f13.net forums - Backhanded Insult: DVD Review of House of the Dead

I've included the transcript of a phone call between the director of the movie House of the Dead and the head of the studio which released it. I only have one side of the conversation, that of the studio head, as all other records of director Uwe Boll's existence have been expunged from history and living memory.

Quote from: Studio Bigwig

"Yes, Uwe, I've taken a look at the final cut. I'm going to have to decline distribution of this movie. Sorry to have ruined all your... ehem... hard work, but... No, I'm not laughing at you, Uwe. I've been diagnosed with lung cancer since I saw your movie and I just coughed up a capillary."

"Am I saying your movie causes lung cancer? Maybe not in all test cases. My secretary came down with gout and dysentery after she saw the first thirty minutes and had to leave the screening room. The doctor said I might have been able to get away with influenza or TB had I stopped at the hour mark, but I had to make sure our money had been as badly spent as it looked."

"Yes, Uwe, I know we didn't give you a lot of money. Did you make this movie to get back at us? Oh, you LIKED it? See, now you're putting me on. Oh, what a sense of humor you have, you crazy fucking German. I bet you just loved the Holocaust. You know I had family die at Auschwitz, you fucking Nazi? I imagine they had a better time than I did watching this movie."

"What was WRONG with it? Uwe, what the fuck was RIGHT with it? I mean, in the first ten minutes, you give us a Captain Kirk joke that falls so flat, Christopher Columbus turned the Santa Maria the fuck around and went back to Spain. That kind of flat, Uwe. Then you give us a set of breasts so scrawny KFC wouldn't waste the batter, know what I'm saying? I mean, what did you hire your ugly cousin for the nude scenes? Couldn't you get even one of the attractive actresses to flash a little something something?"

"By the way, you remember those actresses? They've already been complaining to me. Seems they can't get a job after they show the reel of this thing. I don't mean they can't get a fucking oatmeal commercial. Ron FUCKING Jeremy turned them down. They can't get work in PORNO, Uwe, unless they change their names and deny ever having been on the set of your movie. Shit, Jurgen Prochnow has folded himself into a bottle of Kentucky Tavern. I don't mean he's drunk, I mean he felt so bad about the movie, he actually contorted his body into the bottle of the cheapest, shittiest whiskey he could find. Clint Howard is talking about joining a convent to hide from this thing; he's flying to Sweden next week to get the old snip snip. Clint Howard! This man has made bank off playing complete retards, and you can't even manage to give him a decent fucking role as GILIGAN!"

"Seriously, Uwe, what were you thinking here? I mean, did you watch the dailies? I mean, it isn't like this shitfest came from the editing room. We agreed to loan you the Matrix cameras, against my better judgment. But shit, I didn't expect you to use them like that. Joel Silver is ready to fucking burn every copy of the Matrix he can find just to keep people from associating the two movies. I mean, there's a few of those scenes where the character is holding a different fucking gun entirely from the shot you just had. Where'd the gun come from, Uwe? Where'd it come from? And raves? Look, I talked to my fucking granddaughter last night. I asked if she wanted to go to a rave on an island named Isla Del Muerta. You know what she said? She said, 'Grandpa, only old, uncool people talk about raves anymore. My god, you might as well talk about going to Woodstock or something. As if.' I'm getting calls left and right about this movie, but at least one of them was positive."

"Who called? Don't get your hopes up there, bratwurst, it was Guy Ritchie. He wanted to thank me for putting out a movie so fucking bad people would forget Swept Away. You are going to be responsible for the resurgence of his career, and I swear to you if he puts Madonna in another picture, I'll kill you myself. I cannot in any good conscience put this movie out, for that alone."

"Just what was all that spliced in footage that looked like my grandson's PlayCube? I mean, what were you doing all this time, making a movie, or playing fucking video games? What? I didn't hear you, Uwe, I think you're breaking up. What did you say?"

"The movie is BASED on a video game? Like that Portal Kombat or Tit Raider? Yeah, TOMB Raider, whatever, like anybody sees past the tits anyway. Really? And you have the backing of the company that made the video game? Oh, their logo is IN the movie? Shit, why didn't you say so! Video games are almost as hot as comic books!"

"Let's release a movie."

Yes, it's that fucking bad.

