House of 1000 Corpses

[monstr]

The long and sordid history behind House of 1000 Corpses is starting to wear thin on this here horror nerd. House has been built up to the point of it being plugged as the new Messiah of horror films, the one that's gonna save us all! If anybody would have asked me from the get go, I would have said that Rob Zombie was the perfect candidate for horror movie director (people would snicker in the theater when a trailer came up for House and the words Directed by Rob Zombie came onscreen - what do they know!). He directs most if not all of his music videos and was also behind the trippy animated sequence in Beavis and Butthead Do America. The bottom line is that this guy has talent to spare, is a great musician and a hell of a horror flick fan. Zombie's not just your casual horror fan either, he's the fan of the real deal, we're talking the true classics (he wrote a song called Living Dead Girl for christ sakes, any Jean Rollin fans in the house?). It's been a long 3-year wait for horror fans to behold Zombie's supposed terror-filled spectacle House of 1000 Corpses on the big screen. The film's been through 3 distributor's including Universal, MGM and finally our savior, Lions Gate, who put out the R-Rated cut in limited theatrical release (expanding the release the second week). Luckily the unrated version is slated for home video, but the big question remains...was it worth the wait? The answer lies within my horror starved fiends - now you didn't think I was going to give it away that easily, did you?

Part of the charm, at least for me with House lies within the fact that it's a pot luck dish of just about every classic horror film element that I hold so dear to my heart. Story wise, there's absolutely no originality here. Heck, there's not even really a story to begin with! House relies heavily on the supposed strengths of its characters and the extreme visual style of the film itself. The problem is that sometimes these strengths come across more as weaknesses which winds up being not so cool. It's not all a loss though, there's MUCH to like about House and it's still an all around good time that the casual horror fan and elitists will most likely squawk at (while horror nerds sing its praises). Let's dig a little deeper in the House that Zombie built.

While driving through the backwoods, 4 young adults (insert working for scale actors here) stumble upon a weird gas station/fried chicken/serial killer ride attraction rest stop run by Captain Spalding (Sid Haig of Spider Baby). Spalding, decked out in his sloppy clown make up and dime store costume scrawls out some directions for the kids so they can locate a local legend called Dr. Satan. The kids are eventually kidnapped by a family of crazed loonies that include such genre faves as Karen Black, Bill Moseley as well as Zombie's main squeeze, that gal with the super fine ass, Mrs. Sheri Moon Zombie. Our wacko family invites the kids to stay for some eats, a bizarre show (that looks like something straight out of a David Lynch flick) and then pretend to let them go.

It's not going to be so easy for our 4 friends, as they're eventually brought back into the house and put through all manners of torture and humiliation by the wackos within. There's also some sort of ceremony that's taking place as well and by the time it's almost over it's as if we're watching some sort of wacked out version of Alice in Wonderland as our heroine is running through a disturbing maze of terrors in her half torn party dress. By the time it's all over, you'll feel as if you've been transported back in time and are sitting in a small theater on 42nd street circa '73, sometimes life can be a beautiful thing.

Zombie gets major points for maintaining a really slick horror vibe throughout the 90-minute running time of House, a vibe that seems to be missing from most teen friendly horror flicks of today. House really felt like a flick from the 70's or the 80's (most of this came from its Texas Chainsaw Massacre homages) and I really dug the fact that everywhere I looked on frame there was something to remind me that I was indeed watching a most gruesome horror flick. From the sick serial killer ride the kids took early on (a simply incredible sequence), to the B&W Saturday horror matinee host clips that filled the downtime, Zombie delivered the eye candy in spades. There were bodies, skulls, multi-colored gel lighting effects, doll heads, a shoe mobile, sheds o' terror, operating tables, winged demons - heck you name it, House delivered. For the horror film freak it was a terror themed overload. House looked cool, plain and simple and on a pure visual level pleased me to no end.

The real problem with House however, lies within its lack of characterization and its paper-thin plot. The story kinda just rambles on and in turn the action tends to veer off track leading us wherever it damn well pleases. There's no structure, no rules - so we basically have a world in which anything can happen (and usually does) with little to no explanation. The real reason that this becomes troublesome is because we don't know who to root for. I found myself rooting for the bad guys for most of the flick (but was I supposed to?) i mean, hell, they were the charming ones! I didn't care about the expendable kids except to see how they were going to be humiliated!

