House of the Dead 2 | |
---|---|
![]() DVD cover | |
Directed by | Michael Hurst |
Screenplay by | Mark A. Altman |
Story by | |
Based on | The House of the Dead by Sega |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Raymond Stella |
Edited by | Joseph Gutowski |
Music by | Joe Kraemer |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Lions Gate Films |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
House of the Dead 2 (alternately titled House of the Dead II: Dead Aim) is a 2005 American action horror film and a sequel to the 2003 horror film House of the Dead . It is based on the video game series of the same name and the 1996 video game. The film was directed by Michael Hurst. It premiered at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain on October 14, 2005, and premiered in the United States on the Sci Fi Channel on February 11, 2006.
A few months after the first film's events, Professor Roy Curien at the fictional Cuesta Verde University (CVU) in Seattle has managed to subdue and contain a "Hyper sapiens" specimen, who is revealed to be his son, Rudy Curien (a survivor of Isla del Morte incident). Curien experiments on another survivor (Alicia), trying to determine the source of her immortality, with apparent disregard for the rotted state of Alicia's body. When Curien creates a serum that he believes will bring back the dead and grant immortality, Curien murders one of his students and injects her with the serum. She returns to life, infects Curien, and breaks out of the building.
A month later, the university has a full-fledged outbreak, confirmed by AMS reconnaissance teams. Jake Ellis, an agent for AMS, goes in search of fellow agent Alexandra "Nightingale" Morgan. He finds her on a date at a restaurant, where she must execute several infected people before she returns to base with Ellis. After being ordered to retrieve a blood sample from the originally infected specimen on campus, they are warned that missiles will level the campus at midnight, regardless of whether the agents are still present. She assigns a gender-mixed Special Forces team of U.S. Marines to provide them with backup. Ellis openly questions the competence of the soldiers, leading to friction between the two units. Upon arrival at CVU, the soldiers encounter zombies. One soldier panics, and another becomes infected after his gun jams. When the others discover his injury, they sever his infected arm, but he turns and infects the team medic; Ellis executes both. The team continues forward into the university proper.
They battle through the hordes of infected, splitting into two teams. Two female soldiers, Lieutenant Alison Henson and Private Maria Rodriguez, and a male soldier, Bart, investigate the dorms. They break into a female dormitory, where they find a naked zombie body. A mosquito trapped in the room bites Bart, who attempts to pose with the corpse. Fearing contamination but unwilling to execute Bart, Henson handcuffs Bart to a radiator, and the two soldiers exit the room, falling back to the van.
Meanwhile, the second team, including Alex and Ellis, are attacked multiple times. Eventually, every soldier escorting them is killed, including the unit's leader, Sergeant Griffin. They fight their way to the professor's laboratory, finding the original specimen still imprisoned and a pair of students, Lonny and Sarah, who had survived. They enter the confinement room and extract blood from the zombie but are forced to kill it when it breaks free. Lonny and Sarah, who had allowed them into the confinement room, are overrun and torn apart by zombies, and Alex and Ellis escape while the zombies feed on the bodies.
Henson and Rodriguez make it to the extraction vehicle. There, they prepare to rescue Alex and Ellis, but a zombie who was locked in the back of the van by the soldier assigned to guard it bites Rodriguez. Henson executes Rodriguez, and the duo arrives in front of the science building as Alex and Ellis fight their way through a zombies horde. Henson saves Alex and Ellis but destroys the blood vial sample. They are forced to turn back, with ten minutes before the military releases the missile level the campus, and fight their way back to the confinement room. They retrieve a second vial, but Henson is bitten on the ankle. She remains behind and commits suicide as Alex and Ellis escape before the missile strikes the campus. Only Ellis makes it out before the missile hits, with Alex surrounded by zombies. Bart breaks free from the dormitory by amputating his hand and forces Ellis to hand over the vial. Bart decides to kill Ellis anyway, but Alex, having survived, kills Bart. His dying action is to pull the pin on a hand grenade, destroying the vial. Alex is wounded but uncertain of her condition. Ellis refuses to execute her. The two leave together as they head to Seattle, finding that the infection has spread to the rest of the city.
In a post-credits scene, the infected professor from the school breathes heavily and looks frantically around.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, House of the Dead 2 holds a 25% approval rating from 4 critics. [1]
Ian Jane of DVD Talk rated it 1/5 stars and wrote, "Whereas [the first] film was so bad it was almost good (at least we could laugh at it), this straight-to-video sequel is just flat-out bad, and unfortunately, it's flat-out dull. ... House of the Dead 2 commits the ultimate celluloid sin – it's boring." [2] Beyond Hollywood wrote, "If you were looking for a movie to show you how generic and formulaic horror movies in America have become lately, you needn't look any further than [House of the Dead 2]. ... [It is] indeed an improvement over Boll's original [but it] would have worked better had it stuck to camp and not taken the whole zombie thing too seriously." [3] Bloody Disgusting rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, "Altman’s script skewers everything in its wake, poking fun at virtually anything it can gets its bloody hands on. But underneath all the pop culture banter lies an effective film, with some palpable tension and enough blood, grue and boobs to surprise even the most jaded zombie movie hater." [4] Jon Condit of Dread Central rated it 3/5 stars and wrote that it is deserving of a chance despite its flaws. [5] Reviewing the DVD, Steve Barton of Dread Central rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, "It's semi-blood soaked, filled with zombies, open for business, and dare I say it, it's actually not a bad visit!" [6]
A third film, originally titled House of the Dead 3, had been discussed since mid 2006. [7] Mark A. Altman said: "It's a completely different approach to the material than the first two films and I doubt it will even be called House of the Dead 3." [8] The film directed by Patrick Dinhut and starring Dean Cain, which ended up with the title Dead and Deader when premiered on Syfy in December 2006 and released straight-to-DVD in 2007. No House of the Dead references were included in the final film.
