House of the Dead (2003)
Average Rating: 1.9/10
Reviews Counted: 55
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 53
A grungy, disjointed, mostly brainless mess of a film, House of the Dead is nonetheless loaded with unintentional laughs.
Average Rating: 2/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 11
A grungy, disjointed, mostly brainless mess of a film, House of the Dead is nonetheless loaded with unintentional laughs.
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Average Rating: 1.9/5
User Ratings: 46,605
Movie Info
Adapted from the popular Sega arcade video game of the same name, director Uwe Boll's action horror effort finds a group of partying teens stranded on an island and doing battle with a new breed of unusually mobile zombies. Looking for a place to party away spring break, college students Cynthia (Sonya Salomaa), Greg (Will Sanderson), and Karma (Enuka Okuma) hear rumors of a rave on a remote island in the Seattle area. Rushing to catch the party boat, the teens pick up friends Simon (Tyron
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Cast
-
Jonathan Cherry
Rudy -
Tyron Leitso
Simon -
Clint Howard
Salish -
Ona Grauer
Alicia -
Ellie Cornell
Casper -
William Sanderson
Greg -
Enuka Okuma
Karma -
Kira Clavell
Liberty -
Saloma Salomaa
Cynthia -
Michael Eklund
Hugh -
David Palffy
Castillo -
Jürgen Prochnow
Captain Kirk
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All Critics (55) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (2) | Rotten (53) | DVD (13)
Don't come looking for a story -- this is a hunt.
Top CriticTakes out a moviegoer's limbic brain and cerebral cortex. All that's left functioning is the reptilian brain, droning: Kill The Things. Kill The Things...
Here is yet another video game transferred to film with little enhancement or development.
To properly convey the jaw-dropping shoddiness of this videogame-based 'horror' 'movie,' one must approach what scientists call Absolute Stupid.
Misbegotten horror movie adaptation of the best-selling video games.
Idiotically written, badly acted and directed, with Boll underlining the film's gory video game plot by intercutting video game effects into the slaughter, it's a staggering failure on pretty much every level.
So willfully opposed to everything that decades of refinement have established as cinematic grammar that I am unable to decide if Boll is a genius or just evil.
This is the first live-action horror movie based on a video game that I've ever seen in which the game's animation is actually used as a repeated special effect. This is not a good thing.
How do films like these get made for video, let alone the wide theatrical run?
This is one of those rare films that truly manages to get by on unintentional laughs, but otherwise dreadful.
There is an extended sequence in which every individual character goes bullet-time, and [Uwe] Boll must think it's so cool just because they're in bullet-time.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit A in the evidence that no more video games, under any conditions, should be made into movies.
One of the most astonishingly idiotic pieces of entertainment I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through.
It's so bad it could well go down in history as one of the worst zombie movies ever made.
Resides amid half-remembered fragments of Cinemax soft-core, Turkish remakes of The Exorcist, and third-string Troma releases such as Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid.
Sad to say that after its unpromising opening minutes, the film defies the odds by getting progressively worse.
Boll directs the film as indiscriminately as his characters fire their weapons.
A derivative shock-horror exercise desperately in need of an IV.
While not as technically brilliant as some zombie fare, HotD more than makes up for this lack in terms of sheer heart. Sure, it's a low-budget venture, but it doesn't feel forced or contrived, but rather revels in its low-budget restraints.
At first, I was riveted by its awfulness. Then, about 20 minutes later, I just wanted to go home.
The acting is more frightening than the undead themselves and the gore is lacking, simple as that.
If you wait for video, put your finger on the fast-forward button and never let go.
Dead is so artistically and creatively bankrupt that it boggles the mind just how a miserable little picture like this could sneak into theaters and enjoy a theatrical run.
This listless big-screen blow-up of the Sega video game reduces horror genre conventions to banal clichés.
...sucks as both a videogame adaptation and a zombie flick.
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Latest News on House of the Dead
May 23, 2008:
Interview: Uwe Boll Talks Postal, Kevin Costner, and Answers Reader MailIt's time to share our exclusive interview with the one, the only, Uwe Boll! Read on for our candid...
May 13, 2008:
Five Favorite Films with Uwe BollWe bet you never expected Uwe Boll to pick veritable classics of cinema as his favorite films of all...
April 11, 2008:
Uwe Boll Launches Pro-Boll Campaign; Which Side Are You On?In response to an online poll calling for his early retirement, German filmmaker Uwe Boll has posted...
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Movie: ID: 14277 Title: House of the Dead Release Date: 2003-10-10 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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