A Ghoul Versus Uwe Boll's House Of The Dead (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

Jordan and Greg run afoul of some zombies, leading to a HILARIOUSLY bad sequence featuring the actors running straight into the camera while it's held about a foot away from their faces. Greg manages to evade the zombies by hiding under a hill while they sniff around overhead in a shot that looks SUSPICIOUSLY like when the Hobbits did the exact same thing with the Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings. Boll must have really liked that movie a lot. This only buys him a few minutes though, as he eventually gets surrounded by the zombies who can now leap into frame like Spider-Man. They dogpile on him to put him out of our misery, but then he's... standing all alone in the forest while the camera rotates around him?! Ohhhhhh, my head hurts so bad right now.

Back to Kirk and the gang of idiots, where they've decided to return to the cabin for some reason. Jordan returns, having written off Greg as a lost cause when she found the pistol she gave him lying on the ground. Kirk takes everyone to one of his crates so they can arm up, cracking “Let me introduce you to my little friend!” as he opens it up. Hey now Kirk, you're in my good graces, don't go fucking it up with shitty one liners ripped off from infinitely better movies. He pulls out a giant gun, joking that size DOES matter. FUCK. YOU. KIRK. Now armed to the teeth, and breasts in the case of Fencer, they approach the cabin. The outside is swarming with zombies, so it's time for another insanely dull shootout! Yay... Only THIS time Boll splices in more footage from the video game, and it's not transitions, it's just... shots of someone playing the game. I don't... how...NO ONE told Boll how imbecilic this looked?! I can literally feel my brain cells dying every second I spend watching this, and I already have a dead zombie brain!

A Ghoul Versus Uwe Boll's House Of The Dead (Part 1)

“A Uwe Boll movie? More like House of the DREAD!”

What is there to say about writer/director Uwe Boll that hasn't already been said? To call him a schlockmaster is almost a complement since schlocky films are among some of the most enjoyable type of movies to watch. His films are famous for redefining terrible thanks to his lack of cinematic skills, scripts that all feel like rough drafts, Amateur Hour actors, and WOEFULLY low budgets. In his case though, none of this comes off charming like it does in some of film's more famous movies, where directors were at least TRYING to make a good film despite their limitations.

In Boll's case they aren't made for the love of the “language of cinema”, but for the love of money. No duh, right? What movie isn't? In Boll's case however, it's a little different. Thanks to the batshit crazy tax laws of Germany, if you invest money into a movie that is filmed there not only is it fully deductible from your taxes, you get a DELAY in having to pay your taxes for the year AND your tax bracket lowers. If you're rich enough in a high level tax bracket, investing in one of Boll's guaranteed to flop movies, you will actually MAKE MONEY BACK. This is how Boll has become one of the most prolific directors of the decade, as I imagine there are German mutli-millionaires tripping over themselves to throw money at Video Game: The Movie Part 26.

The more shoddy and haphazardly he makes a movie, the more money he makes for himself and his investors. I imagine he's probably a HERO to the wealthy class of his home country by now, because he's been at this for well over ten years now. Germany has since changed this crass exploitation of its laws, but considering he's made TWENTY-TWO films since 2003 it's safe to say he's found another loop hole in the system.

A Ghoul Versus Hitman (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1!

In FULL SIGHT of a few old men sitting outside the gas station, 47 opens the trunk and lets Nika out. She's really still traveling in the trunk? She's naturally very mad at him for this, but he says it's okay because he brought her breakfast. He then roughly grabs her, drags her to the passenger seat, and THROWS the food at her. As he walks back to the driver side, he makes eye contact with one of the old men and gives a “Geez, what's HER major malfunction?” look. The old man chuckles because abusing women is downright hilarious in this batshit insane universe that is Hitman.

47 warns Nika that her interference back at the station can't be allowed to happen again, in what is easily some of the worst line readings ever from a major Hollywood movie not involving a child. The video games have better acting than this.

Nika looks down and sees he's magically produced a gun from the same inventory he had those blades earlier. She instantly cowers, apologising to the psycho as I vomit. She says if he's looking for a reason not to kill her, she doesn't have one. She's not a whore by choice it turns out as Belicoff owns her, having bought her for $300 American, which admittedly is a bargain. When I tried to buy a terrible actress, the best deal I could find was Tara Reid for $700.

A Ghoul Versus Hitman (Part 1)

"Can we hire Agent 47 to take out this movie?"

Hitman is a video game franchise that stars the violently creative Agent 47 as he stealthily kills his way across the world in a variety of exotic locales. It is a stealth game series that is highly praised for its innovative open game play that encourages you to experiment, and is highly derided for its utter lack of taste. Games have featured latex S & M bondage nuns, while advertisements for these games have featured murdered women in lingerie. There's... there's some issues going on here and they are NOT pretty.

There actually is an overall narrative to the series, but I've never seen it because most of the games involved me screaming “That's bullshit! There is no way he saw me!” five hundred times and giving up. Thus I have no idea how loyal the film is to game but if it's anything like, oh say 100% of all video game to movie adaptions, I'm going to say not at all.  The film of the game came out in 2007, directed by Xavier Gens, who gave us the insane gorefest Frontier(s). From what I've been able to gather, he was fired after submitting his cut of the movie and someone else was brought it in to make it more acceptable. Reshoots followed, rarely a good sign in the industry.

It was written by Skip Woods, who has a Shakespearean resume of such epics as Swordfish, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the A-Team, and A Good Day to Die Hard.  With a lover of gore over story and a guy who loves senseless action over story behind the reins of this, we're in for a lot of fun! Grab your favourite murder weapon and strap in for A Ghoul Versus Hitman.

A Ghoul Versus Max Payne

“I don't believe in heaven, I believe in pain. I believe in fear. I believe in death.”

He also doesn't believe in telling a good story.  Max Payne the video game is freaking awesome. Released in 2001, it was the first truly great third person shooter to grace the video game world by combining razor sharp gameplay with a game changing innovation in bullet time, which allowed you to slow time down to better aim your shots. A common misconception is this was based on the insanely popular film the Matrix, but the game had actually been in development before the movie.

To top it off, they added a pretty deep and engrossing story. Some derided it for its overly angsty dialogue, but it was meant to be a tribute to classic hard boiled detective novels. Personally, I loved it and was quoting Max Payne for months after playing this game.  But Hollywood just can't let good video games rest in peace without mangling them into something completely unrecognizable from the source material, so we got Max Payne The Movie. It was directed by John Moore, whose only really notable film was 2001's Behind Enemy Lines. Oh, you forgot all about that one? Owen Wilson... in an action movie? Yeah.

The movie was written by Beau Thorne, and is the only thing I can find that he's ever written. After reading my review I think you'll see why he hasn't gotten work since this.  Pop some pain killers (you're going to need them) and get ready for A Ghoul Versus Max Payne! And yes, I'm going to annoyingly point out all the differences from the video game.