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Movies / On DVD / House of the Dead
House of the Dead

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House of the Dead (2003)

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Reviews Counted: 52

Fresh: 2

Rotten:50

Average Rating: 1.9/10

Consensus: A grungy, disjointed, mostly brainless mess of a film.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for pervasive strong violence/gore, language and some nudity

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Theatrical Release:Oct 10, 2003 Wide

Box Office: $10,199,354

Synopsis: It's Spring Break and University of Washington college co-eds Cynthia (Sonya Salomaa), Greg (Will Sanderson) and Karma (Enuka Okuma) just want to party. When Greg's best friend Simon Cruz (Tyron... It's Spring Break and University of Washington college co-eds Cynthia (Sonya Salomaa), Greg (Will Sanderson) and Karma (Enuka Okuma) just want to party. When Greg's best friend Simon Cruz (Tyron Leitso) tells them about a Halloween rave happening on a remote island in the strait of Juan De Fuca, they rush to recruit their heartbroken roommate, Alicia (Ona Grauer), to join them. Reluctantly, she agrees, but by the time they arrive at the party boat, it's already left for the island. Not willing to accept defeat, Simon approaches the hard-as-nails boat captain, Victor Kirk (Jurgen Prochnow) to charter his vessel, the Lazarus, to take them to the rave. Despite warnings by Kirk's jittery first mate Salish (Clint Howard), Kirk accepts the charter and welcomes the kids on board his dilapidated vessel. Unfortunately, Kirk is in the sights of his nemesis, Marine Patrol officer Jordan Casper (Ellie Cornell), who orders him to stand down and be boarded for an inspection. Kirk refuses, and sets off on the high seas with Casper in hot pursuit. Meanwhile, Johanna (Erica Parker) sneaks away from the rave to go skinnydipping with her boyfriend. Suspecting there's something in the water, Johanna rushes from the lake, only to find her boyfriend has disappeared. Quickly dressing, she sets out in search of him and encounters a mysterious ancient house. Warily entering, she opens the door and finds her boyfriend being ripped apart by bloodthirsty zombies. Johanna tries to escape, but is caught and killed by the creatures. Arriving on the island, the college friends are surprised to find the rave completely deserted. Meanwhile, Captain Kirk and his first mate Salish are desperately scouring the island for a place to secure their illegal cargo, which they are removing from the boat in the event they are caught by Casper. As they search for the missing ravers, Alicia, Simon and Karma come across the old house, seemingly built hundreds of years ago with its distinctive Spanish architecture. Reluctantly going inside, they are attacked by Alicia's ex-boyfriend, Rudy (Jonathan Cherry), Hugh (Michael Eklund) and Liberty (Kira Clavell), a go-go dancer at the rave. They are the only survivors of a horrible melee that claimed the lives of everyone else at the rave. The newcomers cannot believe Rudy's story of bloodthirsty zombies, and so Hugh plays back a videotape that shows the onslaught of deadly creatures devouring the ravers during the party. Returning to the site of the rave, the group discovers their friend Greg trapped inside an overturned porta-potty. After they free him, he begins searching for his girlfriend, Cynthia, who has disappeared. She is discovered completely transformed into a horrible, deformed zombie. Cynthia kills Hugh and is reaching out for Greg when she is blown away by a blast from the smoking gun of Jordan Casper. Unable to reach Jordan's partner on the Marine Patrol boat, they set off in search of Kirk and his boat, the Lazarus, to escape from the island. Unfortunately, Kirk has problems of his own as strange, mutated beasts begin to climb aboard and take over the boat, while the surviving ravers make a desperate attempt to reach the boat by swimming through the zombie-infested water. Attacked by creatures on land, sea and air, they do their best to fight off the creatures thathave trapped them on the island. Attempting to make it back to the house to seek sanctuary from the growing number of zombies, they square off against more of the killer beasts prowling through the woods. Staving off an attack, Greg and Casper set off in search of help while Rudy, a pre-med student, attends to Kirk's wounds. They decide that as soon as Casper returns, they'll make a break for the house to seek sanctuary from the onslaught of creatures. In the woods, the zombies attack again, killing Greg as Casper flees. Back on the beach, Kirk leads the students to a cache of weapons they hid from Casper. As he hands out a formidable array of weapons, concealed in a seemingly harmless crate, Casper joins them and they stock up on supplies. They make a break for the house where they confront hundreds of zombies, using every weapon at their disposal in order to make it inside the house. During the melee, Liberty is killed by zombies and Casper is torn apart when she attempts to get inside through a window on the side of the house. Wounded in the fight, Kirk is slowly transforming into a zombie when Rudy and Alicia discover the secret diaries of the ancient Spaniards who were marooned on the island centuries before. They learn from Kirk of a Spanish priest, Castillo Sermeno (David Palffy), who created a serum to cheat death and was banished from Spain for his affront to God and his affair with the King's wife. When they find a laboratory filled with uncompleted experiments and an enigmatic blood mixture, they realize that Castillo Sermeno is still alive after all these years, and using the living to harvest their body parts to sustain himself. As Kirk's transformation into a zombie nears its end, he hears the familiar whistling of Salish outside. Confronting his former first mate, Kirk sees that he too has been turned into a zombie. He detonates a grenade, killing Salish and himself. As the zombies flood the house, Rudy, Karma, Alicia and Simon retreat into the lab. There, Simon sacrifices his life to protect the rest of them from a brigade of encroaching zombies, created in the lab. As the survivors make a hurried descent into the catacombs beneath the house, their final confrontation with the mysterious -- and deadly -- Castillo begins. After dispatching the Moss Zombies and losing Karma to one of the attacking creatures, Rudy and Alicia find themselves face-to-face with Greg, who beckons them to a mysterious underground room, the relic cave. Here, relics have been accumulated for hundreds of years. As Rudy surveys the room, he finds the remains of Greg, his face torn from his skull. As he screams as Alicia to back away from the creature calling himself Greg, Rudy tears away Greg's face to reveal the ghastly visage of Castillo Sermano beneath. Castillo summons the zombies to tie Rudy to the operating table so he can harvest Rudy's body parts to sustain his existence and imprison Alicia as his love slave. Rudy manages to free himself of his bonds as Alicia puts a sword through Castillo. As they flee the relic cave, Rudy detonates a grenade and they rush from the massive explosion engulfing the house. As the sun rises over the scene, Rudy and Alicia are relieved to be alive. However, their solitude is suddenly broken by an enraged Castillo, who attacks them. Both Alicia and Rudy engage Castillo in vicious combat, but Castillo is seemingly victorious as he plunges his blade through Alicia's chest. Rudy angrily decapitates Castillo, who continues to fight - even without his head. Summoning the last of her strength, Alicia stomps on the decapitated head of Castillo, destroying him as he collapses into dust. Several days later, Rudy is rescued by two mysterious AMS agents in black. He is joined by another figure: Alicia. Unbeknownst to them, he has resurrected her using the mutated blood created by his enemy, Castillo, turning her into a zombie as well. As they board the helicopter that will take them home, we learn Rudy is Rudolph Curien, the infamous Dr. Curien of the House of the Dead video game, and the first House of the Dead adventure comes to a chilling conclusion. [More]

