With Halloween fast approaching, the next few of these reviews until we reach Halloween are going to be horror movies. Obviously I won’t have enough time to do every horror movie I’ve seen, but a decent-sized block of them should be pretty sweet. Let’s start with one of my favorite more recent ones.

Title: House of 1000 Corpses
Starring: Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Sheri Moon Zombie, Karen Black
Release Date: April 11, 2003
Running Time: 88 Minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes Ranking: 16%

Yeah, 16% from RT. I actually thought it was a mistake at first, because while I’ve definitely heard critics of this film, I didn’t realize the bad blood was that universal. Fortunately those cunts aren’t reviewing today, and I am. Anyways, House of 1000 Corpses (HKC) was Rob Zombie’s directorial debut, and as a fan of both his work with White Zombie and his solo music, I was pretty excited when I first heard it came out. The hype surrounding it, and the trouble Zombie supposedly had with finding a company that would actually distribute the film, didn’t hurt either. Soon after it finally came out, I dragged a couple of friends to the theaters for a late showing the night before Easter, which was unintentional, and only noticed when we walked out around 12:30 AM and were like “holy fuck, it’s Easter”. Six years and many viewings later, it seems silly that that would even be significant, but for some reason that first time I saw it, it did shock enough to leave one with that “dirty” feeling.

The movie starts by introducing us to Captain Spaulding (Haig), the owner of a gas station/tourist trap who likes to dress up like a clown. In the opening scene, two guys try to rob him, and he ends up killing them both, then expressing dismay that they’ve gotten blood all over his new clown shoes. Next up, we get introduced to the victims. As with most slasher films, there’s really nothing notable about any of them besides the fact that one of them is Chris Hardwick from the old MTV dating show, Singled Out. Two girls, two guys, and basically their supposed to be coupled off, though the guys are annoying and the girls are annoyed by them. They stop at Spaulding’s, and after getting talked into riding his “Murder Ride”, they learn of the legend of Dr. Satan. Spaulding gives them directions where they can find the spot that Dr. Satan was killed, and despite protests by the girls, they go.

A flat tire later, and they find themselves in the house of the Firefly family, led by Otis Driftwood (Moseley), who I consider to be the “main” villain. Some pretty fucked up scenes happen here, including a variety show and dinner sequence, both of which the gang is forced into participating in. Then when Otis disappears with one of the guys, hacks him up, and turns him into “Fish Boy”, it becomes apparent how deep they’re actually in. Meanwhile, the father of one of the girls gets worried, and him and a cop end up at the Firefly home, only to be killed. That night, Otis dons a mask he made of the father’s face, and the family conducts a ceremony in which the remaining three victims are lowered, in a coffin, into an underground cave area, where they end up finally getting to meet Dr. Satan.

Like I said, when this movie was first coming out, I had some very high expectations. While I seem to be against the general population on this, I can honestly say that they were met on the first viewing. There’s just enough violence, nudity, and just outright creepiness to make you feel like you’ve watched something fucked up, and I can’t imagine anyone not understanding that that’s kind of the point. Several scenes are homages to scenes in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, particularly the second installment, which also starred Moseley. But because of what this film is, homages and outright stealing is perfectly okay, and in this case, it’s quite well done.

Alot of the camera work is also very interesting. You could tell Zombie wanted to experiment with lots of different types of shots and exposures, but again, it ended up being done in a way that works. The scene in which Otis kills the girl’s father is particularly good, as the camera just zooms further and further out with silence in the background, for what seems like many minutes going by, and then finally you hear the gunshot. I remember seeing it the first time, and just wondering when the fuck he was going to kill him, with a pretty uncomfortable feeling being brought on by the anticipation.

Overall, this is one of those movies that I can see someone not liking, but consider them to be “missing out” if they don’t. It’s dark, disturbing, has an engaging villain(s) and expendable victims, and has just the right amount of camp to keep things from getting too intense. It’s everything a horror film should be.

Art Score: 6
Entertainment Score: 8
Total Score: 78

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Category: My Million Movies, Reviews | Tags: bill moseley, dr. satan, film, horror, house of 1000 corpses, JCC, karen black, Morphine Nation, mtv, My Million Movies, Reviews, rob zombie, sheri moon zombie, sid haig, singled out, white zombie // 3 Comments »