{Caution, long rant, no spoilers}

Dear House of the Dead,

I rented you last night. I'm a big fan of zombie movies, and while I'm sure I haven't seen them all I have seen about 85% of them. I just wanted to know that you sucked, I mean really sucked. Keep in mind that Zombie fans can put up with a lot of crap, the best of the Zombie films aren't even that great comparatively to the rest of the industry. But you went totally beyond that. I don't care about the lifeless (no pun intended) acting, and thin plot, that's almost to be expected. Most of the actors are zombie food anyways, right?

Usually in these type of things I say it's me, not you. But no, it was you. I didn't have any expectations going into it, no idea what it was really about or what the premise was. I knew you were made from a video game, that's all. I was OK with that.

In all honesty, I was more disappointed with you then anything else. You could've been something great, you had a lot of promise. You just fell really, really short of what any movie should be, and I have to wonder if you were made by someone who in fact had never seen a movie before. Was it Sega? Did Sega do this to you? Please, tell me it was Sega.

I grew up on the Puget Sound and spent a lot of time in the San Juans, you can't imagine how thrilled I was when you brought the zombie mythology right there. You also can't imagine my dismay when I realized how bad you sucked, and how little you seem to cared about the sucking. It was like you didn't even try.

1. Yeah, I know they're called the San Juan islands, but it's not because Conquistadors or spanish pirates were hanging around the area. 2 different historical periods across 2 different hemispheres. A greek captain who changed his name to Juan de Fuca from Apostolos Valerianos was hired by the Spanish to check that area out about 400 years ago. He found a strait, and some islands, named it all after himself and split. Didn't hang out long at all, didn't even follow the strait that far. No one else really did much until a couple of hundred years later when Vancouver mapped the area and named everything.

The story went that your Bad Guy captured all the natives on the island and turned them into zombies. Again, this is the San Juans, not the South Pacific. There were no natives there. The Native Americans might've camped a night or two on the occasional island during fishing expeditions, but I think they would've got in their boat and split once the crazy white man showed up. They were pretty sensible people.

And those flashbacks of your Bad Guy getting hanged? Once he opened his eyes and lived the soldiers would've cut off his head. When that failed they would've probably chopped him into pieces with their swords and burned the rest. He wouldn't have lived. They were pretty sensible people too.

Historical quibblings aside, because after all they can almost be overlooked, you sucked in many other ways that are unforgivable.

2. The rave of the year had about 30 people at it and was sponsored by Sega? Somehow I don't believe this. I've been to a couple really crappy raves in my time, and they mostly kicked your rave's ass.

3. Capt Kirk lets his passengers off in a tiny rubber raft that wouldn't be able to hold them all, yet not 20 mins later in the movie we see there's a dock right there next to the area where they were let off at. WTF?

4. Every time, and I mean every time, you started to suck me in or do something somewhat cool, you showed the damn video game, crappy graphics and all. Over and over again. Yeah, I got it. It's from a video game. Stop it already.

5. Your zombies sucked. At least what I barely saw of them did. You know they sucked too, otherwise you would've show them for more than a half second at time. Not showing them didn't make them scarier, it made them lame.

6. Your Bad Guy sucked. You showed a lot of him. He looked like he had magic marker drawn across his face. Was there a Sharpie tie in I missed? He wasn't scary at all.

7. The big fight outside of the house once everybody got their guns? That really sucked. I'm sure it was supposed to be really cool and all, but dang. Too much video game footage, too much of that stupid overused pan and rotate image effect, too many close ups... There was hardly any actual action shown, everytime something started to get good you either cut away, zoomed for a super close up, or did the damn pan and rotate thing. The one scene that could have somewhat redeemed you, you totally ruined.

8. The ending, when the govt agent guys come out of the helicopter, that really sucked. If they'd known about it, the island would've been quarantined and off limits. That's actually fairly easy to do, and has been done for real reasons in real life in the past. It was just stupid and I guess yet another tie in to the video game.

Really, there are at least 10 other things I could write about. Those are all just the tip of the iceberg. What hurts most of all is that you had potential. You could've been something cool. But alas, it was never meant to be. It wasn't me, it was you. Really.

Signed,

A guy who really thought you sucked.

If you didn't think it would suck from the trailers alone, You were only fooling yourself.

Yeah, what did you expect? If you saw a single trailer or commercial for this film, you knew what you were getting yourself into.

If it was made in Europe many dvdtalkers would be saying it's the greatest movie ever

btw, I hear the same guy that F*** up HOUSE of the Dead is going to direct BLOODRAYNE...please tell me this BLOODRAYNE isn't based on the uber cool video game

That is SO true.

I didn't see any of the trailers for it, went in blind. Trailers generally suck anyways.

::

question: why is the film called "House of the Dead" yet it all takes place pretty much all on an island?

I haven't seen it, yet by your gripes with the film, it must make "Hell of the Living Dead" look like a masterpiece

That's like saying "who needs to read any road signs saying Road Ends: Cliff in 1 miles, they arent very helpful to begin with"

In this case if you had heard ANYTHING about this film, you would have saved yourself time and trouble. Apple.com should be your friend on this before going to the local blockbuster.

The film is based on the SEGA coin op video game called HOUSE OF THE DEAD where you shoot your way through...a house of dead creatures. It was a verycool game and one of the only coin op games where I made it all the way to the end Boss and finished the game

The bullet time slo-mo scene for EVERY SINGLE character was just so kewl!!! It ROX!

About the best thing you can say about this movie is that it included a few topless scenes. They were once a staple of low budget horror movies, but you don't see them very often anymore. I have noticed a resurgence in horror movie breasts this past year, though, which is encouraging. Freddy vs Jason and Cabin Fever both prominently featured them as well.

But otherwise, House of the Dead is pretty bad. About the same as your typical direct-to-video horor movie.

oh I know the game, I love shooter games, but I found this one annoyingly difficult, I wasted alot of quarters on this one.

I was going to start a thread asking if there was ANY sort of redeeming quality to this flick...

But, I guess what I really wanted to know if there were any boobies...

I loved this film.

It was hilarious.

"Why did you do this? To be immortal?!"

"To live forever!"

Such an awful movie that it actually became entertaining. The script, the gratuitous overuse of bullet time, the captain from Das Boot playing almost the same character (even his clothes were the same!), a bunch of rave-happy kids suddenly turning into kung-fu and munitions experts... This was class Z-grade horror all the way!

I still wanna see it - it looks bad in a good way. Besides - it can't be as terrible as Wing Commander... Freddie Princzscszzs jr. isn't in it.

so....renaldow,

did House Of the Dead ever write back..?

I have my letter from Die Hard framed on my wall.

oh..

and, seriously, were there any boobies in this movie..?

Not yet, but I'm hoping

I actually sent that letter to the movie care of the director Uwe Boll. I'd be surprised if he answers.

A couple sets, but none that original or interesting. The one girl with big breasts who runs around the whole movie in a top that's about to fall off... never does.

HAHAHAHA... great Simpsons reference! "Dear Die Hard...."

MATT

house of the dead licked complete nuts

For once, Giantrobo, I agree with you.

for once?

I think the reason they became instant kung-fu machinegunners is because the raver kids took the advice of George McFly:

"When you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything!"


Or its just a bad script.


I just cannot get over that there is no house with any dead in it. Thats like calling a movie "Biker Lesbians from Mars" and not having a single lesbian ride a bike.