Summary
"House of the Dead" - the movie that proves that even a scene about posee of attractive, desperate, heavily-armed twenty-somethings slaughtering an endless field of re-animated corpses can be unimaginably boring! Especially if they then show the same scene again in super-fast motion!
Someone had the bright idea to hold a rave on the Island of the Dead, so naturally a host of much-more-agile-than-usual zombies crashes the party and kills everyone except a band of intrepid survivors who must spend the rest of the night fighting for their lives, sucking face, and blowing stuff up. The Bog of Eternal Stench from "Labyrinth" puts in a guest appearance, adding a much-needed note of levity and prompting bad Hoggle and Ludo impressions from both Barbara May and myself.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
I'd like to start things off on a positive note by saying that it's very nice to see an interracial couple in a zombie movie, particularly one which is so nonchalant about it. We've come a long way since "White Zombie" and "King of the Zombies".
Speaking of classic zombie movies, it's interesting to note that "House of the Dead" is, in one sense, a throwback to the old zombie movies in that the zombies have to be individually animated rather than springing automatically back into action a few minutes subsequent to their deaths, as is generally the case in more modern zombies movies such as the "Night of the Living Dead" trilogy and "Children Should't Play with Dead Things." This expectation actually caused me a bit of confusion and disappointment while watching "House of the Dead" as I was hoping that the kissy-face scene between Rudy and Alicia would be interrupted by the reanimation of Clasper's severed torso, but sadly it wasn't to be.
"House of the Dead" zombies are also controlled by a single man. At least I think he's a man. It was unclear to me whether Castillo was still a living man who had made himself immortal, perhaps by drinking his own zombie juice prior to death, or just an extremely high-functioning zombie. In either case, these zombies are controlled by Castillo in much the same way the zombies of "White Zombie" are controlled by Legendre or those of "Plague of the Zombies" by Squire Hamilton, rather than running amok in obedience only to an instinctive urge to devour human flesh like the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead." Castillo creates his zombies using scientific methods, rather than voodoo magic, which used to be the preferred method, but that has more to do with prevailing attitudes towards science, magic, and Haiti than it does prevailing attitudes towards the zombies themselves. The point is that their animation requires a conscious hand behind it, rather than just a solar flare or a surge of some kind of radiation.
On the other hand, "House of the Dead" also has a great deal in common with the zombie movies of the "Night of the Living Dead" school. The real, physical threat in "House of the Dead" comes from the zombies themselves, as it does in "Night of the Living Dead." The characters are in imminent danger of being ripped limb from limb by an army of the undead. In "Plague of the Zombies" the danger is not that our heroes might be killed by zombies, but that they might be turned into zombies themselves. The threat comes not from the zombies but from the man behind the zombies. Of course, Castillo himself does become a threat at the end of "House of the Dead" but his role is still secondary to that of the initial horde of zombies.
Physically, "House of the Dead" zombies also owe more to the modern zombie school than the classic. They are rotten, bloody, oozing (and, in some cases, covered with a layer of moss, which was a new one on me) as opposed to the almost pristine, bloodless faces of classic zombies. They represent the modern trend towards portrayal of the most gruesome, vomitous side of death in virtually all monster genres. Zombies, vampires, werewolves, aliens, radioactive mutants - all these drip gore today in much greater volumes than in their original cinematic incarnations.
"House of the Dead" can thus be seen as an important step in the evolution of the zombie, despite its own inherent worthlessness. Bridging the gulf between the two major schools of zombies is not an easy task, but "House of the Dead" has begun the journey and for that (if for little else) it should be congratulated.
So as not to be accusing of leaving some zombie movies out of my calculations, I would like to add a footnote to the effect that there is a third school of zombie movies, which has thus far reached its culmination in the film "I, Zombie." "I, Zombie" takes an entirely different stance than either the classic or the modern zombie movie, treating zombism as a disease which attacks and alters a living human, similar to vampirism. In that way, "I, Zombie" follows in the steps of "The Last Man on Earth" in which the line between zombies and vampires seems to blur. While this is a fascinating take on the subject and I am altogether in favor of such exploration of the links between traditional horrific monsters, it is not addressed in any way by "House of the Dead" and thus was not germane to the foregoing discussion. Apparently I've brought it up only to brag about the completeness of my knowledge of zombie film history.
BARBARA JO
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