Rudy's ex-girl friend. After their breakup, Rudy went to medical school and Alicia took up fencing lessons, which prove useful during her face-off with the zombie-leader "Castillo". After she is stabbed in the chest, Rudy takes an axe and decapitates Castillo. This however, does not kill him; instead, his headless body begins to choke Rudy, at which point Alicia crushes his decapitated head, killing him.
*Karma (Enuka Okuma), Alicia's close friend, who has a crush on Simon. She is killed while fighting off the zombies in the underground tunnels.
*Simon (Tyron Leitso), the good-looking and vain friend of Alicia, who tries to hit on her. He provides Alicia's friends with passage to Isla de Muerta by offering Kirk a handsome sum of money. Later he gets an acid-burn on his face from a dying zombie. He sacrifices himself by shooting the kegs of gun-powder in the courtyard to kill the zombies and help his friends escape.
*Greg (Will Sanderson), Cynthia's boyfriend. While he and Casper search for the boat, they are attacked by a horde of zombies. Greg is seemingly killed. Later, Castillo uses his skin to hide his identity. He is only revealed when Rudy discovers the skinless Greg, still alive and hanging from the ceiling of Castillo's laboratory. Greg dies after the grenade explodes, destroying Castillo's domicile.
*Captain Victor Kirk (Jürgen Prochnow), ex-navy and a smuggler who helps Alicia's friends to get to the island, despite initial hesitation from his first mate, Salish. Kirk is the most self-assured member of the group and the only one not taken by surprise by the living dead. He also relates Castillo's tale to the group. He is wounded later in a gun-fight with the zombies and blows himself up with a stick of dynamite, hoping to be reunited with his dead first mate. His last words are "See you in Hell, boys!"
*Salish (Clint Howard), is Kirk's first mate who always dresses in a yellow fisherman's coat and hat. When introduced he is shown with a hook, reminiscent of "I Know What You Did Last Summer". He is deathly afraid of Isla de Muerta but doesn't argue with Kirk when he decides to lead the teens there. Salish is killed by zombies while hiding Kirk's merchandise. He is later shot by Kirk who then blows himself up in order to join him in the here after.
*Jordan Casper (Ellie Cornell), Kirk's nemesis. She dies when she loses her legs and bleeds to death. Regardless, she also appears in the sequel.
*Rudy (Jonathan Cherry), the male protagonist who is on the island when the zombies attack. He is the first to barricade in the house with Liberty and Hugh, who captures the strange events on his cam-corder. Rudy makes remarks about Castillo's experiments, calling them "fucking genius". The movie begins and ends with Rudy's narration, indicating he is the only survivor of the incident. His name implies a family tie to the antagonist of the original House of the Dead arcade game.
*Hugh (Michael Eklund), a nerd who records the zombie attack on the rave on his cam-corder. He is a big fan of George Romero's zombie-films. In one of his lines he says: "They say he's making a fourth [movie] but I'm not holding my breath." (Land of the Dead was released two years after the film.) The zombified Cynthia breaks his neck with ease when the group tries to find her.
*Liberty (Kira Clavell), an Asian-American rave-girl. Rudy hints that he and her are dating to raise jealousy in Alicia. Liberty is shown having uncanny talent with kung fu, but is killed in the fire-fight with the zombies with Rudy forced to watch in horror.
*Castillo (David Palffy), the creator of the zombies and the antagonist of the film. He has an underground laboratory leading from the tunnels under the house. He was once a Spanish priest and a prisoner who escaped and murdered the entire crew of the ship that was transporting him. He has created a strange blood-shade liquid that can instantly turn corpses into zombies. He is killed by Alicia.

Game references

*The Sega logo features prominently at the rave. Sega is the company that made the original game.
*Several clips from the first three games in the series can be seen in the opening credits and inserted throughout the movie's sequences.
*The then Sega of America president Peter Moore and game series creator Rikiya Nakagawa both portrayed zombies in the film. Both are credited at the end of the film under "Special Thanks".
*At the end of the film, the survivor is rescued by a helicopter. As it is landing, two men dressed in trenchcoats get off the helicopter. This is a reference to the original House of the Dead video game, in which the protagonists are two special agents from the AMS. Furthermore, one of them is known as "G", the codename of one of the main protagonists from the House of the Dead games, though the character in the movie and game are not the same, as they are of two different ethnic backgrounds.
*At the end, it was revealed that the last name of the protagonist is Curien, the same as the villain in the first and third games, as well as the movie sequel.

Response

Both critics and fans of the genre widely rejected the film. It currently holds a 4% on "Rotten Tomatoes". IGN Movies, however, gave it three out of five stars, citing it as "an unabashed B-movie that does an incredibly decent job with a limited budget, unknown cast, and routine storyline."' [ [http://movies.ign.com/articles/455/455198p1.html IGN: House of the Dead Review ] ]

Director's cut

A director's cut of the film was released on DVD on 9 September 2008. The new version "features new dialogue, alternative takes, pop up commentary and animation from the original video game." [MrDisgusting, " [http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/12662/ 'House of the Dead Director's Cut: Funny Version' ART and Specs!] " on "Bloody-Disgusting.com" (June 19, 2008).]

External links

* [http://www.house-of-the-dead.com/ Official movie website]
* " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317676/ House of the Dead] " at Internet Movie Database
*
*
* [http://tenchionline.com/ragey/Cartoons/HouseOfTheDead.htm Coverage at Random Action Hour]

Footnotes