Starring: Sonya Salomma, Jürgen Prochnow, Enuka Okuma, William Sanderson

Starring: Sonya Salomma, Jürgen Prochnow, Enuka Okuma, William Sanderson, Tyron Leitso, Jonathan Cherry, Clint Howard, Ellie Cornell, Kira Clavell, Ona Grauer

Director: Uwe Boll

Director: Uwe Boll
Screenwriter: Mark A. Altman, David Parker
Producer: Uwe Boll, Wolfgang Herold
Composer: Reinhard Besser
Studio: Artisan Entertainment

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jan 27, 2004

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Reviews for House of the Dead

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Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Mark Halverson
Sacramento News & Review

Don't come looking for a story -- this is a hunt.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
01/08/07
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

How do films like these get made for video, let alone the wide theatrical run?

Full Review Source: Dark Horizons | comment Comment
01/06/07
Garth Franklin
Dark Horizons

This is one of those rare films that truly manages to get by on unintentional laughs, but otherwise dreadful.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
04/01/06
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine

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.

Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | comment Comment
07/01/05
Jeffrey Chen
Window to the Movies

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.

Full Review Source: FromTheBalcony | comment Comment
06/20/05
Bill Clark
FromTheBalcony

One of the most astonishingly idiotic pieces of entertainment I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through.

Full Review Source: Lessons of Darkness | comment Comment
05/04/05
Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness

It's so bad it could well go down in history as one of the worst zombie movies ever made.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
11/02/04
Jamie Russell
BBC

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.

Full Review Source: F5 (Wichita, KS) | comment Comment
03/19/04
Jake Euker
F5 (Wichita, KS)

Sad to say that after its unpromising opening minutes, the film defies the odds by getting progressively worse.

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment Comment
03/03/04
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central

Boll directs the film as indiscriminately as his characters fire their weapons.

Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY | comment Comment
01/15/04
Adam Nayman
eye WEEKLY

A derivative shock-horror exercise desperately in need of an IV.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
10/29/03
Scott Foundas
L.A. Weekly

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.

Full Review Source: IGN Movies | comment Comment
10/26/03
Spence D.
IGN Movies

At first, I was riveted by its awfulness. Then, about 20 minutes later, I just wanted to go home.

Full Review Source: Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) | comment Comment
10/25/03
Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

The acting is more frightening than the undead themselves and the gore is lacking, simple as that.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
10/24/03
Rudy Joggerst
Reel.com

If you wait for video, put your finger on the fast-forward button and never let go.

Full Review Source: Internet Reviews | comment Comment
10/23/03
Steve Rhodes
Internet Reviews

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.

Full Review Source: Modamag.com | comment Comment
10/22/03
Brian Orndorf
Modamag.com

A film that’s so bad, so grievously awful in so many ways, that you’re convinced that it was meant to be a comedy.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
10/22/03
David Grove
Film Threat

...sucks as both a videogame adaptation and a zombie flick.

Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | comment Comment
10/22/03
David Nusair
Reel Film Reviews

A movie is a movie, not an outlet for the most expensive arcade game ever made.

Full Review Source: Mark Reviews Movies | comment Comment
10/21/03
Mark Dujsik
Mark Reviews Movies
 
 
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Latest News for House of the Dead

May 23, 2008: Interview: Uwe Boll Talks Postal, Kevin Costner, and Answers Reader Mail
It's time to share our exclusive interview with the one, the only, Uwe Boll! Read on for our candid chat about his latest flick, Postal, how he almost cast Kevin Costner, the... More...

May 13, 2008: Five Favorite Films with Uwe Boll
We bet you never expected Uwe Boll to pick veritable classics of cinema as his favorite films of all time... More...

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 a rousing video retort of his own. Pick your side as the Battle of the Boll... More...

August 22, 2006: Uwe Boll Finds Some Punching Bags
Remember a little while back when trash-master Uwe Boll challenged his (numerous) critics to a little boxing match? Well, it seems like he finally has some takers, and the bouts... More...

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