Didn't the movie producers realize from the poorly received movie re-make of "Resident Evil," that zombies just aren't really that scary? Re-makes of psychological thriller video games just aren't as good, even when the game is as universally appreciated as "Resident Evil." But what happens when you try to re-make a game that is horrible to begin with, such as "House of the Dead"? You get a 92 minute long film with more crunching, splattering, shooting, and killing than dialogue, and about as much substance as Bennifer's "Gigli." This travesty of a film begins when five young kids head to a party on an island. They hire a boat run by Captain Kirk (Jurgen Prochnow), who doesn't like Captain Kirk jokes, and his first-mate (Clint Howard), who enjoys surprising women while they are changing, and later on turns into a creepy zombie. Once on the island, the partygoers discover the rave is more of a teeming grave. There they encounter a small hastily designed cemetery with a spooky house. Suspiciously, the set looks remarkably more like a minigolf game, with the living dead transplanted into it than a professional movie set. The youths, who include actors Jonathan Cherry, Sonya Salomma, Enuka Okuma, Mike Ecklund, Tyron Leitso, Ona Grauer and Will Sanderson, find the island deserted and the rave dancers and DJs missing. Then, they find a weird looking ramshackle cabin in the middle of the island where they find two survivors of a gruesome attack.

Newcomer Cherry plays a med student, who applies bandages to his friends' zombie wounds. Grauer, as his former girlfriend, tears off her shirt for bandages and jiggles amply in her black bustier while warding off the undead. Or, more accurately, the reanimated dead who are soon to be dead again and again and again. Rudy's friend, played by Ecklund, tries to babble out their story of terror, and makes no sense whatsoever in the process.

As all these movies go, the college kids who are seen to be "too smart" to believe the terrified stories of killer zombies, are shocked into reality when they see video clips of the earlier attack. The realization comes too late of course, when they confront the army of zombies first hand and try to make it to the boat before they become zombie food.

Where does one begin in describing a movie as relentlessly and unforgivably bad as "House of the Dead?" It's amazing that this film was produced, let alone that it found a distributor to put it into wide theatrical release. The question in all of these movies is who will survive, if anyone, but in this particular case, it's also a matter of who cares? The valiant fight that Captain Kirk has with the zombies is far more interesting than the struggles between the kids about what to do.

It's not quite clear why this group was coaxed to the island or what the house of the dead is all about or why it's in the middle of this island, but what is clear is that there's a lot of blood, horrific deaths and gruesome special effects. The story is pedestrian. The acting is embarrassing. There is not an interesting development to be found anywhere in the plot. The intended scares aren't scary. The action isn't exciting. The zombie make-up effects are embarrassingly cheap. It's established too early that this has been constructed by people who enjoy making movies, or rather enjoy saying they're making a movie, without ever stepping back and taking in the big picture - e.g. not considering that someday the film will be presented to an audience.

The characters, despite being as paper thin as can be, aren't even convincing stereotypes. One character, we're told, is dumb as dirt. But he doesn't appear to be more intellectually challenged than anyone else in this cacophony of idiocy. People suggest the character has a "Rain Man brain" immediately after meeting him, but the rest of the characters exude the same stupidity if not more in their choices that they make throughout the movie. I guess we're supposed to take the movie's word for it that he's stupid, because the script and actors can't be bothered to reinforce the stereotype. If you hunger for this kind of film, then this is the movie for you.

But honestly, what do you expect from a movie that uses live footage from a video game, has actors that you have never heard of, and has Ron Howard's brother in it? Take this movie with a grain of salt, then decide it's the worst piece of crap you have ever seen. Really, what kind of thrills are they trying to give us? Don't the producers realize that kids are somewhat educated and deserve and slightly more intelligent movie?