Monthly Archives: February 2017

Zombruary Review: Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)

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On our last review of Zombruary, we have one from the re watch pile…
Dellamorte Dellamore aka The Cemetery Man (1994)


Film: Shameless Screen Entertainment tricked me. Being a completist, I can’t help but grab every release they do as they have numbers clearly shown on the spine of each DVD or bluray they release. 

Cheeky buggers.

But I have to admit my chagrin may be not as severe as it could be, as through the perpetual purchases of their product, I have watched some films that I possible would never had been exposed to the likes of Who Watched Her Die or Torso.

This however is a film I would have grabbed even if I wasn’t a nutjob collector. This film has always been of interest to me for several reasons: it’s based on the comic Dylan Dog and I’m a sucker for comic movies, it stars Anna Falchi who is just exquisite (and has an amazing body which is shown off several times in this film), and is directed by Michele Soavi, who also directed Stagefright and The Church, two films I love!

Our story tells of gravedigger, Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) who doesn’t just bury the dead, but also has the job at a graveyard of re-burying the Dead who have returned to life, or ‘returners’ as he calls them along with his sidekick/ employee Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro).

Dellamorte Dellamore: Rupert Everett as our hero!


Whilst at a gravesite one day he sees a widow, referred to as ‘She’ (Anna Falchi), who is burying her husband, and he decides she is the most beautiful living person he has ever seen, and decides he needs to pursue her.

He eventually lands his prize, but she dies of fright after seeing her returned deceased husband, Dellamorte’s life starts to decline… and perhaps his mental stability too, after he is visited by death itself, and doppelgänger of his beloved….

Dellamorte Dellamore: Anna Falchi… sigh.


It’s a great movie, with great looking zombies and a real different way of looking at the ‘zombie problem’ and it’s full of black comedy and with a nihilistic ending which is a surprising flip in tone, and is entertaining throughout.

Score: ****1/2

Dellamorte Dellamore DVD menu screen


Format: This U.K. Release from Shameless Screen Entertainment on DVD runs for approximately 103 minutes and is presented with an OK, 16:9 image with a similar Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. The audio is available in English or Italian with English subtitles. It basicLly a good image, but has a touch of pixelation here and there and the colours sometimes run flat.

Score: ***

Extras: The disc opens with reviews for other Shameless Screen Entertainment releases Four Flies on Grey Velvet and Cannibal Holocaust.

Other extras include a trailer, a gallery (which is a usual pretty boring piece, only 15 photos from Alan Jones’ personal collection, some behind the scenes shots and a few pics of the script and a poster), there is a Shameless Trailer Park which features trailers for other Shameless releases Venus in Furs, The Frightened Woman, Who Saw Her Die, The Designated Victim, Oasis of Fear, Baba Yaga, Footprints on the Moon, Satan’s Baby Doll, The Beast in Space, The Strange Vice of Mrs Watch, Almost Human and Don’t Torture a Duckling.

There is also a fantastic commentary by Soavi and writer Gianni Romoli which really gets into the nuts and bolts of the making of the film, though it is , as expected, in Italian with English subtitles.

Journalist Alan Jones has also provided an interesting personal account of the Ma king of the film in an accompanying booklet.

Score: ****

WISIA: It’s a gem. You’ll watch it again and again!

Dellamorte Dellamore: a Zombie’s Guide to the Scout Apocalypse

Zombeavers (2014) Review

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One from the to watch pile…
Zombeavers (2014)

Zombeavers Australian Bluray cover


Film: Yeah. You read that right. Zombeavers. The film that takes all the very best from Zombies, and adds it to beavers.

Beavers. You know, the dam building, buck toothed water-dwelling mammals.

Yeah. Them.

Our story begins as Eight Legged Freaks and Return of the Living Dead 2 did, and probably hundreds of other horror films, with a truck accidentally dropping chemical/ medical waste into a river, which unfortunately changes a few members of the local wildlife into undead killing machines… ok, it’s beavers.

It’s where the film gets it’s clever title from.

Zombeavers: Mary, Zoe and Jenn.


Unfortunately for sorority sisters Mary (Rachel Melvin), Zoe (Courtney Palm) and Jenn (Lexi Atkins), the mutated zombie-beavers take up residence in the lake just outside of her cousin’s house where they have decided to take a weekend sabbatical, without their boyfriends.

