House of 1000 Corpses
At some point – it is futile to pretend to certainty in such matters – Rob Zombie had a vision. Whatever that vision was, it eventually made its way into reality as House of 1000 Corpses. You can tell immediately what to expect from the title alone. We’re already in grammatical dumb-fuck land because the indefinite article is not included in “1000”; therefore, phonetically, the title should not, if one wants to be a stickler, be said as “House of a Thousand Corpses”, but instead “House of Thousand Corpses”, which sounds like a goddamned salad dressing.
How has it fared all these years?
Not well.
Of course, Sid Haig is always entertaining, expect by this point any of us who liked H100C – if I’m allowed to initialize – have since seen him in better things and yearn for Bone Tomahawk when we see him as a killer clown who more resembles the clown Carl from Aqua Teen than turned into than seems comfortable dwelling on. Rain Wilson is decent, although the movie doesn’t give him much time to be decent before it turns him into a Merman. Chris Hardwick is his usual manic self; which is to be expected, but here he’s far beyond as hopped-up as ever he was over Walking Dead. Karen Black is clearly enjoying herself, probably simply happy to be in a horror movie. It even has Walter Goggins, although he has about five lines and a humiliating, stupid death.
But everyone’s favorite – typically – is Sheri Moon, and I’m going to go ahead and rain some shit on that parade. Yeah, she’s attractive. Quit so. But she’s also very, VERY irritating. She would ruin the movie utterly if it weren’t for the presence of my favorite scream queen, who remains the unsung hero of this movie and no one even knows her name.
Who, you might ask? None other than the sexy sexy sexy Jennifer Jostyn. She gives a great performance in this movie, but is perversely overshadowed in memory by Moon and Bill Mosely. Jostyn’s performance is too good for this movie. She’s constantly pissed and bitching and I just love every minute of her on screen.
It’s hard to review this movie because I’ve already reviewed it, or -- to be plain – the thousand movies of which it is a shameless composite. It’s well-shot and colorful, but the style doesn’t match the atmosphere --- well, what atmosphere? – and the characters with exceptions of Haig and Jostyn seem mechanical in their two-dimensions.
The story is simple. A group of college kids go about sight-seeing and run into Captain Spaulding, a roadside-attraction host who gobbles up the scenery to the extent that you wonder what exhibits he’ll have left to show when and if he ever calms down. He has a fetish for fried chicken that makes you wonder if Zombie is making some really really sick rock-star pun only infinite money and drugs and groupies can allow you to imagine. He kills two robbers in the beginning with some decent one-liners, but not funny enough one-liners however to justify spoiling the ending by revealing that he’s evil way ahead of time. He doesn’t even pretend not to be evil, ever. So when he picks up the surviving girl at the end, we know he’s a fucker and ain’t surprised – as the movie thinks we should be – when Mosely pops up in the backseat of his car.
Oh.
Shock.
The kids wind up at Moon’s house, not without a considerable degree of commitment on your part to get there, given Moon, and especially given how exponentially worse you just know in your heart she’s gonna be when she’s home. And on that, my lovelies, she does not disappoint. She dresses up like -- something – and has a musical number that will shrivel your soul and spit it out. The only redeeming part of that sequence is when she has a WAP over Rain Wilson and Jostyn ain’t having it. “Get the fuck off him, BITCH!” Jostyn has a talent for delivering even Zombie’s curdled dialogue with believable finesse. She says what I’ve been wanting to say to Moon since she go-go danced her ass on set, and my is it satisfying when she does.
The variety show, as weird and left-field and stupid but not half the WTF it wants to be – however – affords Grandpa a chance to shine with stand-up. Grandpa isn’t great, but his vulgarity and constant reference to “pussy” are at least a little distracting from Karen Black’s senile shame and Bill Mosely.
Speaking of.
I don’t know what philosophical ass-hat Zombie tries to make Mosely into, but he sucks so bad in this movie that you almost want to finish the trilogy this movie started just to see him die. He spends most of his time rambling incoherently and murdering cheerleaders. That reminds me. The only thing Moon does in this movie worth watching is scalp Chris Hardwick.
The deaths aren’t gory, and for a movie directed by a post-Goth industrial-metal rock-star, is surprisingly, shockingly even, lacking in nudity – which isn’t, after a moment’s thought, all that shocking after all. I’m not surprised that Jostyn and Erin Daniels said fuck no to that. Karen Black though – well, that was probably a “No” from Zombie himself.
Moon, and Moon only, gives brief glimpses of nudity, while making out with plastic skeletons. I don’t think I’ll ever watch this movie again. For real y’all.
Is it a good movie?
No.
I give it one star. I gave it two originally for style, then subtracted five for Moon’s grating “performance”, than added six for Jostyn’s.
