House of the Dead 2

The Details:
Director: Michael Hurst
Runtime: 95 minutes
Country: USA
Color: Color
Audio: 5.1 and 2.0 surround
Studio: Lions Gate
Certification: R

The Review:
Myself and corporatedemon have both passed on (the very idea of) House of the Dead 2 a minimum of 15 times. We passed on the sequel for fear of an overdose of nonsense, monotony, homemade bullet-time, and of course, video-game footage. Instead, HotD2 delivers a multitude of cleverly misleading character introductions/zombie scenarios, loads of uncompromising gore, and even a zombie football team (complete with flesh-hungry cheerleaders)!

The story revolves around a college campus that has been overrun by the newer and highly popular breakneck speed zombies (which in the film are referred to as hyper-sapiens). Influenced heavily by James Cameron's Aliens (from the very first frame), the story revolves around a squad of marines who are recruited to follow the orders of our main characters Ellis and Alexandra, played by Ed Quinn and Emmanuelle Vaugier, respectively. Their mission is to locate the Queen zombie... er... patient "0" zombie, who's blood hopefully contains the original, unaltered virus responsible for the now numerous, bite-happy corpses.

I Was A Zombie For The FBI

The Details:
Director: Marius Penczner
Runtime: 105 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Black and White
Sound Mix: Mono
Certification: UK: 12

The Review:
If I've learned anything from movies, it's this: aliens are dicks! In first contact situations we should shoot aliens in the face double-time quick-like! Sure, you're bound to frag an E.T. or two, but can we risk meeting up with something like a face hugger? I'm willing to off Kazoo, Alf, and Mork, to insure that my chest remains intact. Xenophobic? Probably, but Hollywood has assured me that you are far more likely to encounter a bunch of conniving, monument blowing-up, people hunting, jerks. Alien pricks... is there any better plot fodder to use in a b-movie? I think not. Neither does Marius Penczner. Without any further adieu, let's get to the nitty-gritty guts of "I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I."

Doomed

The Details:
Director:Michael Su
Runtime:76 mins
Screen Format: 4 X 3
MPAA Rating: N/A
Parental Warning: Strong Language, Graphic Violence/Gore
Country: USA

The Review:
Nearly every time I sit down to write a new breview I get rather self–conscious and honestly a little nervous. I worry about my grammar, spelling, intro, body and conclusion. I worry about what I should focus on, what I should leave out, and what I want the end reader to "take home" with them after investing the time to read my literary effort...

But not this time. This time I'm not worried about a single thing. I am confident in knowing that I can casually spew out ANYTHING and it will have a superior thought process than Doomed.

Here's the script: Drop 10 criminals on an island. Divide them into 5 teams. Whatever team makes it to the other side of the island first gets a full pardon and a load of cash. And like, since they are crooks and murderers and stuffs they aren't going to be happy with each other at all! So it's going to be really dramatic and intense! And CRIPES, there are zommies on the island too!

Apparently, that's all this production crew thought they needed, and boy does it show. The dialog consists of characters swearing at each other. The action sequences consist of a few quick edits of some shaky handheld camera work. The zombies consist of some groaning and uninspired makeup. The gore consists of...um...a shot of a knife sticking out of someone's back. On top of it all, the editor attempts to hide the complete lack of EVERYTHING with flashy Mortal Kombat style point displays and cheesy ready-made video filters.