Of course, their obnoxious boyfriends Sam (Hutch Dano), Tommy (Jake Weary) and Buck (Peter Gilroy) turn up and their sabbatical turns into a weekend of sex and odious behaviour… sounds awesome!

Very soon, the Zombeavers descend upon the group and no one is safe from the teeth that bite and claws that slash… who will survive the night, and will the virus the Zombeavers spread kill them all?

Zombeavers: a zombeaver.


Who cares? They are all douchebags!

Zombeavers is the only film to date to be directed by Jordan Rubin, who is normally a comedy writer and has worked with people like Conan O’Brian and on TV shows like Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Crank Yankers and The Man Show. It was also written by Rubin along with Al and Jon Kaplan.

It starts with an awesome Scooby Doo styled beginning, is full of some preposterously bad CGI and some real silly practical effects, is full of lame gags and has scenes lifted out of films like Creepshow 2, Black Sheep and the Scary Movie series, and yet still somehow entertained. Not due to fine performances or exquisite wit, but just for the sheer stupidity of the concept and execution.

Make sure you still around for the end credits and the Frank Sinatra styled, crooning Zombeavers song: it’s now been stuck in my head for 2 hours!

Score: *1/2

Zombeavers bluray menu screen


Format: Thankfully, Zombeavers only runs for 77 minutes and is presented, on this Australian region B bluray release, in a good 1.78:1 image with an excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

Score: ****1/2

Extras: Nothing, not a sausage.

Score: 0

WISIA: It’s so stupid, and yet with a weird funny charm to it… I hate to admit it, but I may actually watch this again.

Zombeavers: zombeaver/ human hybrid.

Friday the 13th Part VI Jason Lives (1986) Review

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Cinema has shown us zombies come in all shapes and sizes… and many different franchises. 

One from the to watch pile…

Friday the 13th Part VI Jason Lives (1986)

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: US DVD cover

Film: The Friday the 13th franchise is a pretty amazing one. It switches horror sub-genres from film to film and we, the horror consumer, swallow every change like an OCD glutton at a multi-cultural all-you-can-eat buffet. It hits us with giallo, slasher, scifi, body horror and here, with part VI, zombie elements and it does it without flinching.

I was always a fan of this series, with Part V being my favourite, but this is probably the one I saw the most, mainly as I had an ex-rental of it in the late eighties that I watched over and over.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Thom Matthews as Tommy Jarvis

This instalment sees Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews), survivor of attacks by both Jason Voorhees and a copycat killer, returns to Crystal Lake, now renamed Forest Green to try and escape the stigma of the amount of mass killings, to dig up the body of Jason Voorhees to make sure he is dead, which he thinks may release him from the madness which has pursued him his entire life.

Once he and one of his pals from the institution, Hawes (played by Ron ‘Horshack’ Palillo) dig the body up, Tommy freaks out and stabs the corpse through the heart with a iron palling torn from the fence of the graveyard, but as bad luck and a complete lack of medical or science knowledge would have it, a lightning bolt strikes the pole and brings Jason (C.J. Graham) back to life as a rotting killer with a thirst for teenage blood!

A new camp has been opened in ‘Forest Green’ and with a re-animated Jason on the loose, only one thing can happen: CARNAGE! Jason is just one of Tommy’s problems though, as he has the local Sheriff (David Kagen) and the gun-happy deputy (Vincent Guastaferro) after him thinking HE is the killer, and hot-to-trot saucy sheriff’s daughter and camp councillor Megan (Jennifer Cooke) after his body… will he manage to put Jason down once again?

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Jennifer Cooke as Megan

This foray into Jason’s world is a lot lighter, and more PG than the previous outings but it still entertains with a likeable cast, fast movie story (there is even a car chase!) and a couple of genuine funny moments. A warning though, if you are offended by eighties fashion, or teenagers designed after the John Hughes model, you may have a small scale cringe tremor.

It’s not the best F13, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.

Score: ***

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives DVD menu screen

Format: This review was done with the US release of the region 1 DVD. It is presented in a 16×9 widescreen image that is top shelf for DVD and has a pretty good Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track!

Score: ****

Extras: The disc opens with a trailer for the Emily Browning film The Uninvited and then continues with a veritable Trevor-trove of extras.

First we have a commentary with writer/ director Tom McLoughlin, accompanied by editor Bruce Green and Vincent Guastaferro who played Deputy Rick Cologne, which is a fairly thorough and entertaining.

