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House of the Dead (film)
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House of the Dead is the film adaptation of the successful 1997 light gun arcade game video game of the same name. The film was directed by Uwe Boll and was poorly received at the box office. The film was released on February 15, 2003 in North America.
Tagline(s): The dead walk...You run and You won't last the night
Contents
- 1 Plot
- 2 Characters
- 3 Box office
- 4 Trivia
- 5 External links
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Plot
The movie starts off with 5 teens (Alicia, played by
Ona Grauer; Karma, played by
Enuka Okuma; Cynthia, played by Sonya Salomaa; Simon, played by Tyron Leitso; Rudy, played by Jonathan Cherry) at a dock looking for a boat that will take them to a rave. They find captain Kirk (
Jurgen Prochnow) who has his own boat and ask if they could have him bring them to the rave. Kirk's assistant, Salish (
Clint Howard) says that the island is crazy and evil, but the teens ignore his warning and depart anyway.
As they arrive to the island the teens quickly notice that the rave is deserted. While Alicia, Karma and Simon go look for any sign of life, Cynthia and Greg stay back to make out. Greg says that he has to go to the bathroom and Cynthia finds a nice tent to stay in. Zombies attack her and she is killed.
Alicia, Karma and Simon find an old house. Upon entering, they find Rudy, a girl named Liberty (Kira Clavell) and another unnamed character. The 6 go back to find Cynthia and Greg. They only find Greg, but shortly thereafter Cynthia finds them as she comes back as a zombie and kills the unnamed man. A female police officer named Casper (Ellie Cornell) shoots Cynthia. Alicia, Greg, Simon, Karma, Rudy, Liberty and Casper go to find Kirk. Salish wanders off the boat and is killed by zombies shortly. The group finds that Kirk and his boat are a ways out in the water. Simon goes to swim out to the boat, but is interrupted by zombies in the water. Casper shoots the zombies, clearing a path.
They all gather around Kirk. It turns out Kirk brought along a copious number of boxes containing illegal cigars (giving the reason as to why Casper came to the island; she tracked down Kirk to arrest him). It turns out there is also a massive collection of explosives and firearms in the boxes. Greg and Casper go to look for Casper's police boat. The two see a bunch of zombies and Casper shoots at them. The zombies overwhelm and kill Greg. Casper goes back to the group and the group decides to go into the house where the zombies are coming from.
The group finds the house again, and finds a large number of zombies in the front yard. The decision to re-kill the zombies en masse is made quickly. Just before they make it into the house zombies envelop Liberty, killing her. The door to the house is locked so Rudy and Casper go around back. The two find a window and Rudy climbs in. and the zombies attack Casper as she is climbing in and the zombies cut off Casper's legs which kills her. Rudy is inside the house he goes around front to open the door for them. Once inside a zombie comes into the house chewing on Kirk's leg.
Kirk takes an explosive charge and goes outside (with one leg). Zombies attack him, so Kirk blows himself up with the zombies. The four remaining people have no more munitions save one gun. Zombies start breaking into the house. The four find another room and lock the door. There are gun powder boxes everywhere. The zombies start breaking into the room and grab Simon. Karma then finds an underground passage. The group goes down the tunnel, but Simon stays behind and shoots the boxes of gun powder, causing an explosion that would have required about 400 pounds of high-powered plastic explosives.
Oddly enough, the underground passages (which lead to the place where the zombies were developed)...are filled with zombies. They find a way out but run out of bullets. Karma decides to fight the zombies. In unarmed combat alone. Although she is killed, Alicia and Rudy escape, when Greg appears. Alicia and Rudy follow him. The two eventually end up in a room with Greg, who, in a suprise twist, peels off a mask on his face, showing himself to be a different person entirely- a scientist named Castillo. (David Palffy).
Castillo, as it is recounted, is a scientist hundreds of years old. He invented a formula which reinvigorates dead cells, making people into zombies. Back hundreds of years ago, Castillo killed the men on a ship and used their bodies as a test for his serum. The crewmen came back as zombies. So the zombies kept killing people and Castillo continued bringing the dead people back to life as zombies. Alicia and Rudy challenge Castillo to a sword fight. Castillo stabs Alicia in the chest, who collapses. Rudy comes up behind Castillo and cuts his head off. Alicia gets enough strength to get up and step on the severed head. A helicopter comes and rescues the two.
Characters
- Alicia, the female protagonist and Rudy's ex-girlfriend. After their break-up Rudy went to medical school and Alicia took up fencing lessons which prove useful during her face-off with the zombie-leader Castillo. She's stabbed in the chest but manages to decapitate Castillo. This however, does not kill him but instead his headless body begins to choke Rudy, at which point Alicia crushes his decapitated head, killing him. It is not evident if she is alive, dead or resurrected by the end of the film.
