House of the Dead 2003

As the sun sets on the horizon, Simon (Tyron Leitso) and Greg (Will Sanderson) embark on a journey of revelry, heading to an island rave party with Alicia (Ona Grauer), Karma (Enuka Okuma), and Cynthia (Sonya Salomaa). The air is electric with anticipation as they converge at the dock, only to find that their vessel has departed without them. Undeterred, they hitch a ride with Victor Kirk (Jürgen Prochnow) and his first mate Salish (Clint Howard), a seasoned smuggler and his trusted sidekick. Little do they know, however, that Jordan Casper (Ellie Cornell), a tenacious cop, is hot on their tail, determined to bring them to justice.

Upon arriving at the island party site, the group finds a desolate wasteland instead of the thriving rave they had anticipated. As Alicia, Karma, and Simon set out to locate the other revelers, leaving Cynthia and Greg behind, the tension builds. Back at the dock, Kirk’s boat awaits, but Salish’s decision to disembark leads him down a perilous path, where he becomes the first casualty of the zombie apocalypse.

Meanwhile, the remaining group members stumble upon an old, dilapidated house, where they encounter three survivors: Rudy (Jonathan Cherry), Liberty (Kira Clavell), and Hugh (Michael Eklund). These weary travelers regale them with tales of the rave’s downfall, revealing that a horde of undead had descended upon the party, leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. The six of them join forces, determined to rescue their missing friends from the island.

As they return to the rave site, Cynthia reappears – but not as herself. Her newfound zombie persona proves deadly, taking down Hugh with a gruesome bite. Casper intervenes, putting her out of her misery with a well-placed bullet. The group soon discovers that Kirk’s boat has been overrun by the very undead they had hoped to escape.

Casper and Greg decide to split from the group, venturing across the island in search of help. Theirs is not a successful expedition; Greg falls prey to an ambush of zombies, meeting his untimely demise. With their options dwindling, Kirk reveals a hidden cache of guns – contraband he had been smuggling – allowing them to defend themselves against the relentless hordes.

As they make their way back to the house, the group is met with a wall of undead, leading to a chaotic and surreal gunfight that echoes the frenetic pace of a video game. Liberty and Casper pay the ultimate price in this brutal battle, while Kirk and the remaining teens fight tooth and nail to secure their stronghold.

As Kirk steps outside, he’s greeted by Salish’s haunting whistling, only to find the young man reduced to a mindless undead creature. A swift bullet to the head silences Salish’s whimpers, but not before he manages to sink his teeth into Kirk’s flesh. The ensuing chaos brings forth a horde of reanimated corpses from every direction, prompting Kirk to make a desperate attempt to escape the situation by detonating himself in a blaze of glory. His tragic sacrifice proves futile as more zombies pour in through the newly breached entrance, forcing the remaining teenagers - Simon, Karma, Rudy, and Alicia - to seek refuge within the confines of their lab.

As they barricade themselves indoors, Simon’s final act is to ignite a barrel of gunpowder, causing the house to explode in a fiery inferno that consumes the undead horde. The surviving teens emerge into a labyrinthine network of tunnels, where Karma valiantly fights off a group of pursuers with her rifle, allowing Rudy and Alicia to make their escape. However, her selfless sacrifice comes at the cost of her own life.

The duo presses on, determined to survive, but not before they’re ambushed by Castillo, the enigmatic figure who had injected himself with an immortality serum years prior, unwittingly giving rise to the very affliction they now face. As Alicia and Rudy attempt to escape, they inadvertently trigger a series of booby traps that ultimately lead them into a treacherous game of cat-and-mouse.

The intensity reaches its boiling point as Alicia engages Castillo in a fierce sword duel, only to fall victim to his merciless blade. In a stunning turn of events, Rudy decapitates the supposedly defeated opponent, but soon realizes that Castillo’s disembodied head remains active, slowly constricting him like a noose. With her life force dwindling, Alicia musters the last vestiges of her strength and crushes Castillo’s skull beneath her feet, finally putting an end to his malevolent existence.

In the aftermath, Rudy and Alicia find themselves rescued by a team of federal agents who arrive on the island, armed with an arsenal of firepower, and systematically eliminate any remaining undead threats. As the dust settles, a poignant narrative unfolds, revealing that Rudy had secretly administered the immortality serum to Alicia - a move that would ultimately seal her fate as she succumbs to the very affliction they’ve been fighting against all along.