Lost Tales from Camp Blood – Part 6 is just some amateur, cliché ridden slasher divided up in parts for this release of the F13 films. Don’t even bother with it, even if you’ve seen the others. I’m not even sure why it’s on an F13 disc when you consider the only thing in common is the completely stolen score.

The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited Part III is a mockumentary treating the events in this film as real. It’s dumb.

Jason Lives: The Making of Friday the 13th: Part VI is just that and is a nice, albeit short retrospective about the film.

Meeting Mr Voorhees looks at McLoughlin’s original ending for the film, which would have introduced Jason’s father to the lexicon of the lake. It is shown here using Storyboards and a cast member’s voiceover. I liked this and it would have taken the series in a different direction!

Slashed Scenes, I thought, was going to be deleted stuff, but it is just the murders shown all together in really bad quality.

Original Theatrical Trailer is just what it’s name suggests. 

There is also a ‘preview’ option which just shows the a same trailer for The Uninvited that the disc opened with.

Score: ****

WISIA: It’s dopey, but it’s Friday the 13th, so you’ll rewatch it every Friday the 13th or whenever you have a F13 marathon.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: kikikimomomo

Fido (2006) Review

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One from the re watch pile…
Fido (2006)

My ex-rental DVD copy of Fido


Film: After Shaun of the Dead came out, it seemed every man and his dog wanted to make a zombie comedy, some of which worked, some of which didn’t. This film, Fido, written by Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie and Dennis Heaton, and directed by Currie, is one of the lesser celebrated ones, which is unfortunate as it does at least deserve one viewing, though personally, it’s not a huge rewatcher.

In what appears to be an alternate 1950’s America, we are told via an educational (read that as propaganda) film that a radioactive dust fell to earth from space, and caused the dead to rise and try to eat human flesh. Then the zombies wars came, and mankind survived, and through the research of Zomcom, a company who then walled the cities to protect the citizens, a way to domesticate the undead was discovered and they became servants of mankind, taking care of menial tasks.

Fido: Loder as Timmy and Connelly as Fido


We are introduced to our hero Timmy (Kesun Loder), a young man who is the subject of bullying at school and doesn’t have any real friends. His parents, Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Bill (Dylan Baker) have a strained relationship, mainly due to his lack of familial care, which is made even worse when Helen brings home a domesticated zombie, whom Timmy names Fido (Billy Connelly).

Timmy and Fido become great friends, but when Fido’s collar malfunctions and he kills a member of the neighbourhood, Timmy covers up the murder, but not before she kills another and causes a small uprising.

All through this though, Timmy questions various aspects of why zombies are what they are, both from a scientific and theological aspect… can the Living and the Dead co-exist?

Thematically there is a lot going on in this film. It takes a wry look at subjects like freedom vs security, at corporations controlling our lives when the government fails, oppression of minorities… all sorts of stuff.

From a cinematic point of view, there are some real clever elements here. The world of humanity is bright and vibrant and most of the zombies are discoloured so they appear to be in black and white, except for one zombie, Tammy, who’s owner is attempting to make her a surrogate wife. She is a microcosm of the entire film: there is a polished veneer over a society that is rotten to the core. 

It’s a well cast film too; Loder plays the 50s styled kid perfectly and isn’t annoying at all. Baker is the perfect uptight Dad with a few mental problems. Moss is delightful as the keeping up appearances mother, and Henry Czerny is great as the ‘company man’ who wants to contain and clamp down any situation. Connelly somehow plays Fido quite understated, and manages to convey what’s left of his humanity quite well.

Fido: Baker as Bill and Moss as Helen


Essentially what we have here is a funny parody of things like Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, but with zombies instead of dogs as the trusty, non-English speaking hero.

Score: ***1/2

The Fido DVD menu screen


Format: The reviewed copy of this film is an ex-rental Australian DVD which runs for approximately 89 minutes and presented in a below average 2.35:1 image with an excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. 

Score: ***

Extras: Not a wholly bad bunch of extras on this disc:

In the audio section we have a choice to listen to a commentary by director Currie, producer Mary Anne Waterhouse, and actress Moss. It’s a great technical commentary and talks about the entire aspect of script and film. A great film-student commentary.

Fido Family Portraits has conceptual art, make up and stills from the film presented as a slideshow with some accompanying music. I don’t normally go for stills galleries, but this is presented nicely.

