HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2

HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2
By M. Jarvis

It’s hard to remember but once upon a time there was this COOL arcade game called HOUSE OF THE DEAD. It was a cool first person shooter where you were an X-Files type agent going to a mansion overrun by the undead. You had to find out what the hell happened and then shoot your way out. I never cared much for first-person shooters but I always loved this game. I played it until I ran out of quarters.

That said, I was never looking forward to a movie of the game. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the film of HOUSE OF THE DEAD bore no resemblance at all to the game. I won’t dwell on how much the film sucked because there’s not enough bandwidth in the world to cover that point to its fullest.

The sequel bares no resemblance to its Uwe Boll turd predecessor. The plot however, bares a little more resemblance to the story of the original arcade game. Instead of a fancy manor, it’s a college campus. On this campus, a mad scientist played by Sid Haig is experimenting in bringing back the dead with predictable results. SPOILER WARNING: Sid is killed off in the opening ten minutes.

A group of commandos are sent to the scene to find out what’s going on in the hopes of finding a blood sample that could lead to a cure for the zombie infestation. Once the commandos get to the college, the film becomes yet another rendition of RESIDENT EVIL on the cheap. It ends poorly for everyone involved….especially the viewer.

Better than the first film but only because basically every film ever produced since film was invented is better than HOUSE OF THE DEAD. This film isn’t good but doesn’t offend any more than any other of the low budget, hack sci-fi shit that’s on the SCI-FI Channel pretty much 24/7. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is the one notable exception.

I’m sure there’ll be another straight to vid HOUSE OF THE DEAD but don’t bother to look forward to it. Just watch this one over again as I’m sure it’ll pretty much be the same thing.