Uwe Boll is back from the dead.
The cult B-movie director has begun production on 23 Years Later — The Castle of the Dead, a zombie horror film the German director bills as an “unofficial sequel” to his 2003 video game adaptation House of the Dead.
Boll is set to begin principle photography of the film on September 5 in Germany, with Jonathan Cherry and Ona Grauer, the original stars of House of the Dead, returning for the new feature. Officially, the film has no connection to the Sega House of the Dead video game as Boll does not have the adaptation rights.
Boll is directing 23 Years Later from a script co-written by Lutz Geiger, with long-term partner Michael Roesch producing. Boris Wolffgardt is a co-producer on the project.
The first House of the Dead film follows a group of students who book a boat trip to an island to attend a rave only to discover the place is infested by zombies centered. The bulk of the action takes place in a derilict house where the survivors hold up to fight off the undead onslaught.
Boll is keeping the plot of the new film under wraps but said 23 Years Later will be based in a castle. “So in a way,” said Roesch, “we’re upgrading from a house full of zombies to a castle full of zombies.”
House of the Dead, like most Boll movies, was trashed by critics on release but went on to gross more than $10 million on domestic release and, according to Boll, has earned over $100 million on home video and VOD worldwide to date. Michael Hurst directed a straight-to-video sequel, House of the Dead 2 (2005).
The new zombie movie comes amid news that Paul W.S. Anderson is working on an official House of the Dead reboot for Sega. Boll’s mockbuster move feels like a deliberate trolling of the Resident Evil director.
“When I heard that Paul Anderson is rebooting House of the Dead, I immediately knew that it will be a soulless CGI orgy”, said Boll in a statement. “And I want to do a completely different zombie movie: Bloody, gory and handmade.”
Boll has also announced plans for an official reboot of Alone in the Dark (2005), another of his early video game adaptations. Boll´s Event Films has optioned the film rights to survival horror video game series from publisher THQ Nordic. The original Alone in the Dark starred Christian Slater and Tara Reid.
The ever-prolific Boll has the action thriller Citizen Vigilante, starring Armie Hammer, releasing this summer, via Quiver, and is in post-production on two back-to-back sequels of his 2024 cop thriller First Shift, which was a surprise hit on Paramount+.