There is some DVD-Rom ‘Zombie Me’ creator thing which has not been reviewed. I imagine it is the pre-iPhone app version of

Making of Fido is a short summary of what the film is thematically about.

Blooper reel is short and sweet it just shows a bunch of people not doing their jobs properly. Only kidding. I thought it would be a lot funnier considering, you know, Billy Connelly, but no.

There is a commentary with the score composer Don MacDonald which if, like me, you’re interested in score and cinema music is quite fascinating.

There a six deleted scenes with directors commentary which are interesting, but better off omitted.

In addition, there is a theatrical trailer.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: It’s a cute, light-hearted, with occasional dark elements, zombie comedy but I doubt if I will revisit it.

Fido: when Daddy becomes a zombie….

Land of the Dead (2005) Review

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One from the re watch pile…
Land of the Dead (2005)

Land of the Dead: Australian bluray cover


Film: One of the hazards I have encountered with starting my own genre-related movie blog after doing reviews for well over ten years is that eventually I am going to have to re-review a film that I did years ago. I have attempted to avoid that very thing where possible but I knew it would eventually happen, and I believe that this is the one!

One can’t have a zombie-film only month like Zombruary without a particular name eventually emerging: George A. Romero. He’s horror royalty as far as I am concerned, and with the influential Night of the Living Dead, gut-stompingly amazing Dawn of the Dead and epic gore-fest Day of the Dead, he nailed down his undead crown.

When this first came out, and I reviewed it for a site I once worked for, I totally was in love with it. I loved seeing Romero work again, and I’m not a guy who enjoys and uncovers subtexts about consumerism and stuff, I just love that first zombie trilogy! 

Time can open one’s eye though, and my memory of this is false. It’s actually not as good as I remember, which actually struck me as sad that my thrill, a decade ago, is tempered.

Land of the Dead continues the evolution that we thought was finished 20 years previously in Day of the Dead, but now we see that society has devolved into three levels. The Dead exist with some kind of muscle memory of what and who they were alive, and tend to return to their regular locations to continue what they used to be, which was explored in Dawn of the Dead. The middle level is a destitute form of humanity, barely alive and with an almost Wild West self-governing state, which is where we find our hero, Riley Denbo (Simon Baker) who works for the upper classes, who live in a huge building with all the mod-cons, and run by Kaufman (Dennis Hopper).

Land of the Dead: Simon Baker as Riley


To keep the upper class running at their pre-living dead era level, Kaufman employs Dendo and others, including his badly scarred sharpshooter, Charlie (Robert Joy) and rival Cholo (John Leguizamo), who leave the confines of the moated city to collect food from the suburbs, but it is a dangerous job as the Dead will emerge from their rut-like stupor to feed on the living.

Riley has a plan to escape though, and has been funding a car so he can leave the oppressiveness of the impoverish parts of the city and be free, but his investment disappears, and he confronts the crooked supplier, only to end up helping a captured girl who was to be fed to some zombies for entertainment, Slack (Asia Argento).

Land of the Dead: Asia Argento


Cholo is also stiffed on a deal, but he wants to join the people in ‘high society’ so he steals the truck that is used to collect supplies from the outside world, nicknamed Dead Reckoning, and soon Kaufman employs Denbo, Charlie and Slack to get it back, but what none of them realise is that a zombie, Big Daddy (Eugene Clark) has become intelligent enough to form a plan of his own, and starts organising an army of zombies in this land of the dead….

Tragically, upon reflection, I am reminded of another George who perhaps should have left his legacy alone: George Lucas. Whilst upon rewatching I still had the same love for Romero’s original films, this just doesn’t hold up, and I was even struggling to see what I was thrilled about when I first saw it. 

Honestly, it was probably Asia Argento, zombies and gore. 

Score: **1/2

Land of the Dead: Australian bluray menu screen


Format: The reviewed copy of Land of the Dead was the Australian bluray copy was presented in an amazing 2.35:1 video with a perfect Dolby digital DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track.

Score: ****1/4

Extras: A decent bunch of extras here:

The Remaining Bits is a look at the deleted scenes, most of which the movie doesn’t suffer for losing.

When Shaun Met George takes a look at Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s cameo appearance in Land of the Dead. Basically this was Romero’s way of thanking the guys for Shaun of the Dead.

Scenes of Carnage is just a summary of the zombie munching scenes in Land of the Dead. I don’t know why a violence summary was needed. It it’s definitely a waste of disc space, for sure.

