We had learned this past Halloween season that Paul W.S Anderson (Event Horizon, Alien vs. Predator, Resident Evil film franchise, Monster Hunter, In the Lost Lands) is returning to the horror genre with an upcoming movie adaptation of the video game The House of the Dead, which will be coming along over 20 years after Uwe Boll’s infamous adaptation.
Paul W.S Anderson will write and direct the new adaptation of SEGA’s zombie game, which debuted back in 1996 and spawned a franchise as well as a remake in 2022. In a new chat with Variety this week, Anderson details his “very, very scary” vision for the upcoming movie.
“It’s going to be immersive and very, very scary,” Paul W.S. Anderson promises. “It’ll all play out in real time, so it reflects the experience of playing the video game. The only time it stops is when you beat the game or you die. That’s going to be the only way out.”
He adds, “The script is almost done. We’re aiming to shoot in the fourth quarter of this year.”
Anderson is of course no stranger to bringing video games to life on the big screen, having previously adapted both Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil. He tells Variety, “I’m really going to push the envelope on this one. It’s going to be something different for me.”
Paul W.S. Anderson’s The House of the Dead will be specifically adapting the 2002 game The House of the Dead 3, with the filmmaker recently describing the film as a “full-on terror ride.”
In The House of the Dead 3, set 20 years after the previous game, “Lisa Rogan and Agent G are searching for Lisa’s missing father, when they uncover a new zombie infestation.”
The original video game was unleashed in 1996, the very same year the original Resident Evil came along. Both games are credited for kickstarting the zombie resurgence of the time.
The images used in this article are early concept art for Anderson’s movie.