28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus has caused the breakdown of society. Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns, and Brendan Gleeson appear in supporting roles.
The House of the Dead is a 1996 horror-themed light gun shooter arcade game developed by Sega AM1 and released by Sega. It is the first game in the House of the Dead series. Players assume the role of agents Thomas Rogan and "G" in their efforts to combat the products of the dangerous, inhumane experiments of Dr. Curien, a mad scientist.
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium is a 2005 horror film written by Ana Clavell and directed by Clavell and James Dudelson, starring Justin Ipock, Laurie Maria Baranyay and John F. Henry III. It was unofficially marketed as a prequel and sequel to 1985's Day of the Dead. The film was released direct-to-video in the United States on October 18, 2005.
Day of the Dead is a 2008 American horror film directed by Steve Miner and written by Jeffrey Reddick. It is a remake of George A. Romero's 1985 film of the same name, the third in Romero's Dead series, and it is the first of two remakes of the original 1985 film; the other is Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2017). The film sees a virus outbreak that causes people to turn into violent zombie-like creatures. The project was principally shot in Bulgaria, with limited shooting in Los Angeles, California.
Boy Eats Girl is a 2005 horror-comedy film directed by Stephen Bradley and starring Samantha Mumba, produced and shot in Ireland. The plot tells of a teenage boy who comes back to life as a zombie, similar to the plot of the American film My Boyfriend's Back.
Zombi 3 is a 1988 Italian horror film directed by Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei and starring Deran Sarafian, Beatrice Ring, and Ottaviano Dell'acqua. The film is an in-name-only sequel to Fulci's Zombi 2. The film is about a group of scientists at a top-secret research facility who are working on a biological weapon called Death One, which mutates and kills the living creatures and reanimates the dead. The weapon is leaked out of the facility, which leads to a spread of infection among soldiers and touring people in the area.
The House of the Dead, also referred to as Curien Mansion, is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a mouse or keyboard on home computers. For the PlayStation Network releases of III and 4, they can also be played using the PlayStation Move controller.
Planet Terror is a 2007 American comedy horror film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Set in Texas, the film follows the survivors of a biochemical outbreak as they battle zombie-like creatures and a rogue military unit. It stars Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, Josh Brolin, and Marley Shelton.
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane is a 2007 direct-to-video zombie film by director Scott Thomas. Thomas co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Onspaugh and Sidney Iwanter. The film was originally titled Plane Dead, but the title was changed at Montreal's 2007 Fantasia Festival screening. In spite of a successful screening there and at other festivals, the film did not gain a commercial release and was issued directly to DVD in unrated form.
The Zombie Diaries is a 2006 British independent found footage horror film written, produced and directed by Kevin Gates and first-time feature-filmmaker Michael Bartlett. It stars Russell Jones, Sophia Ellis, and James Fisher.
City of Rott is a 2006 American animated zombie film by Frank Sudol, who performed all filmmaking duties himself. The film uses 2D limited animation in a style similar to South Park. A sequel, titled City of Rott 2, was released in October 2014 through Amazon.com.
Pathogen is a 2006 zombie horror independent film written, directed, and produced by Emily Hagins, who was twelve at the time of the film's production. The film was released on March 25, 2006 and focuses on several middle school students who discover that an infection is turning people into zombies.
Curse of the Maya is a 2004 American horror film written, directed by and starring David Heavener.
Days of Darkness is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Jake Kennedy. Survivors of a zombie apocalypse, including a young couple played by Travis Brorsen and Roshelle Pattison, seek shelter in an abandoned military complex while they attempt to figure out what has caused the outbreak.
Dead and Deader is a 2006 American made-for-television zombie comedy horror film directed by Patrick Dinhut. The film stars Dean Cain, Guy Torry, Peter Greene and Susan Ward, with cameos from Armin Shimerman, John Billingsley, and Dean Haglund. It was aired from Sci Fi Channel on December 16, 2006.
Wasting Away is a 2007 zombie comedy film directed by Matthew Kohnen and starring Matthew Davis, Julianna Robinson, and Michael Grant Terry. The events of the plot take place from the zombies' point of view. The film uses color footage to show the action from the zombies' point of view in which they see themselves as normal humans and occasionally switches to black-and-white footage to show the zombies from the point of view of normal humans.
The Returned is a 2013 Spanish-Canadian thriller film directed by Manuel Carballo, written by Hatem Khraiche, and starring Emily Hampshire, Kris Holden-Ried, Shawn Doyle, and Claudia Bassols. When a rare and difficult to obtain medicine that requires daily doses to stave off the effects of a zombie infection runs low, a physician (Hampshire) and her infected husband (Holden-Ried) go on the run to avoid angry demonstrators.
The Dead and the Damned is a 2010 American Western horror film directed by Rene Perez, written by Perez and Barry Massoni, and starring David Lockhart, Camille Montgomery, Rick Mora, and Robert Amstler. The film depicts a meteorite that unleashes a zombie virus in the American Old West.