Performances are a mixed bag, while our hapless teens should be sliced to bits literally from the get go, our villains have outrageous personalities all their own and each one steals the scene from the other every time they're in frame. Sid Haig is fantastic as Captain Spalding and Karen Black shines as the over-sexed Mother Firefly. I probably don't even need to tell you that Bill Moseley is extremely entertaining as Otis, but the real surprise came from Sheri Moon as Baby. I wasn't expecting much from her, but Moon turned in an effectively creepy performance with a shrill baby doll laugh that I can still hear lurking in the shadows. Not to mention Moon's super fine ass, damn girl, you got it going on!

The bottom line is that I dug House of 1000 Corpses, but not because it's a great film. I dug it because it was a fun trip down horror movie lane. I'm no film snob, I like all different types of films for all different types of reasons. I'm willing to make compromises and with House I'm compromising a great deal in saying that I actually enjoyed it enough to recommend it as a real film. I look forward to checking out the uncut version on home video with all of the gore intact, perhaps that will help. I can definitely see House as being a flick to enjoy while sprawled out on the sofa at home. It's just a shame that we have to judge horror films of today on a scale of how much (or how little) they suck. If one sucks less than another, this in turn makes it a more tolerable film and therefore the obvious choice. Well, House sucks the least out of all of the theatrically released horror flicks that I've been subjected to recently so therefore, it gets the recommendation. Was it worth the three-year wait for House of 1000 Corpses? No. But I did enjoy it for it's cool horror vibe and the fact that it has something that I haven't seen in a real horror film released in theaters for quite some time. Balls. Despite its flaws, House is still a horror flick with big hairy balls of steel - and I respect that!

The Soundtrack -


Would it be considered an example of fine critiquing for me to say that the soundtrack to House of 1000 Corpses rocks? Well, it does, and I really can't think of another way of describing it, but I'll try. The soundtrack features a whopping 25-tracks, which include 5 new Rob Zombie songs as well as a bunch of assorted musical weirdness. Zombie tracks include the title track House of 1000 Corpses (which I can't get out of my head), Pussy Liquor (named after a store in the flick) and an incredibly hard rockin' track called Run Rabbit Run, which I can't help but think is a take on the Primus/Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 sound bite "dog will hunt" uttered by Bill Moseley of both House and TCM2.

Thrown in with the Zombie tunes is a great mix of music that spans the multi-genre spectrum. From the tunes I Wanna Be Loved By You (Helen Kane), I Remember You (Slim Whitman) to Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue (The Ramones) all of which were used so perfectly within the film, listening to these tunes (innocent or otherwise) in your car after seeing the flick, gives them a whole new meaning. The icing on the cake would have to be the 2003 version of Brick House with Rob Zombie, Lionel Richie and female rapper Trina. Good Times!

The CD is rounded out with a host of sound bites and clips of orchestration from the film randomly sprinkled in for good measure. The soundtrack is delivered in a cool tri fold digi-pak design with a booklet glued in on the left. The booklet features info and pics of all the major villains from the flick including faux mug shots and newspaper clippings. Even if you haven't seen the flick and are a fan of Zombie (in which case you SHOULD have seen the flick) the soundtrack for House of 1000 Corpses comes highly recommended.

[Anonymous]

i liked that movie

[Evil Kadaver]

I have this, but don't have the time to watch it.

[Naughty Faery]

Good movie

[Dark_Constantine]

I do agree on the movie having some flaws, but all-in-all I thought it was a great horror film.

[prezhorusin04]

Jeebuz Kadaver, that's avatar is huge!!! I can't even get mine to upload a new graphic....

House of 1000 Corpses was a decent film in my opinion, though, the 3 year wait was a tad bit excessive..

I do like Rob Zombie/White Zombie though..

Wonder if 'Devils Rejects' will be any good. I'll probably wait until DVD..

[Dark_Constantine]

I think Devil's Rejects will be good; I've been waiting for it to come out forever. Rob Zombie definitely knows how to throw twists in a horror film, even if some consider them to be sick or strange, I say, the more the better.

[xmorph]

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