House of the Dead 2 (film)

House of the Dead 2

DVD cover
Directed by Michael Hurst
Produced by Mark A. Altman
Mark Gottwald
Screenplay by Mark A. Altman
Story by Peter Scheerer
Michael Roesch
Based on House of the Dead series
by Sega
Starring Emmanuelle Vaugier
Ed Quinn
Victoria Pratt
Music by Joe Kraemer
Cinematography Raymond Stella
Edited by Joseph Gutowski
Distributed by Lionsgate
Release dates
  • October 14, 2005 (2005-10-14) (Sitges Film Festival)
Running time
 96 minutes
Country United States
Language English

House of the Dead 2 (alternately titled House of the Dead II: Dead Aim) is the 2005 sequel to Brightlight Pictures' 2003 horror film House of the Dead. The film is directed by Michael Hurst and premiered at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain on October 14, 2005, and premiered in the United States on the Syfy on February 11, 2006.

Plot

Taking place shortly after the original, a professor at the fictional Cuesta Verde University has managed to subdue and contain a "Hyper sapiens" specimen, who is revealed to be Curien, (an infected survivor from the first film and a main character in the games). The professor experiments on the survivor, trying to determine the source of her immortality, with apparent disregard for the rotted state of her body. When he has created a serum that he believes will bring back the dead and grant immortality, he murders one of his students and injects her with the serum. She returns to life, infects the professor, and breaks out of the building.

A month later, the university has a full-fledged outbreak, which is confirmed by AMC reconnaissance teams. 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. They are ordered to retrieve a blood sample from the originally infected specimen on campus; missiles will level the campus at midnight, regardless of whether the agents are still present or not. 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 Cuesta Verde University, the soldiers encounter zombies. One soldier panics and another becomes infected after his gun jams. When the others discover his injury, they sever his infect arm, but he turns and infects the team medic; both are executed by Ellis. The team continues forward into the university proper.

They proceed to battle through the hordes of infected, splitting into two teams. Two female soldiers, Lieutenant Henson and Private Rodriguez, and a male soldier, Bart, investigate the dorms. They break into a female dormitory where they find the deceased naked body of a zombie. Bart attempts to pose with the corpse and is bitten by a mosquito trapped in the room. Fearing contamination but unwilling to execute Bart, who is threatening them with a handgun, Henson handcuffs Bart to a radiator and the two soldiers exit the room, falling back to the van. Meanwhile, the second team, including Ellis and Nightingale, are attacked multiple times. Eventually, every soldier escorting them is killed, including the leader of the unit, Sergeant Griffin. They fight their way to the professor's laboratory and find the original specimen still imprisoned, as well as a pair of students who had survived. They enter the confinement room and extract blood from the zombie, but are forced to kill it when it breaks free. The two students who had allowed them into the confinement room are overrun and torn apart by zombies, and the two agents escape while the zombies are feeding on the bodies.

Henson and Rodriguez make it to the extraction vehicle. There, they prepare to rescue the agents, but Rodriguez is bitten by a zombie who was locked in the back of the van by the soldier assigned to guard it. Henson executes Rodriguez, and the duo arrive in front of the science building as Ellis and Nightingale fight their way through a horde of zombies. The agents make it to the van, but the blood sample vial is destroyed in the process. They are forced to turn back, with ten minutes before missiles 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 the agents escape by disguising themselves as 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, Nightingale kills him. His dying action is to pull the pin on a hand grenade, destroying the vial in the process. The two agents escape before the missiles level the campus. Nightingale is wounded but uncertain of whether she's infected. Ellis refuses to execute her, and the two leave the city, finding that the infection has spread to the rest of the city.

In a post credits scene, the infected professor from the school is seen breathing heavily and looking frantically around.

Cast

Critical reaction

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 II commits the ultimate celluloid sin – it's boring."[1] 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 II]. ... [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."[2] 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."[3] Jon Condit of Dread Central rated it 3/5 stars and wrote that it is deserving of a chance despite its flaws.[4] 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!"[5]

Sequel

A third film, currently titled House of the Dead 3, with the name subject to change, has been discussed since late 2006. Michael Hurst is replacing Uwe Boll as the director of this movie,[6] and 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."[7] Unlike House of the Dead 2, the producers aren't planning on releasing House of the Dead 3 direct to DVD, but to theaters. The film starred Dean Cain and ended up with the title Dead and Deader when premiered on the SyFy Channel in December 2006 and released straight-to-DVD in 2007. No House of the Dead references were included in the final film.

References

  1. ↑ Jane, Ian (2006-05-03). "House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  2. ↑ "House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim (2005) Movie Review". BeyondHollywood.com. 2006-02-05. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  3. ↑ "House of the Dead 2 (V)". Bloody Disgusting. 2006-03-05. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  4. ↑ Condit, Jon (2005-12-20). "House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim (2005)". Dread Central. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  5. ↑ Barton, Steve (2006-03-06). "House of the Dead 2 (DVD)". Steve Barton. Retrieved 2014-06-30.
  6. ↑ "House of the Dead 3 (HotD) movie in the pipelines". Tech2. June 17, 2006. Retrieved August 9, 2011.
  7. ↑ "House of the Dead 3 Movie Coming". 1up. June 15, 2006. Retrieved August 9, 2011.

External links

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