Friday, October 30, 2015

House of the Dead 2 (2005)

When a college professor experimenting with bringing the dead back to life is bitten by a subject, he becomes a stumbling zombie and triggers a campus outbreak of the walking dead.  29 days later (booooo), the military shows up to get a blood sample from the original zombie so that they can create a vaccine.

Alex aka Nightingale and Ellis, the two scientists/soldiers from the AMS (the government agency that deals with these sort of zombie things), are in charge with getting the blood. They are assigned a team from special forces who turn out to be the most rag tag, inept bunch.

The members of this elite military unit are incapable of following directions or keeping themselves from being killed.   They're out hunting zombies during an outbreak, but they're not going to pay attention to their surroundings, and even engage in hand to hand combat with the living dead. They do everything they're told not to do. Perhaps by special forces, they meant they ride to school in the special bus.

Since they don't know the zombie the outbreak started with, they randomly test the dead to see if they are the original carrier. This is insane.  It's not like they have a room full of twenty zombies and one is the source.  They're on a college campus that is overrun with the living dead.

The movie is not that interesting and will leave you with loads of questions:

  • why did it take 29 days for them to go to the college? Did no one notice an entire campus had become zombies?
  • Why is the lady Colonel relegated to a desk at the back of the firing range? This is not where an upper level military official should be sitting. Did she hit the glass ceiling? She's a woman and  in a wheelchair, double score.
  • Why are Ellis and Nightingale not concerned about the blood spraying into their eyes, noses, and mouths? Ellis wipes the blood from his face right across his mouth and in several scenes there is zombie blood on his teeth.
  • Is there any way they could have made the douchey guy even more unlikeable?  
  • How did the fat guy get to be in special forces?  Did they figure all the others would be able to outrun him if they were attacked?
  • If you need blood from the original zombie, the campus is going to be blown up, and the fate of man depends on this vaccine, why wouldn't you collect more than one vial?  
  • If Nightingale earned her unwanted nickname in the Peace Corp, how does anyone in the military know about it?  It wouldn't follow her.
  • Since zombies blankly stare at things, why insist that the fellow in the library sitting with a book can't be a zombie because they don't read?  Good god man, the campus is overrun, the guys not responding, and there's no reason to throw caution to the wind other than stupidity.


No comments: