House of the Dead (film)


House of the Dead is a 2003 action horror film, and an adaptation of the 1996 light gun arcade game of the same name produced by Sega. An international co-production of Canada, Germany, and the United States, the film is directed by Uwe Boll and stars Jonathan Cherry, Tyron Leitso, Clint Howard, Ona Grauer, Ellie Cornell, and Jürgen Prochnow. It received mostly negative reviews.
It was later followed by a sequel, House of the Dead 2 in 2005.

Plot

After booking a boat trip to attend a rave on an island located off the coast of Seattle named "Isla del Morte", two college students, Simon and Greg meet up with three girls: Alicia, Karma and Greg's girlfriend Cynthia. When the five arrive at the dock, they find that they are late and the boat that is supposed to take them to Isla del Morte has already left. A boat captain named Victor Kirk and his first mate Salish offer them a ride on their boat.
Arriving at Isla del Morte, they find the rave site messed up and deserted. Alicia, Karma and Simon leave the site to go find anybody around while Cynthia and Greg stay behind. As Greg and Cynthia are about to make out in a tent, the former leaves to urinate. Alone in the tent, Cynthia is killed by a group of zombies. Meanwhile, Alicia, Karma and Simon find a derelict house and as they attempt to investigate the place, they discover Alicia's ex-boyfriend Rudy, Liberty and Hugh, who inform them of a zombie attack during the rave. The six leave the house to fetch Greg and Cynthia. Meanwhile, the zombies kill Salish when he is alone in the forest.
Alicia, Rudy, Karma, Simon, Liberty and Hugh return to the rave site and find Greg. A zombified Cynthia comes out from behind a tree and kills Hugh but is killed when Casper arrives and shoots her. They form a plan to return to Kirk's boat and leave the island. When they return to the beach they find zombies on Kirk's boat. Casper and Greg leave the group to go find help, but Greg is killed in the forest.
Kirk reveals the island's history; Isla del Morte was home to a Spanish Catholic priest named Castillo Sermano, who was banished from Spain in the 15th century for his dark experiments, which the Catholic Church forbade. Castillo murdered the crew of St. Cristobal, the ship that was taking him to the island, enslaved the island's natives, and murdered anyone who visited the place. He then created the immortality serum which he injected himself with, allowing him to live forever and return dead souls to life and support his cause. Kirk leads the group to a spot in the forest where he has hidden a box full of guns and weaponry. Once everyone is armed, they decide to head back to the house only to find the courtyard filled with zombies. Liberty and Casper are killed in the ensuing fight and Alicia, Rudy, Kirk, Karma and Simon manage to take shelter inside the house.
When Kirk is alone, he hears Salish whistling outside. He goes outside and sees Salish as a zombie. Kirk sacrifices himself by killing Salish and a bunch of zombies with a stick of dynamite, but the explosion also blows up the entrance to the house. The remaining four lock themselves in a lab inside the house, but the zombies break in. Karma finds a hatch in the floor which she, Alicia and Rudy use to escape. Simon sacrifices himself to kill the zombies by shooting a barrel of gunpowder, blowing up the house and the zombies. Alicia, Rudy and Karma find themselves in tunnels. They make their way through the tunnels, but Karma is killed by zombies as she attempts to hold them off as Rudy and Alicia flee.
Alicia and Rudy are aided out of the tunnels by a mysterious man wearing Greg's face as a mask. The man is revealed to be Castillo Sermano, who then orders a horde of zombies to restrain Alicia and Rudy in an attempt to kill them and use their flesh for his own purposes. Alicia and Rudy escape Castillo, blowing the tunnels up in the process. Castillo manages to survive the blast and Alicia gets into a sword fight with him. Castillo stabs her in the heart, and Rudy manages to decapitate him soon after. However, the still-alive headless body of Castillo begins to strangle Rudy. Alicia, who is barely alive, gets up and crushes the head under her foot, which finally kills him. Although Alicia seemingly dies, she and Rudy are rescued by a team of agents. The agents ask for Rudy's name, to which he responds with Rudolph "Curien". The ending narration reveals that Rudy gave Alicia the immortality serum. The two survivors return home.

Cast

Box office

House of the Dead grossed $10.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $3.6 million in other countries, for a total gross of $13.8 million, against its budget of $12 million.
In its opening weekend the film grossed $5.7 million, finishing sixth at the box office.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes the film was ranked as the 41st of the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with an approval rating of 3% based on 61 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "A grungy, disjointed, mostly brainless mess of a film, House of the Dead is nonetheless loaded with unintentional laughs." On Metacritic the film has a score of 15 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". In 2009, Time listed the film on their list of top ten worst video game movies of all-time.
IGN 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.

Music

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was released in late 2003 through ZYX Records. The album featured many bands from Boll's home country of Germany.
;Track listing
Songs that are not included on the soundtrack album
The film's score was composed by German composer Reinhard Besser. Besser would later compose the score for another Boll film in 2005 with Alone in the Dark. The score was released on March 29, 2013 through Playground Worldwide.
;Track listing

Director's cut

A director's cut of the film was released on DVD on September 9, 2008 distributed by Lionsgate. This version features new dialogue, alternative takes, pop-up commentary and animation from the original video game.