La casa de los 1000 cuerpos

Four friends searching for offbeat tourist attractions are taken prisoner and tortured by a sadistic family of killers. Reasonably well put-together entry into the torture porn subgenre of horror. There's really not much story here beyond getting these people to where they can be tortured and killed by these freaks. There's also the disturbing element of narrative sympathy with the killers, not the victims. This is not surprising given that Rob Zombie belongs to that breed of "heavy metal horror fan" that equates real-life killers like Charles Manson with fictional movie monsters. It would be more disconcerting if one wasn't convinced these posers simply get enjoyment out of being shocking and offensive. Anyway, it's not a terrible movie of its type. I've certainly seen far worse and far more disgusting.

I already had a user comment for "House of a 1.000 Corpses" submitted here on this site, dated over a year ago and…um…not very praising. In fact, my first viewing of this film was so disappointing that I excessively discouraged other people here to see it. Rather than to simply ignore the old comment and pretend I never bashed it, I wish to write a new – more positive – review, if it were only to convince other people (who also disliked at first) to give it a second change. Several factors (like the praising reviews on "The Devil's Rejects"-sequel and conversations with fellow horror fans) nearly forced me to re-watch "House of a 1.000 Corpses" and I'm glad I did. This truly is a film that requires multiple viewing before one can properly judge it. Rob Zombie's style is often innovating and so overwhelming that it might look overly hectic at first but, in reality, his dedication towards obscurity and his knowledge on classic cinema is one of the best things that could ever happen to the horror genre. And that is something you (or at least I) have to discover with repeated viewings…

The power of this film lies in the fact that the screenplay covers all kind of successful horror premises. Serial killers, mad doctors, a family of crazies, deranged clowns, devil-worshipers….you name the type of terror and "House of a 1.000 Corpses" features it! This movie is a small revival of the entire horror genre all by itself. No extended and boring intros or pointless red herrings in this film, "House…" is straightforward and surefooted sickness from start to finish and you're given almost no time to breathe. Some of the sequences in this film are so damn close to brilliant that I can't possibly figure out why I didn't love them right away!! The execution-scene guided by the moody "I Remember You"-song, for example, is amazingly atmospheric and quite unsettling. Although Rob Zombie's directing skills are still open for improvement (the abrupt climax, overly rough editing), his debut is a staggering gorefest that every horror fan has to experience…repeatedly! Bring on the sequel…I'm ready now!!

In my opinion, House of 1000 Corpses is a fan movie. Fans of both the horror genre and Rob Zombie are likely to love it. Though I do not count myself a fan of either, I do like both at times, and I am quite familiar with both. Those familiar with Rob Zombie are likely to be the only ones who completely 'get' this clever little film - appreciating its depraved sense of humor and nihilism. Zombie's themes are fairly consistent - evil (without the usual religious connotations and clichés), murder, sex, insanity, and stereotype "hillbillies". Zombie's world is not a place for people who are terribly concerned with reality, but, for Zombie himself, it seems to supply endless muse for a prolific and interesting commercial creativity.

Two couples traveling across country and working on a book on bizarre roadside attractions stumble across a filling station / theme park run by a vaguely evil clown with a bad attitude - Captain Spaulding. Spaulding teaches them of a few local legends, including a mad surgeon who worked in a local insane asylum and came to be known as Dr. Satan for the grotesque surgical procedures he applied to mental patients in secret. They pick up a pretty blonde hitch-hiker on their way to see the tree where Dr Satan was hung, and run into some car problems, so the hitch-hiker invites them to her family house. The family, apparently headed by the phenomenally weird Karen Black, makes The Addams family look like the Brady Bunch.

My narrative has described the first 20 minutes or so of the film, and at this point the film, much like RZ's songs, is so campy that it seems a straightforward horror comedy. However, once our protagonists are in "the house", the plot takes a decidedly more sinister spin, and never lets up from that point forward.

This film successfully and entertainingly portrays all of RZ's themes in about the same proportions as his music. Of them all, sex is the least explored, and I, for one, am thankful for that. The film also walks a delicate line between Hannibal Lector grotesque art realism and supernatural forces. For example, at one point, one of the bad guys turns on a cassette player with low batteries so that the voice recorded on it sounds extra-satanic.

If you have problems with blood and other bodily fluids, and utterly repulsive surgically induced variations on the human body, you might want to avoid this film. If you don't have any great objections to standard hardcore horror imagery, or if you like it, you might want to see this. It is masterfully visualized and does a much better job of making horror into art than the standard Hollywood horror fair. This is Rob Zombie's art, and he does it much better than most. This first major effort in film bodes well for his future use of the medium, and I will look forward to his next.

This movie is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you've seen that, you've seen this. I don't need to explain the plot; that's all you need to know. It's TTCM with bizarre attempts at stylization. The victims are characterless twats, except for Rainn Wilson, who plays a lovable nerd. Other than him, the real stars are the family and Sid Haig as Captain Spaulding, but the two psycho women are both horribly annoying. It does break away from the basic formula for the third act of the movie, but I can't say it was for the movies benefit.

The stylization is the worst part of it; randomly cutting to 16mm film clips, random colored lighting that change in between shots, and a bunch of flashing quick cuts. If your over the age of 16, and/or are a seasoned horror fan, this movie is much more likely to give you a headache rather than scare you.

Pros- Sid Haig, nostalgic premise, and some decent gore

Cons- awful attempts at stylization, annoying characters, a twist that makes the movie worse.

If you're gonna watch it; you're gonna watch it. But don't expect anything too much.

This is the first movie rob zombie ever made. While he would go on to make better movies, This was a great horror movie. Captain Spaulding is easily the most terrifying part of this movie. I kind of wished they had focused on him, and his museum of monsters and mad men more than on the fireflies.