House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
Directed by Rob Zombie
Two teenage couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of serial killers end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.
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19 films that influenced House of 1000 Corpses
What critics say influenced House of 1000 Corpses
Spaulding, the name a nod to that of Groucho Marx in "Animal Crackers," is played by big, beak-profiled Sid Haig, whose manic, gonzo presence enlivened many a cheap drive-in flick.
Mr. Z. may love the old movies, but he's mostly remonkeyed some hybrid of a trio of Tobe Hooper movies (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) with weird echoes of Dan Aykroyd's misbegotten sole directing effort, Nothing But Trouble.
Mr. Z. may love the old movies, but he's mostly remonkeyed some hybrid of a trio of Tobe Hooper movies (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) with weird echoes of Dan Aykroyd's misbegotten sole directing effort, Nothing But Trouble.
Mr. Z. may love the old movies, but he's mostly remonkeyed some hybrid of a trio of Tobe Hooper movies (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) with weird echoes of Dan Aykroyd's misbegotten sole directing effort, Nothing But Trouble.
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I know him primarily as a horror-movie fan who, I'm told, reads some of the genre magazines I've written for, which makes it not surprising to find assorted clips from The Old Dark House and The Wolf Man and House of Frankenstein in his movie.
Zombie seems to know his horror films -- particularly "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the Universal classics of the 1940s and 1950s, such as "The Wolf Man" and "Creature From the Black Lagoon" -- but he certainly didn't have a clue how to make one.
I know him primarily as a horror-movie fan who, I'm told, reads some of the genre magazines I've written for, which makes it not surprising to find assorted clips from The Old Dark House and The Wolf Man and House of Frankenstein in his movie.
How can someone who grew up on late-night horror double-features not be drawn to a movie that starts with a snowy image on a TV screen of Boris Karloff in James Whale's The Old Dark House intercut with a cheesy horror-show host called Dr. Wolfenstein (Gregg Gibbs)?
House of 1000 Corpses is a bizarre horror flick by director Rob Zombie that owes a debt to the work of cult director Herschell Gordon Lewis, (the self-styled ‘Wizard of Gore’), particularly the films Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs.
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At this point the two couples are waylaid by car trouble in the sticks a la "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," where they wind up at the door of a dilapidated house where they are greeted by Karen Black in a blond wig and a hooker get-up.
His thorough understanding of the genre ensures that fright fans will be kept on their toes by plenty of knowing allusions to other horror films, but the two principal points of reference here are the oddball camp of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the claustrophobic terror of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre .
Truth be told, it appears that films such as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Last House on the Left" and yes, even "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" had the greatest influence.
More Richard Donner's The Goonies than Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, House of 1000 Corpses is a shoestring series of hyperactive camera movements and disjointed images culled from what seems too many films to count, from Bloodsucking Freaks to Near Dark to Maniac to The Serpent and the Rainbow to Halloween to Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and so on, with no reason except to demonstrate how many horror movies Zombie has seen.
This wretched film is clearly meant to evoke the spirit of '70s shock flicks like Last House on the Left and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but Zombie doesn't seem to know a thing about ambience or tension; he revels in excess.