House of the Dead 2: All Guts, No Glory (2005)

Directed by Michael Hurst

Movie Review by Al Fleshrot

Summary
A professor at Cuesta Verde University tries to perfect a serum to bring the dead back to life. But unlike Herbert West, he's sloppy and turns his back on his most recent subject to utter some really cheesy lines. When he turns back the corpse he just administered the serum to is gone! 29 days later the entire town is overrun by zombies. Special agents Alex and Ellis are accompanied by a squadron of military elites to isolate a "zero" sample before the town is leveled by a missile strike. The trick is to find a first generation zombie, as apparently only they provide the necessary DNA that can be used to create a vaccine for the zombie virus. One by one the soldiers are killed, but Alex and Ellis finally locate the original zombie in a university lab. Turns out this is the girl from the original movie that was rescued from the Island! Every thing seems to go smoothly as they extract the DNA sample and narrowly escape a massive horde of zombies, but along the way the sample is lost. Against all odds Alex and Ellis return to the campus with the help of the last remaining soldier and fight their way back to the lab. They have to use all their resources to survive, including one scene where Ellis smears zombie blood and guts all over his body and weaves his way through a crowd of zombies, masquerading as one of them. The soldier doesn't make it, but Alex and Ellis barely escape as a cruise missile takes out the lab. Unfortunately another soldier, who was infected by a mosquito carrying the zombie virus and presumed dead, confronts Ellis and demands the sample. Alex intervenes and takes him out, but the sample is destroyed in the process! Just another day on the job for Alex and Ellis as they prepare for more endless struggles with zombies...

Review
Sequels rarely surpass their predecessor, and the original House of the Dead was an atrocity even in a cheesy genre such as zombie horror. It took much courage to finally sit down and watch House of the Dead 2. Not only does this movie easily outshine the original, it's actually a pretty decent flick. It's definitely cheesy and is littered with really bad references to other horror movies and one liners Arnold would be proud of. I'm sure I missed a ton of them, but here's a sample of a few:

• The professor spouts off a really bad line, ending with "You hold on to them, keeping me alone...Alone in the Dark".
• The movie takes place at Cuesta Verde University, the same fictional town of Poltergeist fame.
• After blowing off a zombie's head - "Sometimes a mind isn't a terrible thing to waste"

While you can't help but laugh at the bad dialogue, the actors do a great job of delivering it. Plenty of action and a real plot will keep you entertained, so if you hated the House of the Dead don't even put this movie in the same class. No slow motion Matrix crap, and no really bad actors who transform from idiot college students into bad-ass ninjas at the first sign of zombies!
The special effects are decent overall - despite the awful explosions and the ultra bad scene where the zombies are electrocuted, the gore is good and plenty. Early in the movie we are treated to ample amounts of T&A, so you shouldn't be disappointed on the gratuitous nudity score!

Best Zombie Kill
O'Conner is pretty much a waste throughout most of the operation, and when he finally goes down his armor isn't enough to save him. A zombie rips through it all and pulls a massive chunk of O'Conner out of his chest! What it is I can't tell, but it's pretty gruesome.

Best Zombie Death
One thing that's cool in this movie is the reaction of each person once they've been infected by a zombie bite. Some take it like a man and calmly ask to be shot, or even do it themselves. But the hard ass sergeant of the special forces unit turns into a sissy when he gets bit. He begs to be spared as he slowly loses control of his motor functions and insists he's alright. But when he finally turns into a full fledged zombie, Alex calmly blows his brains out the back of his skull with a point blank pistol shot.

Memorable Scene
Alex and Ellis find themselves trapped in a hall with zombies coming at them from both sides. But clearly Alex has seen Night of the Living Dead II! She and Ellis hoist themselves off the floor by hanging on for dear life from some water pipes overhead. Alex then uses a lighter to trigger the sprinkler system and then shoots an electrical box on the wall. The zombies are now treading on a wet floor and are cooked by the electricity. The flashes of lightning are probably the cheesiest effects in the movie, but it's a great scene!

Al Fleshrot wants your brains

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