Zombie Effect: From Green Screen to Finished Scene shows the raw footage of some of the scenes and then with the effects added, unfortunately with no commentary.

Bringing the Storyboards to Life compares the cool, comic-y Storyboards to the final result, again, unfortunately with no commentary.

Scream Tests: Zombie Casting Call is thankfully barely a minute long and shows some barely well rendered CGI zombies dancing the ‘Thriller’ Zombie dance. Stupid, and with commentary, has no relevance.

There is also a commentary with Romero, producer Peter Grunwald and editor Michael Doherty which tells a lot of behind the scenes stuff that the extras missed out on.

There is also a thing called ‘U-control’ which, when activated shows a bunch of proper behind the scenes stuff, in a picture-in-picture way. This extra and the commentary saved these extras from being totally terrible.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for this picture has diminished over the years, and my rewatch has tempered by enjoyment, and quashed the memory of it being fantastic. I think if I have the choice to watch another Romero ‘dead’ film, it won’t be this one.

Land of the Dead: Savini vs Humans.

Nerds of Oz: week ending 10th February 2017

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Week Ending 10th February 2017
Mini-haul…
Blurays

This week I grabbed a couple of new releases: the animated Justice League Dark and Ouija Origin of Evil.


Bust/ Statues

Grabbed this cool Harley Quinn (yes, again) Mugshot bust. Normally I’d do a YouTube opening, but I couldn’t resist getting stuck into this straight away!


Board/ Card Games

Picked up a copy of Games Workshop’s Space Hulk. I had this years ago, and saw one quite cheap so I jumped on it. I loved this game in my twenties, this and another called Talisman, and I’m glad to have it again.

Burial Ground (1981) Review

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One from the re watch pile…
Burial Ground aka Le Notti Del Terrore (1981)

The 88 Films Bluray cover for Burial Ground


Film: I didn’t get to see all the 80s horror I now love in the 80s, some of it I only discovered since this more permissive age of DVD and Bluray where so many films, previously cut to death or not released at all in Australia, or perhaps were part of the American MPAA slash fest, or nailed to the wall as a Video Nasty in the UK. I am especially thankful to the Australian company Umbrella for giving me an opportunity to see things I never thought i’d see, or things I didn’t even knew existed!

Several years ago Umbrella came up with the concept of releasing several films with an old school E.C. Comics styled cover and amongst those releases was this film, Andrea Bianchi’s Burial Ground The Nights of Terror, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Burial Ground: Peter Bark!!


Burial Ground tells of three oversexed couples, and one twenty seven year old man made up to look like a child (Peter Bark), who visit an old building in the country owned by one of the gentlemen. What they don’t realise is that a nutty professor who looks like Rasputin, has been researching the Etruscan history of the house and has accidentally unleashed a small-ish legion of the undead!

Will this unpleasant bunch of boosh-wah morons survive the undead as they try to get into the house; will they be able to survive… the Night of Terror?!?

It’s a strange film insomuch as it has some below-average acting, bizarre casting, odd underlying themes of incest, sleazy men with hot girlfriends and blatant product placement, but then it has some beautiful surrounds, gore-a-plenty and stupidly awesome zombie make-up… seriously, so-bad-it’s-good nails the description in this case.

Burial Ground: anyone else suddenly feel like a J&B Scotch?


It probably isn’t a film that deserves much care taken with it, but the beautiful thing is how much care HAS been taken with this release! The image is amazingly sharp and obviously a lot of time was taken to clean it up, bravo to 88 Films in that case.

Score: ***1/2

Burial Ground 88 Films bluray menu


Format: This film was reviewed with the UK company 88 Films bluray edition from their ‘Italian Collection, this being number 14 in the set. It was remastered for bluray and looks great, presented in 1.66:1 with an equally nicely remastered 2.0 audio track in English, and an 2.0 Italian audio with English subtitles which is also excellent. 

Score: ****

Extras: There’s a nice bunch of extras on this disc:

A trailer and some audioless deleted scenes, but the funky soundtrack makes up for it. I can’t make a comment on whether or not these scenes are necessary as without the audio it makes them somewhat difficult to read, and ultimately redundant. One can’t have too much Peter Bark though, can you?

‘WTF’ an Interview with Mikel Coven looks at the films of Andrea Bianchi through the eyes of film historian Mikel Coven. It’s interesting and a great overlook of Bianchi’s output, even though Coven doesn’t seem to be a fan of his… or is he?

