One of the great things about not having a job is you have a lot of free time. That free
time can be enjoyed a number of ways, sleeping, watching TV, reading a good
book, or writing a sonnet. If you have friends with jobs in high places like I do, you
also spend a great deal of your free time exploiting their position.
The friend in question was an assistant manager at a local video arcade.
He worked nights mainly, so me and my friends would wander in sometime around
9:30 and weasel our way into some free games.
One such game was House of the Dead where you (the player) assume the role of special agent G or A or Q or something and basically shoot up zombies, mini Freddy Kreugers, and these deranged owls I could never get past... The point is, it's a fairly descent game.
Unfortunately, the acceptable game was turned into a movie. And believe me, it certainly WAS a movie. I mean it was filmed, presumably edited, and it even had credits. Yes, and the fact that it was playing up there on that big screen instead of a slightly smaller screen in an arcade really helped to drive the point home.
I hate to be too rude to House of the Dead, after all, so many people must have poured an entire week into it's production. What with the editing, and the uh...the uh...explosions and such...
Here's the skinny; A group of friends is late for the biggest rave in the universe on an island in some big lake in Seattle. The friends, Alicia (Ona Groure), Rudy (Johnathan Cherry), Cynthia (Sonya Salloma), Liberty (Kira Klavell), Karma (Enuka Okama), uh...Greg, Steve, and...well, I think it was only four of them but names didn't seem to be an important aspect of this film anyway...so anyway, these friends have to charter a special fishing boat captained by a guy named Kirk (Jorgen Pronchnow).
The whole intro is done in flashback by a guy who wasn't even there who spoils the movie for us right off the bat by telling us he's the only survivor. Then, after a few irritating jump cuts, we get back to the story.
When the group reach the Isla Del Muerte (graciously on loan from John Hammond) they find the rave is a bust. The clearing for the "BIGGEST RAVE IN THE UNIVERSE" is about the size of a one-bedroom discount apartment, and combined with the one beer tent, a booth to buy fresh baked goods (?) and the ecstasy peddler being dragged screaming to a bloody death, everyone decided to drop the rave idea, go home and start Internet based businesses.
The group decides to find out where everyone else is so, welding a carefully planted 100000000 candle power flashlight, they head off into the dark woods. Here, a couple people get brutally maimed, we see a lot of footage from the game which seems to scream out "We didn't follow the game, so here are some shots from it to remind you what you're watching.
After a few "tense" scenes where the same things happen again and again, we finally get to the reason the movie was made. A 25+ minute shootout with a seemingly ENDLESS band of Zombies. Thanks to Captain Kirk ("No Captain Kirk Jokes!") the group is now armed with enough firepower to take out the entire population of California. And a 10 foot trip to the Door of the Dead becomes like crossing Greenland on foot. To be honest, this scene started out fine, and if it had ended 15 minutes sooner, it would've been nearly perfect. It could also have done without the flashback-of-the-whole-movie sequence when Liberty dies.
Overall, this movie is...well, a movie. That's the only good thing about it really. It was a nice thing to go see if, like me, you have been stuck inside eating PB&J sandwiches and doing homework for 2 weeks solid and have no one to hang out with and you didn't pay full price and the theater wasn't crowded and you like that kind of movie and there was a really kick-butt preview for Resident Evil 2. Otherwise, I'd advise you to save your time, save your money, and save yourself the gas to get to the theater. After all, you don't have a job and gas is expensive.
Enjoy.
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