*Originally written December 7th, 2016*
Uwe Boll is a director I can only describe as "Pure autism" or "Puretism" for short. Every single one of his films is a pure trainwreck in every regard. But what makes this worse is just what a self-indulgent hack Boll is as a person.
This talentless twat thinks his films are actually smart art, better than filmmakers like Michael Bay or Eli Roth. I'm not a fan of either of those filmmakers, but they are a hell of a lot better than Boll. The best work Boll ever produced was the 'Rampage' trilogy, which was self-important and ultra-violent drivel with grade-school nihilism with its opinions on society.
House of the Dead on the other hand is just pure garbage. A lame barrage of early 2000's post-Matrix special effects. It is brutal. Not a single thing about this film works. It's filled with weird creative decisions, laughable acting, an atrocious script and poor direction.
Do you remember the live-action opening cut-scene of Resident Evil on PS1 back in 1996? That campy and cheesy attempt to make the opening of a game cinematic. It was charming, but in all honesty atrocious. House of the Dead feels like that, but stretched out to a 86 minute run-time, with none of the charm.
Every character is an obnoxious dick. Everyone is so self-obsessed. There's a character who gets a little chemical burn on his face and sees himself as a monster, so he gets to nobly sacrifice himself because there was no way he could live with a scar on his face. What a terrible message.
The female characters are also a disaster. They are all reduced to either topless roles or cleavage. Honestly, each of them either get topless at some point or spent the whole film in a revealing outfit. It was pervy, weird and just disgusting.
I don't have much of a memory of The House of Dead games. I know the cinema I go to used to have the light-gun arcade game, but I remember nothing about the story, so I can't exactly compare. I will say this film is called 'House of the Dead', yet takes place on an island? What a misleading and false title.
There are some amazing and spectacular creative decisions that have to be seen to be believed. Transition shots between scenes insert brief clips of the video game. What on Earth were they thinking? They also used a hell of a lot of lame freeze-framing rotational cameras during the action scenes. It was outdated horrificness. When characters die, the camera pans around them as the screen flashes red. See what I mean when I describe Uwe Boll's direction as "Pure autism"?
House of the Dead is a complete failure on every level. Awful characters, lame direction, stupid creative choices, a terrible story, poor action. There is nothing to recommend with this. One of the worst films I've ever seen. The only good thing I have to say about it is that the poster is at least good.
1/10 Dans
House of the Dead is out now on DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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