House of 1000 Corpses
Tags: comedy, murder, cult, violence, flashback, insanity, psychedelic, sadist, home movie

Plot synopsis:
After an opening black-and-white segment of a TV horror host named Dr. Wolfenstein introducing a Halloween movie marathon, there is a TV commercial advertisement where a old redneck clown named Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) introducing his tourist attraction, titled 'Captain Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen' which is a place featuring serial killer attractions and fried chicken, as well as decorated with oddities and collectables.At Captain Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen, it is a run-down gas station out in the middle of nowhere, near the small Texas town of Ruggsville. The date is October 30, 1977. The local sheriff is filling up his car while feeding his pet dog some fried chicken wings. Inside, Captain Spaulding is having a conversation with an old decrepit local man named Stucky (Michael J. Pollard) over a topless autographed photo of June Wilkinson and about the local simpleton who works down the road. When Stucky goes to the nearby restroom, two masked thugs break into the gas station/museum, who for some reason thought it was a good idea to rob a store obviously run by psychopaths. As the two men hold Stucky and Spaulding at gunpoint, the tough-talking lead thug, named Killer Karl, demands that Spaulding hand over the cash register, while the other thug, whom is clearly mentally retarded, holds Stucky back. Spaulding refuses to open the cash register, and with a gun pointed at his face, defiantly says things like "fuck yo Mama!" "fuck you sister!" to Killer Karl. Stucky seems to recognize the second robber as Richard Wick, the local simpleton who works down at the local hardware store. Suddenly, a third man comes crashing through the front door, dressed in overalls and wearing a gigantic clown helmet. He is clutching a mallet which he puts to good use by literally beating Killer Karl down, while Richard Wick panics and shoots off his gun, hitting Stucky, but missing Captain Spaulding who pulls out a gun of his own and shoots Richard in the head, killing him. Seeing that Killer Karl is still alive sprawled out on the floor, Spaulding walks up to him, points his gun at his face and says, "but most of all, fuck YOU!", and then fires, killing Karl.After the opening credits, we then see a group of four kids, Denise (Erin Daniels), Mary (Jennifer Jostyn), Bill (Rainn Wilson), and Jerry (Chris Hardwick), whom are driving down backwoods Texas roads while the radio reports that a group of cheerleaders have gone missing in the area. They go to the gas and fried chicken shop where Spaulding still resides, they arrive just as Spaulding is moping up a huge bloodstain on the floor. Despite being a twisted murderer, he happily takes the four on a tour through a serial killer themed ride in his museum (featuring Ed Gein and the like). The man with the mallet from the opening massacre is operating the cart on the ride. He is Spaulding's assistant Ravelini (Irwin Keyes), he's deformed and very freaky.After the ride, Jerry inquires about a local serial killer named Dr. Satan who was hanged and vanished, never to be seen again. Spaulding clearly becomes uncomfortable talking about Dr. Satan, but after being pestered, decides to give them the address of the tree where Satan was hung.As the four teens continue their journey, it begins to rain. Soon, the four of them pick up a female hitchhiker. The hitchhiker is a beautiful young woman who introduces herself as Baby (Sherri Moon). Despite her beauty, Baby is acts strangely and things get stranger when the car suddenly gets a flat tire (the tire was pierced by a shotgun blast by a mysterious man crouched by the side of the road). Eventually a tow truck arrives, driven by the shooter Rufus, whom is Baby's older brother. He tows their truck to his house, a large creepy home with scarecrows and mangled baby dolls. While Rufus works on the car, the four teens are introduced to another member of the clan, Mother Firefly (Karen Black), an ugly woman with rotten teeth who is the mother of the household.The four are coerced into having dinner with the bunch and are introduced to the hideously deformed seven-foot tall Tiny (Matthew McGrory) (who wears a mask because Mother Firefly claims that he was burned in a terrible fire started by her former husband Earl). Also introducing himself is the surly, foul-mouthed Grandpa Hugo (Dennis Fimple).While the uncomfortable dinner takes place, in an upstairs bedroom, a family member named Otis (Bill Moseley) is ranting at and torturing the five missing cheerleaders from the radio transmission. He then goes downstairs and joins the family dinner where he talks with the four creeped-out teens about the legend of Dr. Satan, and of their curiosity about the case.The family puts on a painfully strange Halloween show for the group, starting with Grandpa Hugo giving a foul-mouthed comedy routine, which only Jerry finds funny. Baby comes out on the stage lip-synching to a 1940s pop song. The show ends badly when Mary starts a fight with Baby when she starts flirting with Bill. Baby then comes after Mary with a pocket knife while Mother Firefly is barely able to hold her back.Fortunately, Rufus arrives and announces that he has fixed their car and the four teenagers immediately drive out of harm's way. While Bill drives the car away, two of the scarecrows surrounding the driveway come alive (it's actually Otis and Tiny) and they begin beating Bill and Jerry and smashing up the car. All four are taken hostage again.The four teens are held captive in various rooms in the house and the family subjects them to unspeakable acts of mental and physical torture. Bill is