So Bad It's Not Even Good at All

I am many things. Of course, first and foremost, a geek. I am also a web designer, an artist, and an appreciator of good B movies. The last part is what this rant is all about. I had the "pleasure" of renting and watching House of the Dead, that recent release based on the Sega game series of the same name, and man, I came away with some strong feelings about that stinker.

Now, I could just do a basic review of the movie, and I will outline some of the plot before I get into this, but I do also wanna compare this flick to another zombie film based on a horror game series, Resident Evil. RE is a great zombie flick, in my opinion, although many may beg to differ. Suffice it to say, even if you didn't really like RE, comparing it to HotD will make it see like Oscar worthy material.

Anyway, we basically star with a group of friends going to this rave on a Island out in the middle of nowhere. We've been shown the rave, and considering the fact that it's supposed to be the biggest rave of the year, it's somehow going on outdoors in the middle of the day (so the cool party light are ineffective), has worse attendance than some small gatherings I've thrown, and has corporate sponsorship, which, considering the whole point of a rave and the amount of illegal drugs consumed there-in, I really doubt it'd have corporate sponsorship.

But, as it goes, the friends want to get to this party, but they missed to boat. They get a couple sailors, whom we find out later are smugglers as well, to take them to the island, after paying them an amount of money that is supposed to seem extravagant, but comes off as pathetic to anyone watching the movie.

So, they get this party, and wouldn't ya know it, seems no one is around. THose that didn't wise up to the fact that the party sucks were apparently eaten by zombies. From this point on, we are treated to an excruciating hour of lame horror action as these people are picked off one at a time, following all the rules of what NOT to do in a horror movie. It's sad.

When you look at Resident Evil, you see a flick made in the spirit of the George Romero trilogy. Some decent gore, a decent setup, only mildly bad acting, and a plot that is pretty easy to get into and follow. As well, the action is never so erratically filmed that you can follow it, and never are you so bored that you begin to wonder just what you had for lunch or how many hairs you have in an armpit.

And, as you can already guess, this is what I ended up doing as I sat through House of the Dead. I sat there, hoping for boring talking sequences, cause at least then the director let the cameras sit still and I could follow what was going on. Anyone watching could tell the director had a hard-on for keeping the movie as close to its video game roots as possible, down to stupid death sequences, over the top uses of matrix-like camera spins, and even the use of video game footage in the middle of action sequences.

I honestly cannot say enough to express just how bad this movie is. I knew it wasn't going to be as good as RE, but dammit, I wish it was at least watchable. For anyone out there, if you like zombie flicks, do not EVER see House of the Dead. EVER.