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The games

  • Acting for Two: In The House of the Dead: Remake, Chris Okawa voices Thomas Rogan and Magician, Natalie Roers voices Sophie Richards and the A.I. computer voice, Brian Conner voices Dr. Curien and Hangedman, and Eleanor Katz voices a female scientist and Chariot.
  • Ascended Fanon: It was common among fans to give Goldman the first name "Caleb". Said name was finally canonized in Scarlet Dawn.
  • Bad Export for You: The English version of Scarlet Dawn lacks the Japanese release's exclusive "Master Mode" difficulty, extra weapons, and compatibility with the Aime amusement card to unlock different features. In addition, most of the English subtitles are missing because they were left blank in the game files. On the other hand, most of the regular weapons are unlocked right away.
  • Creator's Favorite: Series director Takashi Oda has claimed that Strength from the second game is his favorite boss, due to his unpredictable attack patterns striking fear in the player.
  • Dummied Out:
    • The original House of the Dead has a few unused enemies lingering in the game code. Several of them, including some odd BSDM-inspired ones, were scrapped likely because they would've caused controversy.
    • Zeal from House of the Dead 2 has an unused alternate "Suffer like G did" voice-line where he sounds much more menacing and doesn't present this line as a question at all.
    • Gore effects were removed from Scarlet Dawn due to censorship, but they remain in the game files.
  • Hey, It's That Sound!: In the original game, Hangedman makes a human vocalization taken straight from the second boss of Virtua Cop 2.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: The original versions of 1 and 2 as the original source code being lost for the prior means the only methods people have to acquire the game legally is thru either the typically considered inferior Sega Saturn and PC ports or getting lucky and finding an actual working arcade machine and the latter has its most recent port being 2 & 3 Return complication for the Wii back in 2008 with the PC, and Dreamcast ports as well as Xbox port of III note  being the only other ways to get a copy of the home version.
  • Milestone Celebration: Scarlet Dawn was released in Japanese arcades on September 13, 2018, the same date as the first arcade game in 1996, marking the 22nd anniversary of the series.
  • No Dub for You: The entire mainline series has exclusively English voices.
  • No Export for You: Typing of the Dead 2 was never released outside of Japan.
  • The PlayStation 2 port of Typing of the Dead: "Zombie Panic" was never released outside Japan.
  • English of the Dead also stayed in Japan.
  • Averted with The House of the Dead 4: Special, which appeared in a few North American arcades. However, these locations have since removed the game. Outside of playing Special on 4's Playstation 3 port, the arcade version now only found in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Brazil, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.
  • No Port For You: Scarlet Dawn has not seen a console port.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers: The developers behind The House of the Dead: Remake stated that the new soundtrack was the result of this due to licensing issues regarding the original soundtrack.
  • Sequel Gap: In terms of arcade releases, Scarlet Dawn came out twelve years after 2006's The House of the Dead 4 Special.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • From the original House of the Dead:
    • Sophie was to return as a boss in The House of the Dead 2, but the idea was quickly axed.
    • Early screenshots for The House of the Dead III featured cel-shaded graphics. It was scrapped for a more realistic-looking art direction consistent with the previous games.
    • A fifth game, titled The House of the Dead 5, was scrapped in 2012 because it was expensive and ambitious. Series director Takashi Oda denied to revive the project, as he wants to focus on future games in the series.
    • A gore system was developed for Scarlet Dawn, but went unused due to censorship.
  • The Wiki Rule: The Wiki of the Dead.
  • Word of God:
    • According to series director Takashi Oda, Se7en was a major influence on the first game, which he had gone to see during the game's development. This explains Thomas Rogan's resemblance to the character David Mills, who was played by Brad Pitt.
    • After years of fan speculation over whether or not Sophie survived the first game, Oda confirmed that she canonically survived, married Rogan, and is Lisa's biological mother.
    • Oda has also repeatedly stated that when describing the enemies in the main series, he doesn't like using the "Z" word. Because of their scientific origins, he prefers the term "creature" instead.

The film

  • Box Office Bomb: Budget, $12 million. Box office, $13,818,181.
  • Creator Backlash: Uwe Boll considers the film to be an absolute pile of crap, and his worst film to date, which really says something, considering that he always got defensive and even pissed off whenever critics ripped on his other movies.
  • Creator Killer: This was Boll's first mainstream American movie, and his attitude about it and directing immediately put him in the infamous director category. Writer Mark Altman, whose screenplay Boll more or less disowned, was confirmed to not make it any further than C-list status, and this movie is one of the last bombs that eventually led to maker Artisan Entertainment to be taken over by Lionsgate within a year, and this is coming after a terrible 2000/2001 slate that started their descent.
  • Descended Creator: Ellie Cornell, who plays Casper, is also co-founder of the film's production company Mindfire Entertainment.
  • Fake American: The film's set in Washington state, but nearly every cast member is Canadian. The only actually American actors are Ellie Cornell and Clint Howard.
  • Franchise Killer: The massive failure of this film kept Sega from dipping their toes into the American live action film industry again until Sonic the Hedgehog (2020).
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Mark Altman's original screenplay included more enemies from the game, including Hanged Men and Hermit, as well as a more fleshed-out backstory for Castillo.
    • Before Mindfire made the film, Dreamworks had bought the rights from Sega, with Jesse Dylan and Mark Verheiden attached as writer and director respectively
  • Written-In Infirmity: Jonathan Cherry burned 30% of his hand on the second day of shooting. The scene on the bridge, where he hurts his hand, was shot later, to explain the bandage he had to wear.

Misc. trivia for the film

  • The "turn-table" camera system used to achieve the 360-degree Bullet Time shots (which involved a single camera on a circular track spinning around an actor at high speeds) was so dangerous it nearly killed several of the actors, and was permanently retired after the film.

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