Lions Gate | Review by John Weber
Rob
Zombie's HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES starts off
strong, but not in a way you would expect.
The rock-musician-turned-director's first
effort is a homage to the horror/slasher
flicks of the 70s, especially Tobe Hopper's
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. But the first third
of CORPSES is very amusing, as four
young adults (they seem too old to be teens,
so we'll just call them young adults) driving
to a distant parent's house get waylaid
by a heavy storm, bad directions and a desire
to check out the myth of a local legend
by the name of Dr. Satan. Oh, and it's the
night before Halloween, 1977.
Our future victims meet Captain
Spaulding (Sid Haig), who runs Captain Spaulding's
Museum of Monsters and Madmen. He also sells
fried chicken and gas on the side, dresses
in clown attire, and can be quite nasty
to visitors who rub him the wrong way. Let
me just say hooray for Captain Spaulding
– Sid Haig steals every scene
he's in, which, sadly, isn't too many.
He gives directions to Bill
and Jerry (Rainn Wilson and Chris Hardwick),
who play a very goofy, offbeat pair of best
friends. Their girlfriends (Jennifer Jostyn
and Erin Daniels) are fairly bitchy. Period.
That's their personality. Anyway, the foursome
leaves the museum, looking for the remains
of Dr. Satan, and they pick up a hitchhiker
named Baby (Sheri Moon, sweet and eventually
very scary). Baby's nice and adorable at
first, and says she knows where to find
Dr. Satan. Then, tire trouble (no accident),
and the group heads for shelter with Baby's
family – the Firefly clan.
They're all nuts, folks. Karen
Black gets to act flighty as Mama Firefly,
Baby's mom and an ancient prom queen-type
(who looks more like a hooker) who celebrates
Halloween very seriously. Bill Mosely, who
was in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2, is
right-on as the very seriously disturbed
Otis Driftwood. There are a few more screwed-up
folks in this house. VERY screwed-up. There's
a ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW-type dinner
that's only missing Brad and Janet. It's
all kinda jolly – although there are
ominous hazy inserts between scenes that
suggest something far more sinister coming
down the pike. And it sure does.
HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES has
a reputation. For carnage and gore. For
being unreleaseable to theaters, at least
in the minds of top execs at Universal or
M-G-M. And we suddenly march in that direction.
All these comic characters end up killing
– or being killed in quite grisly and
hard-to-watch ways as the carnage begins.
The film takes on a quite dark feel –
I think too dark to continue the
black comedy that fills the first half.
CORPSES becomes obsessed with torture and
quite unpleasant. This is not "fun"
gore, garish and unlikely, but nasty stuff
that we can easily imagine, try as we might
not to.
Imagine a comic situation
where Lucy hits Desi over the head with
a frying pan. We laugh; we see the cartoon
birdies circling around Desi as he tries
to gather his wits. Now imagine that scene
again – except the second time, blood
pours out of Desi's ears and scalp and nose.
Not funny at all - and more shocking because
of the first frying pan scene. I may be
stretching a bit, but the comedy in the
first half of the film gets in the way of
Zombie trying to change the mood in the
second half. The audience is set up for
either more comedy or else wild garish gore.
Instead we get FACES OF DEATH.
The result is a conclusion you watch quite
numbly. The film ends with a slight twist,
but one you could see coming from miles
away.
HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES is certainly
worth a look, but I think it goes awry when
the killings and torture begins. There's
one very chilling, effective and original
scene worth pointing out - when a deputy
sheriff is on his knees to Otis, who is
wielding a gun. The use of silence and the
camera angle here are unique. I wish there
was more of this in CORPSES...
A couple of "oh, by the
ways"... most of the characters are
named after characters in Marx Brothers
movies (Captain Spaulding, Rufus Firefly,
Otis Driftwood). No, I don't know why. And
the interactive DVD menus are quite hilarious,
featuring most of the characters from the
movie, most notably Captain Spaulding. You
just gotta love Sid Haig. Make sure
you check every menu!
