HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2
© 2001 Activision

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House of the Dead, The

Genre:
Video Game Adaptation/Horror.

Studio:
Unknown.


Production Company:
Mindfire Entertainment.

Project Phase:
Post-production.

Who's In It:
Ona Grauer (Alicia); Jonathan Cherry (Rudy); Tyron Leitso (Simon); Enuka Okuma (Karma);
Sonja Salomma (Cynthia); Will Sanderson (Greg); Ellie Cornell (Casper); Clint Howard (Salish);
Jurgen Prochnow (Captain Kirk); Kira Clavell (Liberty).

Who's Making It:
Uwe Boll (Director); Dave Parker, Mark A. Altman (Screenwriters); Mark A. Altman, Dan Bates (Story); Shawn Williamson (Producer); Dan Bates, Mark A. Altman, Mark Gottwald, Daniel Kletzky (Executive Producers); Wolfgang Herrold (Co-Executive Producer); Michael Roesch (Associate Producer); Mathias Neumann (Director of Photography); Lorraine Carson (Costume Designer); WCT Productions (Special Makeup Effects); Electrofilm (Special Visual Effects); Jan Stoltz, Matthias Wittmann (Visual Effects Supervisors); Tink (Production Designer); Dean Choe (Stunt Coordinator); based on the arcade game The House of the Dead by Sega.

Premise:
When a group of young people head off to an exclusive weekend rave held on a remote island, little do they know that they are fated to have an encounter with the living dead.

Release Date:
Spring or Summer 2003.

Comments:
Based on the SEGA video game franchise, the producer behind FREE ENTERPRISE has teamed up with German director Uwe Boll to create a free-for-all zombie gorefest. There's been talk that HOUSE OF THE DEAD has enough gore to satisfy fans of Romero's DEAD films but will Boll's incorporation of video game footage into the actual live-action pay off or blow up in his face?

Scoop Feedback:

January 7, 1999... The bill for this winding up at DreamWorks? Mid-six figures, reportedly, and once the film is made, it goes to seven. This is after Dylan reportedly got the film rights first out of his own wallet. It's expected he will either work on this film or Neverwhere, whichever project seems to be ready for
him first.

There's some confusion as to what the film's premise will be. The video game itself is a two-person shooter, and concerns two agents, Rogan and "G", sent to a genetics center to investigate some missing persons and a missing rescue team. They, of course, encounter scads of zombies and other undesirable preternatural types, and fight their way through it all with handguns, despite the rule that you never take on zombies with anything less than a pump shotgun.

Now--Cinescape reports that the plot will concern a group of partying zombies in a house all to themselves. After a young woman's friend is killed at one of the parties, she decides to go in with some "necro-warriors" and, um, crash the festivities. The young woman's name is Jenny, whereas the only female character of note in the actual video game is named Sophie, a scientist. Then Cinescape states that Verheiden will use the video game's storyline as a "blueprint" for the screenplay. Other sources, such as the Ultimate Gaming Resource simply state that they're going to veer away from the video game's premise completely.

Qwa? What gives? Zombie shoot-em-up or zombie fraternity flick? Can anyone elucidate?

[Originally appeared in Cinescape Online, Ultimate Gaming Resource, Next-Generation Online; reported by the very confused Widgett, who at least keeps a shotgun on hand...just in case.]

August 24, 2000... Well, apparently the rumors surrounding the zombie party were all true according to our latest scooper. It appears the partying zombies idea was easier and much more affordable for the studios. Our scooper adds:

"...Jesse Dylan didn't like the idea as much because he expected to direct an 'action/horror' movie that was closely based on the video game. What he got was a cheap slasher-movie rip-off that wasn't worth the approximate $9.6 million Dreamworks would use to make it. Things fell through when both Dreamworks and SEGA could not decide on how to film the thing..."

The scooper also goes on to say that there was a back-up script written by Mark Verheiden which seemed to be interesting. Due to the amount of indecision, the project never really got off the ground. [Scooped by 'Neo Matrix'; reported by Reg.]

October 17, 2000... Variety's Michael Fleming reports in his "Dish" column today that The House of the Dead is under new management. Mindfire Millennium is now the new production company guiding this project along, with scribes Dave Parker and Mark Altman brought on board to write the new screenplay. (The previous
draft by Mark Verheiden is out.)

Bates told Variety's Fleming, "There is an incredible international brand awareness for this title, and coupled with its compelling storyline and amazing visuals, The House of the Dead has a built-in audience for a live action feature."

In the past, director Jesse Dylan had been attached to this film. While Dylan's name was never mentioned in Variety's story, it's almost a given he's not attached to the project anymore. Parker and Altman both have worked on past projects for Mindfire Entertainment (the parent company for Mindfire Millennium, the company's specialty division) including Free Enterprise and The Specials.

