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 Art tips and techniques, reviews and interviews from my studio. Archived here and at World Famous Comics. Comics 101 for 10/02/2003 Movie Review - House of 1000 Corpses Hey, everybody! For all of this month and just in time for my favorite holiday, Halloween, Comics 101 will be featuring articles of the more macabre variety as we focus on the theme of 'horror' (one of my favorite genres of comics and film). So here each week in October, sink your plastic fangs into a horror flavored Comics 101 feature!This week I want to discuss one of my favorite horror films from earlier this year which has recently arrived on DVD. A sick, twisted, surreal and often disturbing (and as far as I'm concerned it could have pushed the envelope even farther) piece of cinema from musician/director Rob Zombie entitled 'House of 1000 Corpses'. 
I think 'House of 1000 Corpses' is most likely an even more enjoyable film if you happen to be a hardcore horror film enthusiast/devotee/buff etc. It's not necessarily a great film, but it ain't bad either. I really enjoyed it for some of it's raucous attitude and over the top characters. The opening scene at the gas station/fried chicken stand with Sid Haig as the hilariously repulsive Captain Spaulding (who I had the fortunate opportunity to meet and talk to at Wizard World Chicago) is worth the price of admission. He pretty much makes and steals the movie for me and I wish he would have been even more central to the plot. He was such a great character. See this movie alone for his performance.Zombie's film definitely contains some gore and violent imagery, but it's painfully obvious when there's an abrupt cut in the intensity in this MPAA approved and edited version. The sordid histoy (and subsequent impending hype) of this often delayed film resulted from it being previously dropped by two studios (Universal and MGM). It was most likely doomed to obscurity until Lions Gate Films gave it a limited theatrical release, but only under the provision of an R rating as opposed to it's original NC-17 cut. The end result feels obviously like it's holding back and it's never quite as effective as it should be. Though this movie is not always necessarily scary, it's initially meant to be unsettling and disturbing and I feel is decently successful in that regard for the most part. It's a throwback to the classic and sometimes misunderstood (and sometimes misguided) cult horror films of the 70's, paying homage to flicks like Tobe Hooper's 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' or Wes Craven's 'The Hills Have Eyes' to name a few. In this regard it struggles and wavers a fine line of becoming a successful homage and simultaneously a modern original cult classic for this genre, falling somewhere inbetween. It lacks a crucial sense of dread that movies like Texas Chainsaw oozed in spades but it holds your attention as it borrows from lots of good, classic horror as if it was a bastard child-hybrid of these films. It's also a refreshing take for the genre these days as not just another teen slasher formula film in this politically correct post-Scream era of more polite fright features. At times it's bizarrely beautiful and indeed very twisted, very fun to look at like the climax of the film for example (though admittedly that's where it also lost me becoming way too bizarre and abit too sci-fi for a gritty, quasi-realistic horror story, edited or not). It's an experimental horror film, very 'artsy' and surreal with it's vivid colors, photo-negative imagery and unconventional editing but I also think that's what makes it unique and watchable too. This brings to mind the artistic sensibilities of Italian horror like Argento's 'Suspiria' for example which I'm sure was an influence for Zombie also. It's not so much the amalgamation of previous horror works that impedes the effect of the film or even the way over the top ending. I really think it's the final edit of the film, the pulling of the punches that impairs the overall experience. A movie like this needs to rely on more gore or scenes with shock value and it feels like it might have been present in the previous cut. I'm sure it could have also used more suspense as well and better pacing too. Even with what it presented though it still made me feel unsettled and disturbed and I enjoyed that. There was originally talk that there would be a director's cut or NC-17 version release on DVD but I haven't seen anything listed or mentioned about it anywhere in awhile. I know it is available as a bootleg since I caught abit of it playing last March at Motor City Con. It's definitley not a bad first film for writer/director Rob Zombie. I've been a big fan of his since his 'White Zombie' days so I may come off more biased than most since I subscribe to his views and tastes on horror. But I can honestly say I definitely enjoyed it from a devout horror fan's perspective as well. See you next week for another horrific Comics 101 feature! -Joe Recent Columns:
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