- Karma, Alicia's close friend who has a crush on Simon. The zombies kill her as Rudy and Alicia are about to escape through the underground tunnels.
- Cynthia, Alicia's vain friend and Greg's girlfriend. She is the first of the group to be killed. After being turned into a zombie she jumps Hugh and breaks his neck after which she is shot by Casper.
- Simon, the good-looking and vain friend of Alicia, who tries to hit on her. He provides Alicia's friends with passage to Isla de Muerta by offering Kirk a handsome sum of money. Later he gets an acid-burn on his face from a dying zombie. He sacrifices himself by shooting the kegs of gun-powder in the courtyard to kill the zombies and help his friends escape.
- Greg, Cynthia's boyfriend appears to be killed by a horde of zombies when he and Casper get separated while searching for her boat. Later Castillo uses his skin to hide his identity. He is only revealed when Rudy discovers the skinless Greg, still alive and hanging from the ceiling of Castillo's laboratory.
- Captain Victor Kirk, ex-navy and a smuggler who helps Alicia's friends to get to the island, despite initial hesitation from his first mate, Salish. Kirk is the most self-assured member of the group and the only one not taken by surprise by the living dead. He is wounded later in a gun-fight with the zombies and blows himself up with a stick of dynamite, hoping to be reunited with his dead first mate. His last words are "See you in hell, boys!"
- Salish, is Kirk's first mate who always dresses in a yellow fisherman's coat and hat. When introduced he is shown with a fish-hook reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer. He is deathly afraid of Isla de Muerta but doesn't argue with Kirk when he decides to lead the teens there. Salish is killed by zombies while hiding Kirk's merchandise. He is later shot by Kirk who then blows himself up in order to join him in the here after.
- Jordan Casper, Kirk's nemesis, a cop out to bust him for smuggling. She has her legs hacked off by the zombies and eventually dies of blood-loss.
- Rudolph "Rudy" Curien, the male protagonist who is on the island when the zombies attack. He is the first to barricade in the house with Liberty and Hugh, who captures the strange events on his cam-corder. Rudy makes remarks about Castillo's experiments calling them "fucking genius". The movie begins and ends with Rudy's narration, indicating he is the only survivor of the incident.
- Hugh, a nerd who records the zombie attack on the rave on his cam-corder. He is a big fan of George Romero's zombie-films. The zombified Cynthia breaks his neck with ease when the group tries to find her.
- Liberty, an Asian-American rave-girl. Rudy hints that he and her are dating to raise jealousy in Alicia. Liberty is shown having uncanny talent with an axe but is killed in the fire-fight with the zombies with Rudy forced to watch in horror.
- Castillo, the creator of the zombies and the antagonist of the film. He has an underground laboratory leading from the tunnels under the house. He was once a Spanish priest and a prisoner who escaped and murdered the entire crew of the ship that was transporting him. He has created a strange blood-shade liquid that can instantly turn corpses into zombies. He is killed by Alicia.
Spoilers end here.
Box office
The film had a poor response at the box office with earnings of only thirteen million dollars. In 2004 Brightlight Pictures announced that a sequel would be made. An offer went out to Uwe Boll to direct but he rejected it to work on BloodRayne.
The sequel, House of the Dead 2, premiered on Sci-Fi in 2006. The film was directed by Michael Hurst and the story takes place days after the events of the first film.
Trivia
- Several clips from the first three games in the series can be seen in the opening credits and inserted throughout the movie's action sequences, except for the fourth latest game.
- The film is currently on IMDb's "Worst 100 Movies of All Time" list. As of March 18, 2007 it is in 26th place.
- During the rave, the Sega logo is prominently displayed in the background.
- Several shots during the bullet time sequence resemble those in the video game.
- According to an interview with director Uwe Boll, the turntable used in the 360 degree shots of the actors during the battle outside of the house was destroyed after production due to fears of if something happened, the fast moving camera could injure or kill an actor if they fell in its path[citation needed]. It can no longer be used in movies, making House of the Dead the only film with such a device used.
- At the end of the film the survivor is rescued by a helicopter. As it is landing two men dressed in trench coats get off the helicopter. This is a reference to the original House of the Dead video game in which the protagonists are two special agents in overcoats, also from the AMS. Furthermore, one of them is known as "G", the codename of one of the main protagonists from the House of the Dead games.
- At the end, it was revealed that the last name of the protagonist is Curien, the villain in the first and third game, and the movie sequel.
