Fun for all the right reasons, Rob Zombie's House Of A Thousand Corpses vests itself in neither drenched earnestness nor hip ironic overkill, trying to fashion instead a good old fashioned homage to '70s splatter. In making a film of neither portent nor meaning Zombie clears away cobwebs that have accumulated on recent horror films.


Zombie's story is so simple it's been told over and over for the past thirty years or more. A group of college kids find themselves stranded and lost in a small town. One of the characters is writing a book on strange small town roadside attractions and local horror legends. The two neatly dovetail at a gas station where the attendant runs an attraction called the Murder Ride, a combo coal car ride and display with the manager emceeing over a wax gallery of local famous murderers, including Dr. Satan. Later the kids get stranded (why but of course) after picking up a comely hitchhiker.


Zombie apparently hasn't encountered a horror film he doesn't like, and honestly I've encountered very few myself that weren't fun on some level or didn't have something to offer if even something never intended. Every frame, virtually every shot every angle, every bare space is cluttered and jumbled with some piece of gore, something that will make you think of a touchstone horror film. And about every thirty seconds 8mm video will cut in depicting -- you guessed it -- scenes of more grisle. To be honest, these cut ins serve well to orient the viewer in a way I've never seen done. And House of 1000 Corpses comes by its busy-ness via infectious enthusiasm.

Rob Zombie can add "promising director" to his resume, which is undoubtedly hand-painted with buckets of sheeps blood on the walls of his living room. When he finally finds a focus to this messy li'l thing Zombie's hand is as sure and uncompromising as Carpenter's. Zombie clearly can copy the masters and once in a while he shows real vision. He sticks with sure material, a sturdy premise (lost travellers stranded on a highway), and actors and actresses who play right merrily over the top right along with him.

I give it three. Beavis and Butthead would give it four.

If you like this check out all the Hammer studio films, "Jeepers Creepers", of course the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all the Vincent Price you can get your hands on, "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (book AND movie), any version of Macbeth (Olivier, Polanski and Welles are all good) and not to mention Evil Dead series For the very aesthetic antithesis to House, check out the 1962 version of The Haunting (not that crapola 1999 version), Carnival of Souls (1966. Be very careful to specify you want the version directed by Herke Harvey)



Recommended: Yes