That leaves everything tight and right.
At some point – it is futile to pretend to certainty in such matters – Rob Zombie had a vision. Whatever that vision was, it eventually made its way into reality as House of 1000 Corpses. You can tell immediately what to expect from the title alone. We’re already in grammatical dumb-fuck land because the indefinite article is not included in “1000”; therefore, phonetically, the title should not, if one wants to be a stickler, be said as “House of a Thousand Corpses”, but instead “House of Thousand Corpses”, which sounds like a goddamned salad dressing.
How has it fared all these years?
Not well.
Of course, Sid Haig is always entertaining, expect by this point any of us who liked H100C – if I’m allowed to initialize – have since seen him in better things and yearn for Bone Tomahawk when we see him as a killer clown who more resembles the clown Carl from Aqua Teen than turned into than seems comfortable dwelling on. Rain Wilson is decent, although the movie doesn’t give him much time to be decent before it turns him into a Merman. Chris Hardwick is his usual manic self; which is to be expected, but here he’s far beyond as hopped-up as ever he was over Walking Dead. Karen Black is clearly enjoying herself, probably simply happy to be in a horror movie. It even has Walter Goggins, although he has about five lines and a humiliating, stupid death.
But everyone’s favorite – typically – is Sheri Moon, and I’m going to go ahead and rain some shit on that parade. Yeah, she’s attractive. Quit so. But she’s also very, VERY irritating. She would ruin the movie utterly if it weren’t for the presence of my favorite scream queen, who remains the unsung hero of this movie and no one even knows her name.
Who, you might ask? None other than the sexy sexy sexy Jennifer Jostyn. She gives a great performance in this movie, but is perversely overshadowed in memory by Moon and Bill Mosely. Jostyn’s performance is too good for this movie. She’s constantly pissed and bitching and I just love every minute of her on screen.
It’s hard to review this movie because I’ve already reviewed it, or -- to be plain – the thousand movies of which it is a shameless composite. It’s well-shot and colorful, but the style doesn’t match the atmosphere --- well, what atmosphere? – and the characters with exceptions of Haig and Jostyn seem mechanical in their two-dimensions.
The story is simple. A group of college kids go about sight-seeing and run into Captain Spaulding, a roadside-attraction host who gobbles up the scenery to the extent that you wonder what exhibits he’ll have left to show when and if he ever calms down. He has a fetish for fried chicken that makes you wonder if Zombie is making some really really sick rock-star pun only infinite money and drugs and groupies can allow you to imagine. He kills two robbers in the beginning with some decent one-liners, but not funny enough one-liners however to justify spoiling the ending by revealing that he’s evil way ahead of time. He doesn’t even pretend not to be evil, ever. So when he picks up the surviving girl at the end, we know he’s a fucker and ain’t surprised – as the movie thinks we should be – when Mosely pops up in the backseat of his car.
Oh.
Shock.
The kids wind up at Moon’s house, not without a considerable degree of commitment on your part to get there, given Moon, and especially given how exponentially worse you just know in your heart she’s gonna be when she’s home. And on that, my lovelies, she does not disappoint. She dresses up like -- something – and has a musical number that will shrivel your soul and spit it out. The only redeeming part of that sequence is when she has a WAP over Rain Wilson and Jostyn ain’t having it. “Get the fuck off him, BITCH!” Jostyn has a talent for delivering even Zombie’s curdled dialogue with believable finesse. She says what I’ve been wanting to say to Moon since she go-go danced her ass on set, and my is it satisfying when she does.
The variety show, as weird and left-field and stupid but not half the WTF it wants to be – however – affords Grandpa a chance to shine with stand-up. Grandpa isn’t great, but his vulgarity and constant reference to “pussy” are at least a little distracting from Karen Black’s senile shame and Bill Mosely.
Speaking of.
I don’t know what philosophical ass-hat Zombie tries to make Mosely into, but he sucks so bad in this movie that you almost want to finish the trilogy this movie started just to see him die. He spends most of his time rambling incoherently and murdering cheerleaders. That reminds me. The only thing Moon does in this movie worth watching is scalp Chris Hardwick.
The deaths aren’t gory, and for a movie directed by a post-Goth industrial-metal rock-star, is surprisingly, shockingly even, lacking in nudity – which isn’t, after a moment’s thought, all that shocking after all. I’m not surprised that Jostyn and Erin Daniels said fuck no to that. Karen Black though – well, that was probably a “No” from Zombie himself.
Moon, and Moon only, gives brief glimpses of nudity, while making out with plastic skeletons. I don’t think I’ll ever watch this movie again. For real y’all.
Is it a good movie?
No.
I give it one star. I gave it two originally for style, then subtracted five for Moon’s grating “performance”, than added six for Jostyn’s.
That leaves everything tight and right.