The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

Rob Zombie has been on the receiving end of far too much criticism in his career as a filmmaker. Nearly every one of his films have had mostly negative reviews despite the fact that he clearly has a stronger understanding of horror than most of the PG-13 hack-jobs that fill out the genre these days. THWOES is perfect for his hyperactive imagination to take full advantage of world of cartoons.

Superbeasto himself is a actor-slash-director dressed as a Mexican wrestler. His sister Susie X is some kind of secret agent hunting zombie Nazis. They're supposed to work together but Superbeasto's womanizing and laziness often prevents him from taking part. His old high school punching bag Steve Wachowski adopts the guise of Dr. Satan and plans to take over the world once he weds a girl with a 666 tattoo on her ass. That girl just happens to be a stripper Superbeasto has the hots for and he's not going to let Dr. Satan have his way.

THWOES plays a lot like a feature-length skit from MTV's Liquid Television back in the early 90s. It's often surreal and rapid-fire. If you like the maniacal humor of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and can keep up with the madness then you'll get a kick out of El Superbeasto. There's lots of blood and gore and nudity too if that's your kinda of thing.

Keep a lookout for Captain Spaulding and Otis Driftwood too, and stick around for the end of the closing credits.

The cartoon technique is influenced by Ralph Bakshi and the sometimes very dark humor of Ren & Stimpy. The German dub actually makes the movie much funnier and adds a few better jokes.

I probably love this movie just because he is so stupid You could say it's a cartoon Trashfilm we liked a lot of things and he had some really good ideas unfortunately they are not mature or really well implemented. The movie has to be able to stand on its own legs that can not be done if you make references every 2 minutes to other films that I would much rather watch now. And constantly referencing yourself is the cinematic equivalent of a hand to masturbation.

The actors go to great lengths to make the ridiculous nonsense they give interesting and that only partially works I think it would be better if you did not see nipples in this way, leaving some things to the imagination of the audience, some of the characters apart are so much more interesting and would have made much more interesting or entertaining protagonists and I do not know how often I have to say that I just hate musicals and cartoon musicals are so on my mind. (If you want to make a real parody of the damned disney musicals, I would have celebrated it if you had done that consistently and thought of the merits of a parody, namely the exaggeration of the whole paired with adult humor and voila a good movie would have been made)

Final sentence: Why is not Susi X the main character?

Okay we all know Rob Zombie and the way he films, it's all about the uneasiness of the situation, the excessiveness of it all whether it be extreme amounts of gore, language, nudity, fast paced cuts and over the top acting. It's nothing new going into the Haunted world of el superbeasto to think it would be anything different, I knew the moment I heard Zombie was going to do an animated film that he in fact was going for Cool World meets Fritz the cat. The man obviously loves his Woman in seductive form and he loves his exploitation turned to 11. Of course Haunted world is no different.

Now I won't sugar coat the movie, it's graphic, as graphic a comic movie I've ever seen, boobs pop up everywhere, people mutilate themselves and are killed in graphic ways, there's sexual situations at every turn and language so course that it would make a sailor curl in his boots. It's to be expected and to be honest it get's a little old after awhile. I don't understand why Zombie can't just tone it done a little. I know he's really into the horror aspect of it all but sometimes I think Zombie does it just to do it, it distracts from what could be a really cool Animated movie.

Now it's not all bad, in fact the acting is quite entertaining and good, especially Tom Papa as Superbeasto, he's so over the top it's hilarious. He plays a wrestler living a crazed strange world where his characters are all monsters and creatures outside of a few people. What makes the movie interesting and fun is it does detour from his true horror genre, yes it has it's horror routes but the movie is so much different than what you've seen from Rob zombie, I say he should tone it down but the movie as a whole is somewhat fresh, it's somewhat funny thanks in part to Mr. Lawernce and Tom Papa in part writing the script. Instead of having Rob zombie write true cliché character, the characters here are different and entertaining. I especially like the new takes on some of Zombies movie characters like Dr. Satan, which in this movie is skinny, scrawny and has a pet ape and surprisingly is voiced by the most awesomeness Paul Giamatti. You also Spongebob himself Tom Kinny playing Otto the deranged father from Corpses, as well as Sid Haig playing Captain spaulding. Even though these characters are gruesome in the live action movies, there played with quite entertaining delight and goofiness in this movie. Heck they even threw in Rosario Dawson for good measure.

Now on the flipside the story plays a lot like a elongated TV series, being from Starz media I'm almost assuming that this will become a TV show in the future if it catches on. It doesn't make sense all the time and feels like it's too disjointed at some points where the story literally stops to show us some sexual situation or naked woman and man having sex. The story to me is probably it's weakest point, it's not all bad and can make you chuckle if you have a disturbed sense of humor such as myself but still it's like I said earlier, it's almost like Rob Zombie is paying homage to fritz the cat.

On one last note, I expected the film to almost have a Heavy metal feel, in that the animation would be disjointed and raw but instead we get something close in line to Osmosis Jones and Beavis and Butthead, it's slightly disjointed but it's not too extreme, it's just what it is. Trust me when I say it's very cool to look and very well drawn but it still could have used a slightly heavier disjointed feel.

Okay to summarize, out of all the Zombie films I've seen this is the better of the films, it doesn't mean it's all around great because it's not, it has problems, some more glaring than others but within all it's flaws the movie is still fun to watch and I would recommend it with only slight caution, if you get offended easily then be cautious otherwise I give it a 7/10.

Rob Zombie has been known for doing many heavy metal songs and directing horror movies like, "House of 100 Corpses" and "The Devil's Reject's". But in 2009, he released a direct-to-video animated film based on the comic book made by him. The animated film was called, "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto".

I like the film's animation. It's Spongebob Squarepants meet's Ralph Bakshi. The film also has some nice voice acting from Tom Papa, Sheri Moon Zombie, and Paul Giamatti as the villain.

The problem's with this film is that sometime's the movie can be boring and some of the funny moment's in the movie can be pretty lame.

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, is not a bad movie, but it's going to depend what you're into. If you're a Rob Zombie fan or someone looking for a mindless movie to watch, then this movie is for you. If you're someone that take's animated films seriously, then this movie is not for you.

Watching this movie I did nothing but laugh, though I knew it was wrong to laugh at zombie Nazi's getting their heads sliced off by a hot animated busty-blonde-chick with an eye patch, I just couldn't help it. The movie was stylish, funny, and careless, with a "So what?" Attitude.

This movie will either leave you in disgust, or laughing until your lungs bleed. Personally for me, this movie was a love, as I can only speak for myself I can't say you'll like it, but if you think you'll like it, then you'll probably love it. If you like immature and comically brutal cartoons, with sex drive and bad-mouth language, then you'll love this!