House Of 1000 Corpses Review

By Paul Anthony

On the eve of Friday the 13th, I had to do a review on an horror film since we are now moving towards Thanksgiving and Christmas, this might be the last one for awhile, who knows. Today I decided to review as the title said House of 1000 Corpses, which is Rob Zombie’s directorial debut and this film would go on to be the first film what would be known as Firefly Film series. There would be two more films The Devil’s Reject and 3 from Hell. This film stars Sheri Moon ( Rob’s real life wife), Bill Mosely and the late Sid Haig. The film was made from a small budget of 7 million but was slammed by credits but still managed to make nearly 17 million and would of course become a cult film. This to me this film introduced me to black comedy horror films. Though Zombie was inspired by films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hills have Eyes (1977), there is no doubt he added his own touch into the horror genre and it would be a shame not to give it it’s own name but that is a topic for another day. This film mixed black comedy for sure but added so much more grit and darker tone to it. Now critics bashed it but was it really that bad?

First the plot like always, the film takes place starting on Halloween eve of 1977, the film starts with a creepy gas station getting robbed but the owner who dresses as a creepy clown and call himself Captain Spaulding ( Sid Haig) instead kills the would be robbers and cleans up with his assistant just in time as four travelers come in for gas though they are exploring roadside attractions. Which the gas station itself is basically a monster house with stories to each monster it has, it even has its own roller coaster ride which the four (Jerry, Bill, Mary, Denise) take the ride and Bill and Jerry gets attach to the idea of Dr Satan and would like to know more which Spaulding gives them directions to but as they get close they pick up an Hitchhiker named Baby (Sheri Moon) she takes them to her family house after their car gets a flat and the group quickly learns this family is not normal the leader of them all has to be Baby’s adoptive brother Otis ( Bill Moseley) one by one they get picked off basically. At the same time we hear about these Missing cheerleaders and the police are on the hunt for whoever kidnapped these girls which we learn the Firefly family as they known by had them this whole time in which they do kill them. Denise manages to escape the night only to be saved by Captain Spaulding but realizes he is with the Firefly family and she passes out and awakes on Dr. Satan table screaming leaving her fate unknown.

The movie was only 90 minutes long, so it moved pretty quickly. We didn’t really have much character development to learn why this family was really all crazy and s0 forth but that may have been the point here. The story was weak at best and the jump scares were far in between. I can see why the profit was low but the great thing it did do was to me introduce a new genre to the horror genre though its under Black Comedy Horror as I said earlier it felt like it different. In the end I am giving it an C for rating. though it did some great things it just needed to be more.