Uwe Boll is in a difficult position. As far as gamers go, he's probably the most universally hated person in the world bar Jack Thompson. But the irony is that most Boll-haters hate him so much that they refuse to watch any of his films. Any of them. So we have forums full of gamers who hate Boll because everyone else hates Boll, and because that automatically makes Boll's work worthless, it doesn't get seen. And because it doesn't get seen, Boll never gets a chance to change people's minds.
We decided to put that right this week. Four brave cinematic adventurers from the GamesRadar team (Ben,David,JamesandJustin) picked up Boll's first three videogame movies (House Of The Dead, Bloodrayne and Alone In The Dark) and made an attempt to watch all of them in one night. How did we fare? Read on. Over the next six pages you'll find a brutal and frank, minute-by-minuteaccount of our experiences and discussion.
House Of The Dead (2003)
Synopsis: A bunch of teens ‘played’ by actors in their twenties go to a rave on Isla Del Muerte (James: Yeah, let’s all have a rave on Death Island. Sex, Drugs And Beer Island is next door, but I hear Death Island is a whole lot better). They find the rave destroyed, get attacked by both zombies and terrible film-making, and spend the duration of the movie battling to the death with an abysmal script and their own lack of acting ability.
The Movie
Really cheap-sounding techno thumps inanely over a black screen as the early titles roll. When the words “House Of The Dead” disappear, we’re greeted with an overly gravelly voice-over from a guy desperately trying to look like Ash from The Evil Dead. Except that he’s not Bruce Campbell. And we can already tell that he’s crap.
Oblivious to his own terminally poop-laden nature he continues to stare into middle-distance in a dead-eyed hung-over haze and recounts lazy exposition.
Crap Ash: It was a nightmare. So many dead people. So many victims. It all started a few days ago when I came here for a rave. Now all that remains is the rotten smell of death.
Ben:I love the way they start a film when they don’t know how to write the start of a film.
The screen cuts to a shot from the original game with a one-click Photoshop filter over it. Neon crayon lady tells us “You must stop Curien. Or else something terrible will happen”
Justin: That’s probably the best scripting we’ll hear all night.
Justin is right.
The main credits roll. We gleefully celebrate the name of long-time Boll collaborator Max Wanko. It is by no means the last time we will do that this night. Crap Ash introduces the main castthrough avoice-over, because that's much easier than actually developing characters with a script.
Crap Ash: Simon. They say God doesn’t give with two hands, and they’re right. He got the looks, but not much between those ears.
James: Does anyone actually say that? Has anyone ever said that?
We meet the rest of the cast as they stand on a jettee and say words at each other while staring intently in random directions.
David: With acting skills as good as these, they’ve all got long and healthy careers ahead of them. In porn.
3:48: We’re introduced to the ‘rave’ that our walking props are heading to. It consists of about six people dancing in front of a stage with a Sega banner on it.
Justin: Sega throw shit raves.
David: It’s raves like these that put them out of the hardware business.
We also see the first set of gratuiously exposed breastsof the movie. We will discover over the course of the night that Boll likes gratuitously exposed breasts. A lot.
