House of the Dead

It’s hard to write a review worthy of House of the Dead and still use correct spelling and grammar. To properly convey the jaw-dropping shoddiness of this videogame-based ”horror” ”movie,” one must approach what scientists call Absolute Stupid, a state previously thought to exist only under highly controlled laboratory conditions or at the highest levels of government. In fairness, the source material lacks the rich mythos of, say, ”Resident Evil”: In the plotless ”House,” you simply shoot zombies. The movie is fairly faithful in this regard — clips from the game actually account for a good chunk of the footage. (I’d call this lazy filmmaking, but that would imply the existence of filmmaking here.) The most frightening aspect of ”House” is its production values. The zombie makeup appears to be designed by a Ritalin-starved tween — perhaps the same kid who nauseates us with endless sub-”Matrix” ”rotation” shots, the kind you can now make with a PC and too much free time. Perhaps he also wrote this brilliant exchange: ”You created it all to be immortal…Why?!?” The answer: ”To live forever!” Amazingly, director Uwe Boll and writer Mark A. Altman (”Free Enterprise”) aren’t tweens. Jury’s still out on the Ritalin. What more can be said about a movie that actually makes you lament, ”Clint Howard, you’re too good for this!” I can barely bring myself to give a flying F.