House of the Dead 2

aka House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim

2006
Starring
Emmanuelle Vaugier as Alex “Nightingale”
Ed Quinn as Ellis
Sticky Fingaz as Dalton
Victoria Pratt as Henson
James Parks as Bart
Dan Southworth as Nakagawa
Nadine Velazquez as Rodriguez
Sid Haig as Professor Curien
Directed by Michael Hurst

Dr. Uwe Boll shocked the world with his adaptation of Sega Games House of the Dead. Shocked as in people were shocked at how inept and mishandled a movie could be in this day and age. Despite being a bigger box office bomb than Hiroshima, House of the Dead made money, mostly through advanced DVD sales and television rights selling, combined with a German tax loophole that Boll is an expert in exploiting. Following the rules of Hollywood, if a movie even makes 1/2 a cent of profit, a sequel is instantly approved. Thus, we now are graced with House of the Dead 2. 95% of sequels are worse than their predecessors, but this is one of the rare 5% that is actually better than the film it’s related to. Does that make HOTD2 a good movie? Far from it, but it’s much more fun, and put together better. It’s still full of plot holes so large the planet earth could glide through with zero difficulty, and acting that’s outshone by posters on the wall. Dr. Boll was busy filming BloodRayne, so he was unable to make Cinematic Abortion 2: Abortion Boogaloo, so instead we get former kickboxing champion Michael Hurst. Michael Hurst may be familiar to you as the cowriter of Mansquito and Nature Unleashed: Fire, so he is versatile in the realm of schlock and crap. The two main stars are Ed Quinn from Starship Troopers 2, and Emmanuelle Vaugier, fresh off her starring role in Cerberus. Bonus stars who are actually much more famous than the leads include Sticky Fingaz as the leader of the Special forces group, who will become Blade in the TV series based on the movies. We also get Sid Haig, from House of 1000 Corpses, who must be trying to corner the market on House of…. movies, when he’s not starring with Pam Grier. There’s also a Power Ranger running around somewhere. Sure, it’s a dangerous film, fraught with the horrors of bad cinema, but it outshines it’s predecessor in several way. Is there any video game scenes as cuts? Is there 360 degree Matrix-style shots of every character? Is the small improvements enough to prevent damage to the minds of those who see this? Read on, read on…