At heart, you have a movie that wants to be the sly, self-referential horror movie that the original Scream was. Unfortunately, with a complete fuckwit behind the lens, as well as serving as one of the producers of the movie, what you have is a DVD so toxic, it should be quarantined. The liberal splashing of bared breasts don't save it; the breasts in question are barely attractive enough to warrant a last call pickup line, much less screen time. The only attractive women in the picture don't actually disrobe, because they are too busy trying to be Trinity from the Matrix.

Horror movies usually have horror. The only horror of this movie is the realization that someone spent more money than you'll make in a decade to write it, film it, market it and release it. The only people you actually see killed are the zombies who fill the movie with suckiness, and to be fair, zombies are already supposed to be dead. All the horror happens off-screen, but let's face it, the onscreen violence would have just adding to the sucking sound that accompanies a viewing of this movie.

I can only conclude one of two possibilities based on the movie itself and the extras on the DVD. The first is that the studio heads, producers and creators of this film have so little regard for gamers and horror movie fans that they expect we'll buy anything so long as the word 'zombie' is mentioned enough times. And while the blank stares of a legion of George Lucas's fans as they line up for the scraps off his table might put the truth to that lie, I would hope no one is sad enough to think this movie is a good anything. The movie delights in gratuitous tit shots, gratuitous exploding zombie body parts, gratuitous Matrix style 3d camera revolutions, and gratuitous explosions, yet skimps on any sort of believable characterizations or story. I've seen pornos with more plausible stories and characters. It is ninety minutes of pure torture. In the DVD extras, there are a number of deleted scenes, as well as the normal featurettes on the special effects, the making of and a very special featurette about "zom-bat." Apparently, this piece of shit is a reality TV-style expose on the training required by the lead actresses to learn how to "fight zombies." No, the male actors aren't involved, because all men must know how to fight zombies; zombie-fighting is a natural instinct among the male species of Planet Geek, much like masturbation. If watching the lead actresses learn how to shoot paintball guns at stuntmen dressed in very bad latex zombie makeup is interesting or stimulating to you, you are the target market for this movie. I suggest either sterilization or suicide, because either option ensures future generations that your demon seed is not perpetuated.

The only other conclusion about this movie I can consider is that Uwe Boll is a fucking genius, with a clever sense of a biting social commentary on the dichotomy of our teenage zeitgeist. Being German, he probably knows exactly what a zeitgeist is and just how to grab hold of it, fondling it like a long-lost lover as he coaxes seemingly ridiculous imagery out of an otherwise ridiculous movie. His commentary on the violence inherent in our youth is so subtle, that only on reflection does it actually appear. The main actors and actresses are all twice as old as the character's they are trying to portray, twice as beautiful and sexy, and three times as deadly. It cannot be possible that seemingly innocuous college kids, marooned on an island named Isla Del Muerta, would be able to when pressed, transform themselves from drunken hormone-machines to ass-kicking ninja assassins. Of course, everyone must expect the Oriental chick, named Liberty, apparently for her body-hugging leotard painted in the colors of the American flag, to be a deadly Lotus flower, able to hold her own with multiple zombies by kicking, punching and hitting like Bruce Lee. She's Oriental! She must know kung-fu. And thus, commentary on the inherent racism of our system is subtly splashed across the screen in slow-move revolving technicolor glory. And without two seconds of instruction, every one of the fresh-faced teens are able to wield pistol, sub-machine gun and shotgun as if they were paramilitary specialists. They are transformed by adversity into hormone-filled machines of death, like all teenagers must be in the wake of Columbine. Egads! The implications are staggering! Nominate Uwe for an Oscar and a Golden Globe! Social commentary this deep rivals Michael Moore for sheer audacity.

Or not. If you are the type who thinks George Romero's zombie movies were filled with biting social commentary, not only will you be insulted at what Uwe Boll does to the genre, you'll probably end up in an apoplectic fit. If you are a movie lover, you'll be insulted at the waste of 90 minutes you've just had to endure. But if you're smart, you'll turn it off after the first tit shot, because it really doesn't get any better from there. Do yourself a favor, avoid this movie. It could save your life.

If that video tape in the Ring killed you in seven days, it must have been this movie. I can think of nothing crueler than having to live your last seven days knowing you watched this movie when you could have been masturbating.