House of 1000 Corpses Year: 2002 Director: Rob Zombie Written by: Rob Zombie Threat: Mutant Hillbillies Weapon of Choice: Gun Based upon: Universal Studios attraction IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
The Devil's Rejects

The tyranist's thoughts
You hear stories about movies about to come out that have to be cut and cut again to achieve an R rating, just so they might play at the local cineplex. I was quite excited to hear about House of 1000 Corpses, but as time dragged on and it was apparent that there was no way this was ever going to play anywhere close to where I live. My part of the country just doesn't screen this kind of movie. So I had to wait.
There are really two movies here. The first half is a fun, playful poke at horror movies and the strange characters in them. The cast is really good and the dialogue almost perfect. Then the second half rolls in and the movie is disturbing and violent and suddenly epitomizes everything about the sub-genre in which it resides that I dislike.
Four kids are on a road trip collecting data on the strange things you can see on the side of the road. The kids and the place they find remind me alternately of scenes from Neil Gaiman's brilliant American Gods and the beautifully titled "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away." They decide to check out a local legend about someone named Doctor Satan. A tire blown out by a shotgun later, they find themselves the guests of a very odd family. A mutant hillbilly family. With a superhot daughter. Why is the daughter always superhot? Anyway, the movie turns shortly thereafter and our friends find themselves the victims in a Texas Chainsaw style family gathering.
I really, really enjoyed the first half of the movie, which only made my discomfort durning the second half stand out more. There are some fun, likeable characters that could have been exploited for a very entertaining movie. Unfortunately, the ultimate goal of the movie fell into the style of horror flick that I've rarely enjoyed and I ended up disappointed.
I can't really recommend this one. But I want to. There are some things in the first half that are well worth the time to see. It's too bad that it takes the turn it does.
Posted: December 1st, 2003

Rish Outfield's reviews
Instead of merely echoing tyranist's comments on this film (since I feel pretty much exactly the same as he did about it), I thought I'd tell you a little bit of how I spent my Halloween of 2000.
Having just moved to Los Angeles, I thought I would go to Universal Studios, especially since I'd heard they had retrofitted the park for Halloween, and were having a really cheap deal if you pretended you could stand the music they played on KROQ. Indeed, they had decorated the park for the holiday, with strobelights, fog machines, costumed characters, and scary music. They also had five haunted houses/mazes/attractions to explore.
One of them had been designed by rock musician Rob Zombie, and was patterned after a Midwestern gas station and roadside freak show (another was patterned after the World Wrestling Federation, but I didn't dare visit that one). Of the four I did check out, the Rob Zombie attraction impressed me the most, and I described it to tyranist a couple of days later, pretty excited about it.
Instead of a simple maze with poorly-acting teenagers jumping out, it was set up like a tour of the macabre, more fascinating than scary. A lot of thought and effort had been put into it, though it was sometimes too dark to really appreciate all the elaborate work and sets. It was clever and well done, and if I hadn't impatient, oversexed people crowding in behind me, I would've stayed a lot longer to just look at the neat displays and listen to the cool sideshow-type voiceover (any mention of Bob Gein and Lizzie Borden is welcome with me). Plus, there were some creepy musical moments and nice scenes with dead bodies hanging all around you, swaying back and forth (some turned out NOT to be dead, however) and a similar scene with scarecrows in a room (and a couple of those were alive too).
Even the queue was fun, as they showed immensely creative Rob Zombie videos while we waited in line. The people around me were having a lot of fun, and I found myself wishing I had dragged my little sisters or some prostitutes there.
Oddly enough, the basis for this film was the attraction I went to that night. A group of four 1977 youths stop by Captain Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen, where they're greeted by Cap'n Spaulding (Sid Haig), the oddest character this side of Arkham Asylum, and take the tour. As tyranist told you, things go horribly awry, but before they do, it's all pretty darn great.
Sadly, the fun left the building long before the credits rolled. I wish that the second half had entertained me like the first half did, but the film became one of those bleak, grainy, realistically-shot, hopeless Seventies deathfests that neither tyranist nor I are even remotely fond of. Too bad, because I found the characters pretty likeable, and indeed, the entire film, almost from the get-go.

Total Skulls: 16

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?