House of The Dead (2003) | Pixels, Popcorn

House of The Dead

An arcade light gun game from SEGA released upon the World in 1997

It featured two Special Agents, Thomas Rogan and “G”

They battle through a Mansion, or “House”, to save Thomas’s Fiancee, Sophie, after they receive a distress call from her.

As it turns out the House is the testing ground of a Dr. Roy Curien,

a mad scientist who has become obsessed with bringing the dead back to life.

And, because things like this always end well,

the experiments have gotten out of control and all kinds of beasts are now roaming the house.

The game being the idea you’ve to rescue Sophie and generally save the day.

All good - This was a 90’s arcade blaster -

How much story did you really need?

The arcade version of the game was popular and eventually the game would become quite a popular series for SEGA.

Ports would be made to home computers and consoles,

the story would develop into something more over time,

with the idea always being roughly the same for some and an excuse for some light gun shooting action.

I probably played The House of the Dead 2 more on the DreamCast than any other version - Good times.

Anyhow.

The film.

Well.

It's a thing.

It's Uwe Bolls first film,

and if you know that name you'll pretty much know how the rest of this is going to go,

it’s actually his first go at making a video game adaption as well

So, welcome to where it all begins, I guess

And, as you probably know he isn't known for making great video game adaptations.

But, those are all other videos.

And, It's also no real secret that this is a bad film, for many, many reasons.

I won't try to pretend it's not, and don’t worry - I’ll get to that.

But.

It's still fun in its own way.

Released in 2003, The film stars, well, nobody.

Most of the cast is or was unknown at the time, with a few exceptions.

The only two people I really recognised are Erica Durance, Clint Howard andJürgen Prochnow

Erica because she was in Smallville before seemingly making as many Hallmark Christmas films as she can,

and Clint Howard because he's in, well, everything.

And, both of those aren't in the film for long.

Erica just at the beginning really, she meets her demise before it all kicks off even

and Clint sporadically appears along the way when someone weird or kooky is needed.

Jürgen Prochnow is probably the most famous,

of those actors who's been around in quite a few things once you look him up on the internet.

The rest of the cast?

Well. I can't compare them to their game counterparts as they don't exist,

but to cover off the main players…

At the start of the film we meet Rudy, played by Jonathan Cherry -

He sets the whole thing up by explaining they were taking part in a rave on an island and

It’s all gone wrong

We quickly flash back to the set up of the whole thing

and a group of Rudy's friends that missed the start of the summer fun,

Of those arriving late to the island are…

Greg – Played by Will Sanderson

Simon - by Tyron Leitso

And Cynthia by Sonya Salomaa

Karma by Enuka Okuma

And, Alicia brought to us by Ona Grauer

To get to the rave they hire a boat from Captain Kirk - yes, really - played by Jürgen Prochnow

and Salish, his first mate, played by Clint Howard.

And if Clint Howard’s on your boat, you know it’s not going to end well.

These two are obviously a bit shady and as they leave the island two Agents of the law try and stop them

Agent Casper is the only one we need to worry about here, she’s represented by Ellie Cornell -

The other guy, McGivers, well - He doesn’t last long but is played by Ben Derrick

Already on the island with Rudy are

Liberty - Played by Kira Clavell

and Hugh played by MIchael Eklund.

And - That’s your cast.

Don’t worry,

you won’t need to remember most of them for long.

The group arrive on the island,

find the carnage,

The group arrive on the island, and instead of the rave and good times they were expecting,

Find leftover remains of their friends instead.

Which, is a bit of a downer really

They realise that this isn’t the good time that they expected and that they now have to escape the island, somehow.

They meet up with Rudy and a few others that have survived and join forces with them

Then, they wander the island, find weird things and then eventually find THE HOUSE

And, upon finding the house the third act kicks in, it takes them that long

They fight their way through the house, kind of.

Just when they’re doing escaping and fighting for their lives,

two agents show up and ask if they need help.

after ninety minutes of a rave gone wrong movie with zombies,

the Agents from the game finally show up and go:

surprise!

it was a prequel all along.

And then, our heroes escape - HURRAH!

With one more bombshell to drop, but I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you

Now.

At this point you might be thinking that I’ve missed a few tricks at poking fun at the film and it’s many, many shortcomings.

And, you’d be right

BUT

While I was researching this video I came across this;

[HOUSE OF THE DEAD - FUNNY VERSION]

Which - Kind of does the job for me.

And, takes some of the fun out of it to be honest.

You see - A few years after the film was released to a critical mauling Uwe Boll put his hands up and just out and out said

Yeah - You’re right - its bad

And, so - In 2008 - Decided to go back to his own film and make another version of it which highlights all the things wrong.

This is all framed by the start of the film and Uwe Boll being tied to a chair by terrorists and being forced to watch his own film

But here, at least - Uwe gets to point out all the things I couldn’t earlier.

