Review of House of 1000 Corpses (2003) by Gareth J — 08 Dec 2011

Nine years is a long time to wait to see a two hour movie.

That was exactly how long I had been anticipated seeing rock star turned film maker Rob Zombie's first infamous fright-fest House of 1,000 corpses, a film which in the past had been applauded by genre fans but condemned as trash by just about everyone else. Looking at it from an optimistic standpoint, I was willing to put aside my preconceptions and indulge my inner horror lover. And the result was...disappointing as I feared.

Put simply, the film was a try-hard also ran when it really should have been a refresher course in depravity in bad taste. It's 1970s splatter pretensions are overplayed to the point of schlock and moments which should be maddeningly horrific come across more like the set pieces of a rather lame theme park ride. Zombie once said in an interview that he likes to see the monsters in a horror movie and considering this fact it is little wonder why his own films would be so lack luster and totally lacking in dramatic suspense.

This would be forgivable had Zombie not attempted to mangle the story further with some grossly burlesque drama, courtesy of his own kin Sheri Moon Zombie and 70s wax statue Karen Black who clearly took this role primarily to get her swollen synthetic mug back on the silver screen. Equally as over the top is Bill Moseley, who diminishes all sense of menace from his character Otis by being too invasive and at times one does wish that he had been given a lot less dialogue to work with. The other actors try their best with their parts and fair with varied success. The best of these being Chris Hardwick and Erin Michaels who, despite having almost no real material to work with beyond hackneyed cliches, successfully create characters you care for. If the focus of the film had been on their journey through hell and not a character piece on the hammy collection of redneck monsters, the film may have fared better.

The film's one redeeming quality is Sid Haig, whose colorfully demented Captain Spaulding is sociopath through and through. Appearing on screen right from the outset, Haig almost redeems the films many short-comings in his ability to turn on a knife edge from being a jovial jokey entertainer to a cold blooded killer. Some would say that he represents the darker side of the American dream: a world where violence is rife and a few crossed words are punishable by swift retribution. This can particularly be seen in the fact that you can never tell which side he's on or what he plans to do next. A shame then that he gets so little screen time when so many other less worthy performances are granted so much.

In conclusion, House of 1000 Corpses seems less like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and more like a grind house version of Nothing But Trouble. All the good ideas and preconceptions presented by the trailer for the film are destroyed by the fact that the finished product is a confused selection of Halloween cliches and predictable theme park drivel. The last act of the film appears to be more of a step in the right direction and hardened genre fans will no doubt feel cheated that this intensity was saved til the bitter end. In short, this is a classic case of what not to do: create a horror film designed for non-genre audiences which presented such a hardcore marketing campaign that it ensured that only genre fans would show interest. I'm sorry to say Mr. Zombie but in light of films like Saw, Hostel and Turistas, House of 1000 Corpses just feels too lame to be scary. As is the nature of desensitization.