Also we have a trailer for Zombi Holocaust.

We also have a commentary on the film by John Martin, hosted by High Rising Productions Calum Waddell which takes a fun look at Bianchi history and the production of this film. It’s told, obviously, from a third party source, but it’s funny and interesting, and the two hosts clearly enjoy the,selves.

One last interesting thing, which I have decided to count as an extra, is there is the opportunity to watch this film in a ’35mm Grindhouse’ version, which is another way of saying ‘old VHS’ as there is heaps of static both on screen and on the soundtrack; so many snap, crackles and pops you’ll feel like a bowl of cereal by the time it finishes.

Also, this version comes with a reservable sleeve, an art card and a booklet with an article about the film by Calum Waddell and a small commentary about the film’ s transfer for bluray.

Score: ****

WISIA: I dig it and find it compelling due to its sleaziness and flat out weirdo-ness, you might too, and that is what will make it a re-watcher!

Burial Ground: it’s a zombie!!!

House of the Dead (2003) Review

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One from the re watch pile…
House of the Dead (2003)

House of the Dead Australian DVD cover

Film: Being the ideas man at some studios must be the easiest job in the world because basically, you don’t need any. It seems to me what you do is look at everything happening in pop culture, and find a way to cash in on it.

This isn’t a new thing: Hollywood has basically been bereft of new ideas for decades and in general it’s up to independent companies to shake things up. Everything lingering in pop culture is a target: books, comics, toys, video games… ah yes, the video game movie.

Such ‘hits’ as Bloodrayne, Tomb Raider and Super Mario Bros are great examples of what not to do, as is this amazing piece of crap, House of the Dead, directed by professional nerd-beater and directorial hack-a-roni, Uwe Boll.

(Caveat: Resident Evil is pretty good, so I’m not aiming my total disdain at every video game movie).

House of the Dead is barely based on the video game, but instead shows stuff that happens in the game and changes the environment to suit a pretty ordinary story, which presents itself as a prequel to the game.

A bunch of forgettable youngsters (played by people in their 30s, by the looks of it: it’s like Beverly Hills 90210 all over again) travel to an island where a rave is taking place, only to find they are late to the party, and the other partygoers have been turned into zombies!

House of the Dead: Jürgen Prochnow and Clint Howard check their bank books.

They hitch a ride to the island with a cranky old sea captain (Jürgen Prochnow) and his first mate (Clint Howard) who are being persued by the law for smuggling, and have to try and survive the zombie outbreak and maybe unravel the secrets of the house of the dead.

Now it may seem like I’m a Boll basher but I’m not. There have been a couple of his films of his that I actually enjoy, but this is just terrible. The idea of using footage from the video game as segues is a bad one as it serves as a constant reminder that this is not an original piece of work, and the use of some of the Matrix bullet cam is bizarre and really used only because they could and not as an aspect of the film, like Zack Snyder and his excessive use of slow motion which serves no purpose other than to sell an effect or lengthen his films by 20 minutes.

House of the Dead: in game footage used in the movie for ‘effect’.

Above all this though the story is quite generic, and the acting not much better than what you’d expect in a zombie film of this level of quality, though the setting is quite ridiculous and I’d like to say that Prochnow and Howard offer some class to the film in their special guest star statuses but, well, they just don’t.

I will however give this film a star as the zombie make-up and an boobies do make it somewhat interesting, but if these are things you need in a film, there are still far better options.

Score: *

House of the Dead DVD menu screen

Format: This review was done with the Australian Eagle Entertainment region 4 DVD edition which is presented in 1.85:1 video with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, both of which are ok, except you can clearly see and hear this terrible film. It was an ex-rental and probably not worth the ‘ten for ten dollars’ price tag at a shutting down Civic Video.

Score: ***1/2

Extras: There’s really only two extras relevant to the House of the Dead on this disc. The first is a thing called ‘Behind the House’ which is thirty minutes of behind the scenes stuff with NO explanation, or commentary and the second is a good ol’ theatrical trailer.

There are three other trailers on this disc: Tough Luck, Prozac Nation and Absolon.

Score: **

WISIA: To call this film dire is an underestimation, to call it diarrhoea is far more accurate. Avoid like a stomach infection. Seriously, it’s one of the few films I’ve ever seen that caused my bluray player to gag.

House of the Dead: a house exploding cannot stand.