Rob Zombie’s debut film is an odd beast, to the point where
I can almost recommend seeing it, but can almost assure you won’t enjoy it. I
can’t call it a particularly good movie, but I can call it an interesting one.
Not necessarily for story or content, but for style and ambition, and also a
little cred for early filmmaker creativity. It’s a contemporary exploitation
film made years before exploitation movies became chic again. It’s also a love
letter to movies like The Hills Have Eyes and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
telling a similar kind of story but putting its own spin on things. It’s a
grimy, cruel movie, and an interesting start for the singer-turned-director.
On the day before Halloween, 1977, four friends go on a road
trip through America, visiting roadside attractions for a book. After going to
a roadside horror museum, run by the crude clown Captain Spaulding, they get
curious about the legend of Dr Satan, a local mad surgeon who had performed
human experiments and was lynched nearby. Curiosity wins out, and the group
decide to head off to check out the site of the lynching. On the way to the
site they drive through a storm and pick up a hitchhiker, Baby Firefly, who
says her family lives nearby. When their car breaks down, they end up at the
Firefly family house. While initially the redneck Firefly family seems
welcoming, if not a bit crude, things quickly take a dark turn and the four
friends find themselves at the mercy of the murderous family.
Sid Haig steals the movie as the lecherous clown Captain
Spaulding, telling bad jokes and being a lovable asshole while also being on a
thin trigger where his personality can turn dark almost instantly. Haig himself
was a fixture in exploitation movies in the seventies. Zombie uses him here
perfectly. The rest of the cast varies. Bill Moseley is great as the Charlie
Manson-esque Otis, who hacks up bodies to make ‘art’ and gives rambling
speeches. The four victims fit their roles well, given that they have little to
work with. There’s the smart one (played by a pre-Office Rainn Wilson), the
stupid one, and their girlfriends. The various members of the Firefly family do
their roles really well, adding a dirty, crude flavour to the twisted family
unit. The weak point, as in most of the Zombie’s films, is his wife Sheri Moon,
whose giggling psycho idiot Baby is grating throughout.
It’s a grim and gritty movie, often dark and dirty. In its
final third, the film changes tone completely, becoming a different sort of
horror movie. It’s creepy throughout, and surprisingly atmospheric. As I’ve
said before, it’s not necessarily a good movie. While it’s a relatively short
movie (capped at ninety minutes), it feels much longer, running into some
pacing issues where the movie feels like it could have ended a while before. Likewise,
when it reaches the final third, where things get bizarre, the movie really
outstays its welcome with rampant use of slow motion and rapid edits dragging the
film longer than it needed to be.
There is also a genuine unpleasantness to it, with the film
often being quite uncomfortable to watch. This is largely due to the changing
tone between being entertaining and funny (essentially any scene with Captain Spaulding
brings some levity) to the violent tortures of the Firefly family. It’s a mean
spirited movie, and is downright uncompromising with its tone. This is a
full-blown exploitation movie, not merely paying lip service to the genre but
being one outright. Whether this is a plus or minus is up to the individual,
but this is the sort of movie where the violence isn’t fun, it’s cruel. I’d say
that it’s to the films credit - it’s the real thing, not a cheap imitation.
This is his first film, and Zombie uses just about every
tool in the filmmaker’s handbook. Long takes, rapid editing, black and white,
split screens – Zombie tries out just about everything. It’s a refreshing
change from most other first-time directors, many of whom play it safe. Again,
while I can’t quite recommend it and can’t call it a particularly good movie, I
do feel there’s some worth to the film, if only to see a new director giving it
his all and playing with all the tools at his disposal.
