Review of House of 1000 Corpses (2003) by Chris W — 13 Sep 2011

Rob Zombie's debut feature has been praised by some less discerning horror fans as being an homage to 70's horror films like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "Last House On The Left".

This however, is completely wrong. It is actually a remake of "Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3"(1990) with elements of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation(The Return Of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre)" (1994).

The trouble is that both of those movies were pretty bad copies of the original themselves so what you end up with here is an even worse version of the same story, generic teens getting lured into the clutches of a generic deranged family who then torture and murder the generic teens in a variety of generic, sadistic ways.

The whole thing is generic, a paint-by-numbers horror that brings absolutely nothing new to the genre and is so stylized that it has more in common with a late 80's/early 90's heavy metal music video (imagine anything from that era by Alice Cooper or Gwar and you won't be far off).

There is no character development and zero scares. Even Karen Black appears to be embarrassed that she committed to this tripe (no wonder she didn't return for the sequel). On the whole this is a very poor attempt at horror and clearly exhibits a case of style over substance!