House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses.

I was really down on this movie when it came out, and then I tried to watch The Devil’s Rejects and really didn’t like the intro so I turned it off. But, I want to give Devil’s Rejects a 2nd chance and figured why not start at the beginning?

Here we have two middle class couples on a roadtrip through the south gathering material for a book of roadside oddities, they stumble upon Captitan Spauldings a real dirtbag fried chicken joint with a serial killer themed haunted house ride in the back that looks like a Rob Zombie video. During the ride they hear about local legend “Dr. Satan” and beg Cap. Spaulding to give them more info, he draws em a map that leads them to a farmhouse outside of town that is inhabited with crazy family that lives in a house that looks like a Rob Zombie video.

They are killed off one by one in some pretty nasty ways, some laughs ensue and some real grisly stuff. With the lightness of the humor and camp getting dimmer every moment.

It’s actually pretty well done. I liked it more than his remake of Halloween. This one feels a lot like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, plotwise and thematically, but with a lot of garish color and postmodern camp. This is not great, or terribly original, the dialogue is awful. It is just above average I’d say, but Zombie brings such enthusiasm and gusto to the movie its hard not to be won over. For something this nasty, its…charming?