House of 1000 Corpses

 

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.