[Originally appeared in Variety.]

October 19, 2000... Daily Radar talks shop with House of the Dead insider Mark A. Altman. The writer, producer, actor and Mindfire Entertainment COO gives the scoop on what's really happening with this project. Here's the latest:

"Unless you have a huge star, or you win Sundance, the market is eroding for these smaller quirky interesting independent films. The idea for us was to expand into something like what Dimension is to Miramax, have a genre division. Of course, that appealed to me in particular, being a sci-fi and horror movie fan and my history with Sci Fi Universe and everything else. One of the first titles we knew we were interested in, because I'm such a big fan of it, was
House of the Dead. What I liked about it is that people my age, in their late 20s, love that game..."

For the full report, check out this link.

[Appeared at Daily Radar; reported by Reg.]

February 28, 2002... House of the Dead is a go. The film will shoot starting May 3 in Vancouver for an anticipated fall 2003 release date. German director Uwe Boll has been chosen to helm the $12 million dollar picture.

"We're very excited about beginning production on the film," said Mark Altman, producer/co-writer on House of the Dead. "We have a great director in Uwe Boll who will bring his slick style and ability for suspense and horror to the film. We're not going to cop out on the violence either. This is a zombie film and, while it
probably won't have the Savini-esque carnage of a Romero film, it will be filled with a lot of blood and gore and, if we do our jobs right, characters you care about. With Resident Evil coming out this year and House of the Dead next, it's going to be a good couple of years for zombie fans."

[Our thanks to Mark Altman not gnawing on our flesh.]

March 4, 2002... Moviefans broke the news about the first
actor to star in The House of the Dead: it's Will Sanderson from Wolf Lake. [Thanks to Moviefans.]

March 11, 2002... Moviefans.de has published
three visual effects descriptions
from the start of the film. The F/X will be created by Rainmaker Digital Pictures, a Vancouver-based effects company. [Originally appeared on Moviefans.]

May 30, 2002... Your first look at the House of the Dead movie has gone online! The movie's Official website has posted an exclusive one minute long montage of clips showing some of the movie's cast members and action sequences. While it's not a full
teaser trailer, the video does offer a quick glimpse of some of the many different kinds of zombies that will be seen in the movie!

And yes, that captain's hat you see Jurgen Prochnow wearing in the video clip is the same one he wore while making Das Boot!

[House-of-the-dead.com.]

June 14, 2002... Go check out the June 13th update to the video game news site The Magic Box and you'll find four
images from the set of House of the Dead released by Sega this week. Three of the images show some of zombies you'll see in the movie while the fourth image shows off what the house of the dead looks like (seen on right).

[Scoop sent in by 'Marknose'; originally appeared on The Magic Box.]

July 10, 2002... The film's Official website has been given a new look as well as updated with new content. There's a great photo of the moss-covered evil house in the photos section, as well as new storyboards depicting an action sequence. Also, in the news section of the site we found out that House of the Dead game creator Rikiya Nakagawa has a cameo as one of the many zombies, and that he will incorporate movie footage into his next instalment of the arcade franchise, The House of the Dead 3. [Taken from the official website.]

September 16, 2002... Creature Corner spoke with House of the Dead co-star Clint Howard who told the site that director Uwe Boll plans to intercut footage from the video game into the film's action sequences. The Corner got a hold of one of the film's screenwriters, Dave Parker, and asked him for his take on the latest news. "I really don't know how this idea Uwe has come up with came about, but it really could go down as one the biggest misjudgments that a director could do," Parker told the site. [First appeared online at Creature Corner.]

October 15, 2002... The film's official website has just posted a htm" target="_blank">new interview with House director Uwe Boll. In the QuickTime segment Boll discusses how he shot the film as well as shows new footage from the film. The material seen should be considered as rough footage and not the final product; a temporary musical score and sound effects have been included and as yet this portion of the movie hasn't had the special effects enhanced by Electrofilm. However, you do get your first look at the picture's
bullet-time zombie shooting sequence (damn, that looks cool) and some of the cast members blowing away the undead. Keep your eyes peeled for a sequence where Jurgen Prochnow blows the head off of a flesh-eater he's got in a headlock! [Michael Roesch saw the dead walk. And ask for their coffee breaks.]

November 13, 2002... Michael Roesch, one of the co-producers on House of the Dead, told us today that the film's first theatrical trailer is being prepared and should be released sometime in the next couple of weeks. The trailer will give audiences their first look at some of the elaborate computer effects being prepared for the film.

"The visual effects crew at Elektrofilm have been working on the several hundred digital effects of the movie since summer 2002 and will continue working on it till early spring 2003," said Roesch. "For the last few months the foley artists at Herold & Besser studios have been working on the various sound effects of the movie, too. The score was recorded some weeks ago with the Warshaw Symphonic Orchestra."

