Review of The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009) by Javier A — 04 Sep 2010

As a fan of the Spookshow International comics and a huge fan of Rob Zombie in general I'm guessing I'm pretty much the target audience for this, so it pains me to say it didn't really float my boat.

There are a few laughs to be had, mainly from some amusing musical interludes, and the cast is great (hearing Paul Giamatti giving it 110% as Dr Satan is particularly enjoyable) but it tends to rely on the assumption that cartoon characters rutting and spouting knob gags is inherently funny. It is, just not funny enough to carry a whole movie. It aims to be a kind of pornographic extended Spongebob episode with added zombie nazis, which sounds all kinds of awesome but it all starts to feel a little childish and self-indulgent. It all worked great in the comic book, and I genuinely believe Zombie to be a talented film-maker, but its possible that given the freedom of a feature-length animated movie he's just got too much energy for it all to gel.

It is likeable and sporadically funny, and El Superbeasto is more proof of Zombie's manic imagination (there is a LOT of crazy sh*t in this movie) but a shorter running time and more focus might have made this worthy of standing alongside his live-action stuff.