Well by the title alone, House of 1000 Corpses, you can guess this is a horror film. Not like most horror films we are accustomed to, like Halloween, Jeepers Creepers, Nightmare on Elm Street and your basic slasher movies; this one involves torture and a more twisted psychedelic approach to the genre. The demented nature of the film, unique imagery and the freaky sound track all lend to an overload of the senses and a complete disbelief of what you are experiencing. I found this Rob Zombie written and directed film to be very artistic and extremely well made, but lacking in point, story and well to be blunt, boring. I also don’t understand why it was set in 1979? Again the purpose serves no rhyme or reason, just another detail to overload the senses.

The movie opens with an ad for Captain Spaulding’s house of horror. It is a museum of torture, freakish items and a historic ride of murder, oh and let’s not forget the fried chicken. The Captain, (Sid Haig, Jackie Brown) is a ghoulish looking clown with a penchant for the macabre and a take no prisoner approach to customer service. After a couple town idiots attempted an armed robbery of the Captain and were literally blown away, the story cuts to a road trip. Two guys and their girlfriends are travelling the country in search of the unusual for their book and they discover Captain Spaulding’s roadside attraction. After a series of un-welcomed questions, the four took the ride of murder. The guys fascinated by the story of Doctor Death asked for directions to the tree he was hanged from. Driving in the dark and pouring rain to look for a tree, they picked up this hot girl, Baby (Sheri Moon) and she directed them to the tree. The tire blew on their car and they sought refuge at Baby’s house. Well the dust doesn’t settle on you, and you can be sure, this is not Mr. Rogers home. The following action is graphic, disturbing and completely weird. Shake your head, drop your jaw to the ground, drool on your shoes weird. The kidnapped cheerleaders are there, well most of the pieces of them and many more missing people. The entryway with mutilated dolls should have served as a warning not to enter, but hey there wouldn’t have been much of a film if the white guys paid attention to warnings.

Visually this film is impressive, on a more basic level though I was bored and found it extremely predictable in every way. The shock value wasn’t even there as it should have been, only the disbelief. Some of the cast of House of 1000 Corpses were Chad Bannon, William Bassett, Karen Black, Bill Moseley, Michael Pollard, Joe Dobb, Jeanne Carmen, Judith Drake, Chris Hardwick, Gregg Gibbs, Tom Towles, Erin Daniels (One Hour Photo) and Dennis Fimple. If you can appreciate the detail put into the film and don’t need a real story or care about dialogue, then you might enjoy viewing this movie, everyone else in the world would do better sticking with the mainstream horror and take a pass on House of 1000 Corpses. I gave this movie a four on the About-Movies.com scale.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:46:10 AM

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