[Thanks to Michael Roesch for not feeding the zombies.]

December 6, 2002... The first of three House of the Dead themed wallpapers were released today on the film's official website. The wallpapers show an graveyard full of zombies, an lonely zombie in the cellars under the house and actress Ona Grauer hefting a sword. [Michael Roesch wonders if dead websites can reanimate.]

December 11, 2002... The latest update to the House of the Dead website is an MP3 clip giving us an audio preview of the movie's sound effects. Sound designers and foley artists at Herold & Besser Studios have been working on the sound effects for the picture for several weeks now and the MP3 file shows off some of that work. Work will continue on the sound effects until January or early February, and the movie will be released in 6-channel digital DTS sound. [Info provided by Michael Roesch.]

February 19, 2003... Yup, it looks like there was a screening of House of the Dead last weekend in San Francisco. IGN FilmForce confirmed that the screening was indeed the first public showing of the zombie flick. We haven't seen any reviews from the screening appear on the Web just yet, which means that we're the first to have one!

For the most part, hardcore horror fans will read the review from "Herbert West" and have their spirits raised: in the past 10 to 15 years there has been a trend for horror movies to not show lots of gore and carnage. According to our scooper, House of the Dead goes for broke on the visual effects and isn't shy to show what happens when zombies meet party-going youth. The question is will the Motion Picture Association of America take a bite out of House of the Dead?

Mixed SPOILERS for the film are included in the review, which we've hidden (you must highlight the section with your mouse to reveal the text.)

"Saturday night I went to the San Francisco Film Festival to see the movie of House of the Dead. I wasn't expecting much, I just broke up with my girlfriend the week before Valentine's Day and I didn't have anything else to do and I went in thinking this was going to suck shit after seeing the crappy trailer on House of the Dead 3 so I couldn't believe how much I actually dug this movie. It's not perfect and some of the performances are total shit, but the zombie action is the best I've seen since Day of the Dead. The make-up and effects are really, really good and I didn't even so mind the teens on an island going to a rave thing because its so fucking
gory. I'm sure the MPAA is going to totally fuck it up so I hope someone like Lions Gate releases it unrated.

"Basically, it's a llittle slow at the beginning when the guys are getting to the island, but there's plenty of tits to make up for it which is good with everyone trying to do all this PG-13 shit now. House of the Dead is a B movie that knows it's a B movie full of breasts and gore. I would have been getting popcorn during this part of the film, but Jurgen Prochnow and Clint Howard are a total hoot and put the kids in there place. But when they finally get to the island, they get attacked by zombies and things really pick up from there. There's a really, really awesome scene where they get a bunch of guns from Jurgen's Captain Kirk (there's a very funny joke about this) and then have to fight zombies for like 20 minutes to get into the house and some of the special effects are really cool. There's a zombie fighting a girl in bullet-time that was awesome. I'm a little sick of this shit, but it works here. Also, Ellie Cornell from Halloween 4 kicks ass and has a great death scene where she gets her legs eaten off.

"The worst thing about the movie is all the video game footage. I could have lived with it for the opening credits, but it totally takes you out of the movie. Hopefully, the director will take the game stuff out before the movie comes out because it's stupid. After coming out of the theater, I talked to a bunch of other people and everyone seemed surprised how much they liked it. I don't know if it's better than Resident Evil, but there's definitely better zombie action and the story makes more sense.

"Some of the people who made the movie were there and talked after the screening. Ona, who played the lead girl, was really hot and the director talked for a while but I couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying.

"Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll be buying the DVD when it comes out."

[It came from the mind of 'Herbert West'.]

June 6, 2003... Artisan Pictures has announced that it has picked up North American distribution rights for the already filmed HOUSE OF THE DEAD and soon-to-be-filmed ALONE IN THE DARK horror movies. HOUSE OF THE DEAD, based on the SEGA video game series, is now scheduled for a Fall 2003 release; principal photography on ALONE IN THE DARK starts in July. A release date for ALONE hasn't been announced.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD, written by Dave Parker and Mark Altman, stars Jurgen Prochnow (DAS BOOT), Clint Howard (APOLLO 13), Ellie Cornell (HALLOWEEN 4) and Jonathan Cherry (FINAL DESTINATION 2). Prochnow plays a boat captain who transports a group of young adults over to a island only to find that the dead are waiting for them. The kids weekend rave soon turns into their personal grave. [Source: Artisan Pictures.]

July 31, 2003... The official website for THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD has finally unveiled the theatrical one-sheet design for the movie. Due in theaters October 10, the movie stars Jurgen Prochnow, Clint Howard, Ona Grauer and Jonathan Cherry among others.
[House of the Dead.]

Official Web Site:

www.house-of-the-dead.com