So I watched House of the Dead last night and I'm starting to think you guys need to find another director to pick on. OK, so it was mostly crap, but did you expect Saving Private Ryan from a plot about a bunch of zombies killing people? Sure, this wasn't even up to George Romero standards, but it was a enjoyable trip and it seemed like everyone making it had a lot of fun. I think I actually enjoyed House of the Dead more than BloodRayne.

For slasher flicks, this movie fit right into the genre, nothing overly bad or good. Having seen more gore-packed, blood-oozing movies than I'd care to admit, I think I can speak on this topic with some expertise.

The first half of the movie is action-packed and full of amazing special effects. If you haven't seen it yet, Boll uses some pretty interesting technology to create some huge bullet-time scenes. Instead of the scenes including two or three people, he managed to squeeze in a whole graveyard worth of actors. The effect is pretty cool. The middle drags a little, but fortunately it's a fairly short section. The end jumps back into the action, but isn't as enjoyable as the beginning of the movie.

Boll also did a lot to turn this slasher flick into a homage to the game. There are bits of footage from the game actually in the movie, and lots of the game elements show up as well. Whenever one of the main characters dies, the background fades to black and the camera slowly rotates around the character, just like the drop-a-coin countdown in the arcade shooter. One of the last shoot-out scenes of the movie features the characters walking down a long hallway blasting zombies as they jump out of the dark.

I bought the UMD version of the movie, which comes with two featurettes. The first one, about zombie boot camp, is rather crap and just shows the female stars of the movie playing the arcade game and shooting up a bunch of extras with paintball guns. The second one, a behind-the-scenes short, is definitely worth a watch. It talks a lot about making the movie, shows some of the very cool technology behind the zombies and bullet time and even has interviews with George Romero and his special effects guy.

If you like any of the Friday the Thirteenth movies, especially the later ones, or Nightmare on Elmstreet or Chucky, then I'd recommend buying this UMD. On the whole, Boll produced a fairly fun gore flick that manages to pack in tons of elements from the game. Personally, I think the movie overcame the obstacles created by basing it on a rather flat, plotless game.

Now, that doesn't mean I think Boll is a great director, but so far, from what I've seen, he certainly doesn't deserve the verbal lashings he's been getting. Granted, I say that having not yet seen Alone in the Dark.

Boll certainly isn't the best director I've seen, but he's also by no means the worst. And he's the only one we really have. He's a real live gamer who doesn't want to just slap a game's name onto a movie and be done with it. He works to incorporate bits of the game into his movies. Personally, I think that's the problem. He's trying to do something different with the genre and mainstream critics don't like it. But he's not making the movies for them, he's making them for us. And right now he's paying the price for making movies for a passionate and very vocal audience.

We'll be able to see what this movie is like without the gaming elements when House of the Dead 2 hits DVD in March. This one is directed by Michael Hurst.

I'm curious—how many of you Boll haters have actually seen his movies? I'll admit that I hadn't seen any until last week, and had jumped on the bashing bandwagon based on the reviews I had read and because, well, it's just fun smack-talking someone.

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