In Defense of "House Of The Dead"

Well, I guess now the truth comes out.

Let it be said that I really, really enjoyed Uwe Boll's 2003 feature-film opus "House Of The Dead". Sure, it was based on a videogame that essentially had no backstory, characters, or plot to draw from. Sure, it was a really crappy movie when judged on any number of merits; the characters sucked, the acting was crap, the writing was crap, the directing (courtesy of Mr. Boll) was crap. Hell, the on-set catering probably gave somebody food poisoning.

But against all the criticisms, on one cold winter night I rented this much maligned piece of garbage. When I put it in my DVD player nothing exploded and no one died; so, things were already going better than I first expected.

And somehow, after the roughly 90-minute runtime was over, I felt somewhat satisfied. And I still don't know why. The closest thing I can equate watching "House Of The Dead" to is sex. It wasn't good sex. No, not even close. It wasn't even like bad sex. It felt kinda like wacking off to a really good porno. In the end you might feel pretty satisfied, but still a little guilty about it, and ultimately, you're right back to where you started, with nothing to show for it.

And with that wonderful analogy out of the way, here are my top-five reasons why "House Of The Dead" isn't as bad as you might remember:

1. Its really short

- Nothing's worse than a really long, really bad, movie. "House Of The Dead" barely clocks in at over an hour and a half. And really, most of the movie is spent hosting a running battle that takes up 3/4ths of the running time. Basically, by the time you realize how much you hate this movie, its already nearly over.

2. Jurgen Prochnow and Clint Howard

- There's nothing funnier in a bad movie than watching one relatively well-respected actor sully his good reputation. Getting two for the price of one is even better.

Jurgen Prochnow plays a stereotypical "Sea Captain", who looks like a WW2-era U-Boat captain and talks with an exaggerated German accent. He's of course, a gruff, angry, dick, with a secret. His secret; a convienent stash of guns, and Cuban cigars. And get this; the dude's name is acutally Captain Kirk. Ha, hilarity!

Clint Howard plays "Salish"; Kirk's first mate. In short, he's a retard in a yellow rainjacket who likes to give topless women crosses "for protection" as an excuse to spy on them.

(Actually, that's not a bad idea...)

3. Give me "Liberty" (...and then some tissues)

- Ha.... You gotta love those Asian stereotypes.... "House of The Dead" contains a grand total of two Asian actors, and one of them has most of her scenes relegated to the DVD's deleted scenes. The other is a red, white, and blue clad Asian girl known only as "Liberty" -- she wears a skintight American flag bodysuit, she knows karate, and she dies a painful, bloody death. Also, she's hot.

Actually, I do think I'm turning Japanese.

2. Some dude dies while covered in shit

- How many movies do you know of where a character spends the majority of his screen time covered in human feces? "House Of The Dead" is that movie. When the titular "dead" first attack some poor bastard gets trapped in a Porta-Pottie, and, well, it gets pretty messy. Unfortunately for him, zombies don't seem to mind the smell.

Nasty....

1. Penny Phang

- Please see DVD deleted scenes, for more of this. Former Playboy Playmate, model, and all around, oval-eyed seductress, Penny Phang had her naked dance scene removed from "House's" original cut for whatever reason. I mean, her two "special friends" are easily the best actors in the movie....

And that's a wrap. Now really, I hope anyone reading this (ahh, who am I kidding?) doesn't take anything I've written here too seriously.