House of 1000 Corpses (2001)
As with many rock stars Rob Zombie is known for his love of old horror films so it comes as no surprise that his directorial debut is a warped trip into B-movie horror, riffing on the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and it's 1986 sequel.
Never moving out of classic grindhouse territory, House of 1000 Corpses plunges two young couples into a nightmarish Halloween back woods tale where they fall victim to a family of sick deviants and deformed grotesques including Karen Black, Bill Moseley, a demented Sid Haig in the now iconic role of Captain Spaulding and Zombie's wife to be, Sherri Moon.
Whilst the film is derivative it's also a homage to classic horror as we witness scenes from Universal classics such as The Wolf Man (1941) and House of Frankenstein (1944) thrust into the insanity of the Firefly family's chamber of horrors. In fact Zombie's direction is inspiring, at least to me. Witness the scene where Walton Goggins, sheriff is shot in cold blood. Moseley holds his gun to Goggins head and we wait for the shot to ring out. It doesn't. Zombie edges his camera out still focusing on the pair, again nothing. It's not until we get a birds eye view and you begin to check to see if the dvd counter is still running and the film hasn't froze before the inevitable finally happens. It's a sequence that takes about thirty seconds to play out but seems like an eternity. The cinematography is superb as is the mind bending use of film stocks and random weird clips that assault the viewer every so often, such as Moon sticking her tongue into a rotting corpse's mouth, along with various freaks and absurdities, whilst giving the impression of being an MTV style horror music video it also makes it seem even more disturbing than it is.
The film is similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in you think you are seeing more blood and gore than you actually do. Yes it's a relentless assault on the eyes but often it's all so quick that it really is a case of blink and you'll miss it. So yes, whilst it is practically a reworking of 70's films it's also fresh meat with outstanding performances and memorable new characters. So much so that it was inevitable we'd see them all again in sequel The Devil's Rejects (2005)
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