Uwe Boll Heads Back to Zombie Island 23 Years After House of the Dead
Uwe Boll shuffles back to the undead: 23 years after House of the Dead, he plans Return to Zombie Island, a loose follow-up to his 2003 video game adaptation.
Well, here is a curveball: we are getting two new takes on The House of the Dead at the same time. Paul W.S. Anderson is mounting a full-on reboot, and Uwe Boll is dusting off his 2003 version for a follow-up that jumps ahead two decades and change. If you grew up feeding quarters into Sega cabinets, this franchise just decided to respawn in a big way.
Two House of the Dead movies, two very different paths
The Hollywood Reporter says Uwe Boll is making a sort-of sequel to his 2003 movie called Return to Zombie Island. The angle: it picks up with characters from that original film 23 years later. Boll is even promising a reunion of familiar faces from his first go-round.
"All the original cast are returning."
He has been teasing the project on his social channels, including a short YouTube teaser, and is aiming to get it out into the world in 2026. Timing-wise, that means it could land right around (or after) Paul W.S. Anderson’s separate House of the Dead reboot, which is still in development. Anderson, for anyone new here, is the guy behind Mortal Kombat (1995), Monster Hunter, and six Resident Evil movies, so he knows his way around a game adaptation.
Quick refresher: Boll’s 2003 movie
The 1997 Sega light-gun shooter spawned a long-running franchise with sequels, spin-offs, and even a remake, and Hollywood first took a swing back in 2003 with Boll’s adaptation. He directed from a script by Mark A. Altman, Dan Bates, and Dave Parker. The setup was simple and very early-2000s: a group of friends misses the ferry to a rave on a remote island, hitches a ride with a smuggler named Kirk, reaches the island, and finds it eerily empty because, surprise, zombies have turned the party into a massacre. Escape options shrink fast when Kirk’s boat gets overrun, so it becomes a hold-the-line survival scramble.
That cast was stacked with familiar character-actor faces: Jonathan Cherry, Tyron Leitso, Clint Howard, Ona Grauer, Ellie Cornell, Will Sanderson, Enuka Okuma, Kira Clavell, Sonya Salomaa, Michael Eklund, David Palffy, Jurgen Prochnow, Adam J. Harrington, Colin Lawrence, Steve Byers, Erica Durance, Jay Brazeau, Bif Naked, Kris Pope, and Elisabeth Rosen. A bunch of those folks are the ones Boll is talking about bringing back for Return to Zombie Island. The 2003 film also got a 2005 sequel directed by Michael Hurst.
Where this gets extra nerdy
Boll has a deep history with game adaptations: House of the Dead (2003), Bloodrayne (2005), BloodRayne 2: Deliverance (2007), BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011), Postal (2007), Far Cry (2008), In the Name of the King (2007), In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds (2011), In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission (2014), and Alone in the Dark (2005). He also produced Alone in the Dark II in 2008. Some of those titles have lived infamously on IMDb’s Bottom 100 list — recently, House of the Dead hovered at No. 7 and Alone in the Dark at No. 13 — but that has not slowed him down. Alongside Return to Zombie Island, he has secured the rights to reboot the Alone in the Dark film franchise.
What to expect next
On one track, Anderson is building a clean reboot. On the other, Boll is leaning into legacy-sequel energy with a 23-years-later chapter that brings the old gang back to a very cursed island. If you have fond (or infamous) memories of the rave-from-hell movie, this might be the exact kind of chaotic follow-up you were secretly hoping would never happen… and yet, here we are. Pencil in 2026 for Boll’s Return to Zombie Island, and we will see which House of the Dead gets to the finish line first.