So.

Just so we’re clear - The “Funny” part isn't actually that funny.

It basically amounts to some pop ups on screen, complete with humorous noises pointing out the mistakes,

basically all the problems with the film that everyone else noticed when they watched it. .

They use these pops up to point out…

The film is basically spoilt for you in the first 5 minutes if you’re paying attention

The over used horror tropes,

general lack of acting skills,

generic plot,

so called raves that look like someone's back garden,

plot points by the numbers -

Why a bunch of teens are suddenly experts in all manner of weapons

All that stuff.

It's kinda like they knew that people would spend years ripping the film apart and decided to try and get in front of it and take all the fun out of making YouTube videos about it.

[ahem]

Which, admittedly,

has kinda worked.

But then they also use it to take stabs in the dark at how real some of the girls assets are, and other such delights.

Then, there's the Manometer.

Which judges the male characters, uh manliness. I guess.

The more manly the character, the more, uhm, enthusiastic the women are.

It seems.

Yes.

This is the humour we're going with.

And let us not forget it now comes complete with fart noises when characters are seen walking away from behind,

Or, bending over.

I mean.

I was impressed with their commitment to this if nothing else, they never miss their chance.

And, the hilarity doesn't stop there - No Sir.

They include outtakes of scenes, or in some cases completely remade other versions of them with the original actors.

None of this helps make for a better film by the way - But it can be quite novel

So. Yeah.

That's House of The Dead, the film.

It's a strange thing to exist,

especially twice.

And - Of course…

While Mr Boll might have tried to get ahead of the game, there are still some things to pick up on.

I mean - If you’re going to do this, it’s got to be bullet proof

right?

OK - So - First of all

Use spell checker…

… Some of the captions that pop up have spelling mistakes or grammar errors

Which, OK - Nobody is perfect,

but c’mon, don’t give people another target.

Something both versions of the film are guilty of…

… For some reason, and I’m sure there is one - BUT - There is actual game footage interspliced with the film.

Which, is a choice - BUT - OK.

What I don’t get, is…

A film full of blood and gore…

but when they splice in actual game footage, they use the censored green-blood version.

Because… Well, I don’t know why.

And,

going back to the original release for a moment,

one of things that amuses me most about it is the cover blurb.

On the front of the box we've got comparisons to The Matrix, which…

no.

Spinning around the characters in the action sequences doesn't get you into the same league.

Also, the back of the case -

One of the first things there is references to it featuring sensational sword fighting.

In a game based on a light gun arcade game - OK then.

To cap that off, there's one sword fight,

it isn't sensational.

And then another claim of it being a unique film with an unprecedented level of cooperation between Sega and the production team, exploiting potential synergies…

Again.

No.

A “SEGA” banner doesn’t do this.

To be fair - SEGA did capture some footage at the time of filming to use in the House of The Dead 3 game

But, that’s not something you’d know just watching the film.

It probably saved SEGA a few quid if nothing else though

Oieeee - If you’re going to do any of this, at least try and do it right, people.

I mean - I’ll give Uwe Boll his credit here for trying to make the best out of it all, but…

Yeah… Leave it alone next time, eh?

The old classic “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” springs to mind.

The only real nod to the games are some of the shooting sequences,

which kind of echo the game but these are generally next to all the included game footage as if to say

“SEE! - GAME!”

I mean - Again, novel - But… Really?

Speaking of the games…

well they didn't suffer and continued being successful despite the film.

The series has spanned decades now, but not that consistently.

House of the Dead 2 in 1998 - same formula, better polish, still chewing through your pocket money - Unless you had the console version like me

House of the Dead 3 in 2002 - now with shotguns, because bigger guns make everything better.

House of the Dead 4 in 2005 - more zombies, fewer excuses, and somehow still fun.

And then, just when you thought the franchise was, uhm, dead…

House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn in 2018 - proving this series is harder to kill than anything in it.

There are spin offs, including a prequel in game form going by the name of Overkill, which introduced LOTS of swearing to the franchise if nothing else

other entries like Typing of The Dead which swaps the light gun for your keyboard.

Which actually works better than it has any right to do.

And then just recently the games have enjoyed “Remakes” which have enjoyed moderate success across all modern home computers and consoles.

There is a House of The Dead 2 film,

which… is definitely another video in the future.

…but that’s a problem to worry about another day

For now, this was painful enough.

spoiler alert though - it doesn't get any better…

So yeah - the games lived on,

the franchise kept mutating,

and the movie…

well, it just sort of shambled along behind them.

House of the Dead.

A prequel nobody asked for,

a funny version nobody needed or wanted.

There is talk of them having another go at the movie, but nothing as of yet.

I hope they do, it’s a fun franchise and one I’d love to see them get right.

Anyways.

I’ve been Paul, and this was Pixels, Popcorn.

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Thanks for watching.