Script Coverage: House Of the Dead...THIS MOVIE SUCKED

Mindfire Entertainment

Script Coverage

Title: House of the Dead	Setting: Heavily wooded Island in Pacific Northwest
Author: Mark A. Altman, Dan Bates	Period: Current times (2003)
Producer:	Elements Attatched
Submitted By:	Submitted To: Zachary James
Read (watched) By: Zachary James	Genre: Horror, Action
Coverage Date: 2/10/14	Submission Date: 2/10/14

	Excellent	Very Good	Good	So-So	Not Good
Plot					X
Characters					X
Dialogue					X
Structure					X
Commercial Appeal					X

Recommend:

Consider:

Pass:X

Log Line: A group of friends go to a strange island in the Pacific for a “rave” only to find everyone is gone and the island is full of zombies

Summary: A group of friends, Simon, Greg, Alicia, Karma, and Cynthia plan on going to a really awesome rave on an island. Unfortunately they miss the boat, but luckily they meet a fisherman named Captain Kirk and his creepy first mate Salish. Kirk takes them to the Island after avoiding a cop trying to stop and search his boat.

            The four friends arrive on the Island only to find it deserted, and the rave left unattended. Alicia, Karma and Simon go out across the Island to find out where everyone went. Greg and Cynthia are left behind and when Greg goes to take a leak, Cynthia is killed by Zombies. The three that went off to look for others find an old house where they meet up with Rudy, Liberty, and Hugh. The new members of the group explain that zombies are responsible for the madness that has transpired. Meanwhile, Kirk and Salish are unloading stolen goods from their boat, because the cops are on their tale. Sadly Salish is killed out in the woods, hiding from zombies

            The six members of the search party return to the rave site, finding Greg in an overturned party. Cynthia has mysteriously disappeared, only to return a zombie and snap Hugh’s neck. The cop that followed Kirk’s (her name is Casper) shows up just in time to put a few bullets in Cynthia, narrowly saving the day. They develop a plan to return home using Kirk’s ship. After an intense run through the woods, they find Kirk’s ship overrun by zombies. Simon jumps into the water while Casper fends off the zombies with her gun. Kirk reappears and helps fight with another gun. Liberty goes swimming as well, trying to help Simon. In all, Simon gets acid spit on his face (yes, the zombies can do that), and Kirk is bitten. Greg and Casper leave to go find help.

            While Casper is out, Kirk tells a story about a Spanish priest named Castillo who lived hundreds of years ago. He was banished from Spain for performing ungodly experiments. While on a ship, he allegedly kills the crew and lands his boat at this island, but Kirk dismisses it as a legend. Meanwhile, Casper and Greg encounter zombies while out looking for help and Greg gets killed. Casper returns to the group, with a bag full of guns. Kirk also has a box full of guns that he had on his ship. The group makes a plan to go to big scary house.

            There is a long battle sequence in front of the house. Many zombies are killed. Liberty is mauled by zombies when she runs out of ammo, and Casper dies dramatically in Rusty’s arms. The remaining group members make it into the house, but Kirk is severely wounded in the process. Simon and Karma make out while they find free time. Rudy and Alicia make out also. A book is found that the story Kirk told earlier was true. They leave the still wounded Kirk behind to search the house.

            They find a strange room full of experimental, mad scientist like stuff. There are also lots of corpses lying around. Rudy looks in a microscope and recognizes human blood as being mutated, which explains how they became zombies. Meanwhile, the severly injured Kirk heres Salish whistling outside. He goes outside to find Salish a zombie and shoots him in the face. Kirk decides he is already dead and lights a stick of dynamite on his cigar and blows himself up. Rudy returns to the lab after finding gunpowder. Alicia sees a strange tank which has a giant eel fish thing in it. Karma runs in and shoots it. The tanks water must have been magic or something because all the corpses in the room are brought to life. Everyone retreats to the room with gunpowder in it. Simon gets grabbed by zombies while everyone else finds a hidden staircase to escape. He shoots the barrels of gunpowder and blows the house up.

            The group is now in a hidden catacomb. Rudy analyzes that this is a supply tunnel and it must lead to the beach. On the way Karma sacrifices herself. Then suddenly Greg (who is supposed to be dead) shows up with a cape and a sword. He takes them to a strange room. Greg is actually not Greg, but the crazy Spanish priest, wearing Greg’s skin on his face. Zombies show up and hold Rudy and Alicia down. He explains that he made himself immortal using what I have to assume is the blood of that eel thing, and also made the zombies. Rudy breaks free and Alicia stabs the priest with a sword. Rudy finds a grenade and blows the place up as he and Alicia find an exit. Castillo lives and in a sword fight with Alicia and stabs her. Rudy chops Castillo’s head off, but his body still lives and chokes Rudy. Alicia with her little strength left, curb stomps the head and his body collapses.

            A helicopter arrives and armed men exit, telling Rudy and the barely living Alicia they are there to rescue them. The film ends on a shot of a city with Rudy questioning whether this was “the end, or only the beginning”.

Comments: The horror movie genre has never been known for its gripping stories, and sadly this movie exemplifies this idea down to its very core.

            The very first scene is a shot of Rudy, sitting outside, wandering how everything got so messed up and why “everybody is dead”. Not only is the script very poorly written here, it also creates a very confusing scene. Rudy isn’t even with the first group of four people we meet. It’s really not even clear who Rudy is until he is introduced twenty minutes later. Despite this, Rudy is somehow the main character, and survives until the end. Rudy has no past, and therefore, nobody cares about him. The other characters suffer a similar fate, they all have very little backstory. Random people sloppily fall in love suddenly, without any indication of previous love endeavors. There are in fact, so many problems with the character development that stating them all seems pointless.

Take for example, Casper. She is seen very briefly in the beginning of the film, then later she shows up on the island, and is instantly thrown in as a main character. She is forced to kill her partner who shows up as a zombie, but we’ve only seen him once before as well. What was supposed to be an emotional scene loses all value. When Casper dies, Rudy is extremely upset, but Rudy just met her right around the same time the audience met her. It doesn’t make any sense.

            The world of the film is basic, and if you’ve seen one horror film, you’ve seen them all. A mysterious island that the locals swear is haunted, the big house covered in vines and surrounded by a graveyard. Everything was very cliché.

            The film’s villain has an almost insignificant role. He is seen several times before his story is explained, and his story was short and pointless. He had no loss or emotional ties that caused him to become evil, he was just some angry guy who got banished from Spain. In fact, it never explains HOW he became immortal. It couldn’t have been through the same process as the zombies, they are mindless creatures, yet Castillo can talk and seems intelligent. Are we supposed to assume the strange eel like creature has something to do with this? His character feels lazy and not unique in any way.

            The dialog is as laughable as everything else. The acting is bad, and the lines are extremely corny. The lines feel forced and there is very little emotion in anyone’s voice, even when they are trying to be scared. It’s almost like they did one take of every shot.

            As for the “action” side of this movie, it’s pathetic. The CGI is very poorly done, and unnecessary. There are shots of the camera’s following bullets through the air that take out zombies, which seem pointless and look like a joke. For some strange reason the movie incorporates random clips from the arcade game that this movie is based on. These shots don’t really make any sense and feel very out of place.

            Overall, this movie makes me question whether this is supposed to be a horror or a comedy. I would only recommend this film to someone who wants to watch something really bad. If this were a script I might shred it up on the spot.