By Geno McGahee
When it comes to the work of Rob Zombie, the opinions are strong. There are those that absolutely love his film work and then there are those that think he cannot make a good movie. Zombie made a name for himself through his music and strange horror-related presentations. Good music or not, he entertained. All in all, I did not mind his music. It wasn’t anything great, but some of it was catchy and it had its own look and style. That can also be said for his first attempt at a feature film. HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES is an odd film with a 1970’s sort of feel to it. For the time, this was something fresh.
In 2003, the horror fans were suffering through the remake of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Other films like FREDDY VS. JASON, DARKNESS FALLS, JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, DREAMCATCHER and HOUSE OF THE DEAD were the offerings to the public. In other words, the horror fans were clamoring for something good or different and Hollywood was offering nothing close to good. HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and HIGH TENSION were the films on the fringes and when a horror film comes along that dares to be different comes out, the word of mouth will push it.
Another reason why HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES launched Rob Zombie was the fact that it took so long to release. Several production companies had a claim to it but there was a lot of disagreements and red tape keeping it on the shelf. The news of the behind the scenes battles kept this film on the mind of the horror fans and when it was unleashed, it was so different that it was good. It’s not that it was good. It’s not. It was just something different being offered.
Two couples hit the road and run into a hitchhiker, which presents one of the first problems of this film. Rob Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie plays the role of “Baby”, and her acting is less than stellar. I understand that Zombie wants to have his wife in his films and perhaps help launch her career, but she’s just not convincing at all in this role. Her role is so forced that it’s nearly painful.
Baby leads the two couples back to the house where her crazy family resides, which includes Mother Firefly (Karen Black), Grampa (Dennis Fimple), Tiny (Matthew McGrory), and the head of the family, Otis (Bill Moseley). Moseley is another distraction in this film as he tries too hard to be creepy. The accent is so fake that it takes you right out of the film. Between he and Sheri Moon, the film really struggles to gain traction.
The family plans to kill the two couples…mostly for the artistic reasons of Otis, I guess, and to feed to the legendary Dr .Satan. Dr. Satan lives underground and still does operations on mentally challenged people. The surviving member of the two couples is dressed like a rabbit and dropped into the underground lair of Dr. Satan and comes face to face with the true, unspeakable evil. This leads to a less than shocking ending.
I want to mention one actor and character that made this movie worth a watch. Sid Haig as “Captain Spaulding” was funny and interesting. Every time that he is on the screen, he is very entertaining. Haig owns this role. He plays it over the top, but it is still a believable character. This is the difference between understanding the character, which Haig did, and coming up with a shell of a character as Moseley did. You can tell that Haig knew who Spaulding was.
HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES is different enough to be interesting. It’s got a neat look to it and was better than a lot of the films that came out in 2003, but that’s not saying that it’s good. The unfortunate thing is that Zombie was exposed to a great degree by this film and certainly by all of his follow ups. He is more style than substance and that is what we see in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES.
In 2003, I would have recommended this movie a lot more than I do now. When to take away the cool visuals and grit, we are left with a mediocrity at best with bad acting. It’s better than anything else Zombie has produced since, but that’s not saying much.
Rating: 3.5/10
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