diff --git a/code/controllers/ContentController.php b/code/controllers/ContentController.php
index 5f67e6b7..4593d302 100644
--- a/code/controllers/ContentController.php
+++ b/code/controllers/ContentController.php
@@ -205,11 +205,10 @@ class ContentController extends Controller {
 	 * @uses ErrorPage::response_for()
 	 */
 	public function httpError($code, $message = null) {
-		if($this->request->isMedia() || !$response = ErrorPage::response_for($code)) {
-			parent::httpError($code, $message);
-		} else {
-			throw new SS_HTTPResponse_Exception($response);
-		}
+		// Don't use the HTML response for media requests
+		$response = $this->request->isMedia() ? null : ErrorPage::response_for($code);
+		// Failover to $message if the HTML response is unavailable / inappropriate
+		parent::httpError($code, $response ? $response : $message);
 	}
 
 	/**
diff --git a/code/controllers/ModelAsController.php b/code/controllers/ModelAsController.php
index e6d0178b..5aeefc1f 100644
--- a/code/controllers/ModelAsController.php
+++ b/code/controllers/ModelAsController.php
@@ -126,11 +126,8 @@ class ModelAsController extends Controller implements NestedController {
 				return $this->response;
 			}
 			
-			if($response = ErrorPage::response_for(404)) {
-				return $response;
-			} else {
-				$this->httpError(404, 'The requested page could not be found.');
-			}
+			$response = ErrorPage::response_for(404);
+			$this->httpError(404, $response ? $response : 'The requested page could not be found.');
 		}
 		
 		// Enforce current locale setting to the loaded SiteTree object