the first to die when he is completely mutilated beyond recognition by Otis, who refers to his corpse as "Fishboy". Jerry has the skin on his head peeled open by Baby who taunts the stoned-out guy over her interests in music. In the basement of the house, the captive Denise coerces Tiny into setting her free, but she is recaptured by Otis and thrown into a cage with other captives who attack her.Meanwhile, Denise's father, Don (Harrison Young), becomes worried about his daughter when she doesn't phone the next morning. He drives out to the small town where Denise phoned from the previous night and enlists the help of two local state troopers, Wydell (Tom Towles) and Naish (Walton Goggins), and the three of them head to where the kids were last seen. The trio arrive at Spaulding's museum to question him about Denise and her friends. After putting up with Spaulding's antics and one-liners for a few moments, he tells the two policemen where he sent the kids.On their way the three of them find Denise's car, with the dead body of one of the murdered cheerleaders in the trunk. After having the local sheriff tow away the car to the crime lab, Wydell, Naish, and Don arrive at the Firefly house to question the owners to the whereabouts of the missing kids. While Wydell goes inside the front door and talks to Mother Firefly about his search for Denise and her three friends, Naish and Don sneak around out back to look for any foul play. They come upon a locked tool shed. Naish breaks down the door, and finds a horrific sight: the tortured, but still living Mary, is tied to the ceiling and she writhes around in terror. Surrounding her are all the dead and mangled bodies of the missing cheerleaders. Over the song "I Remember You" by Slim Whitman, both Naish and Don flip out and go into shock, generally losing their sanity from this horrible sight. Inside the house, Wydell hears the screams from his men and rises out of his chair, but Mother Firefly suddenly pulls out a gun and shoots Wydell through the neck, killing him. Then Otis walks into the backyard with a gun blazing away, hitting Don in the back as he attempts to run, who then falls dead into a muddy pool of water. The terrified Naish drops his gun and holds his hands up high, while Otis walks up to him and points his .45 caliber gun to his forehead. Suddenly, the movie goes silent and holds on the two men for for a long moment until Otis finally fires, killing Naish instantly.The Firefly family decides to hold a massive ritual. Otis skins Don and wears his flesh like a full body cast. Rufus drives around wildly in Wydell's police car after getting drunk. Baby goes out and buys liquor from a man named G. Oober who runs the local liquor store. Otis dresses up in full satanic clothing, as do the rest, and they dress up Jerry, Mary, and Denise in bunny costumes.After arriving at a remote clearing Mary escapes and runs, but Baby chases her down and brutally stabs her to death in a graveyard where the family has buried hundreds of victims over their years of killing. Denise and Jerry are put in a coffin, alive, and lowered into an underground well-like cavern. Suddenly the coffin is opened and demonic like figures leap out of the water, grabbing Jerry and pulling him away. More underground freaks come out and rip Denise's bunny suit off. Denise wanders around underground until she comes upon a room. Inside is a bunch of surgery patients, and Dr. Satan is finally revealed as a pus-vomiting demon cyborg. Dr. Satan is currently operating on Jerry's exposed brain which seems to finally kill him.Just then, Dr. Satan's assistant, the Professor, whom is Mother Firefly's ex-husband, appears as a towering demonic cyborg, and attacks Denise with a huge axe. The Professor chases Denise down the underground passageways, until he swings his axe, and accidentally hits a cave support and part of the tunnel caves in, crushing the Professor.At dawn, Denise manages to dig to the surface and wanders to a road, where Captain Spaulding is driving by in his red coverall. He picks her up and as the two drive away, Otis suddenly sits up in the backseat with a knife.The final scene shows Denise back in Dr. Satan's underground laboratory, being tortured by the demon. Denise screams, but there is no escape.THE END....?

Review: Fans of both the horror genre and Rob Zombie are likely to love it.
Those familiar with Rob Zombie are likely to be the only ones who completely 'get' this clever little film - appreciating its depraved sense of humor and nihilism.
It is a film for true horror fans, the kind that stay up and watch Dawn of the Dead and The Beyond, who know who Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento and George Romero are.
The film borrows largely from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House on the Left, with his own little bits of original demential thrown in and an assortment of other horror film references.
The film uses all sorts of camera tricks--negative colouring, split-screens and seemingly random inserts of grainy snuff-like footage of various S&M and gore images; the off-the-wall effect is similar to what Oliver Stone did in Natural Born Killers.
The reviewers who wrote the film off as overly-sadistic with little in the ways of character development, plot or suspence have come to see a different kind of film, perhaps more at home with titles like The Sixth Sense or Silence of the Lambs.
The have no busineness debasing a great film like this.Rob Zombie has created a film that is both a homage and derivative at the same time; most things in the film have been done before, in one shape or another, and the level of gore is a fraction of what was intended, due to its shameful R-rating.
If you arent sitting the theater going "hey, theres Bill Mosely from TCM 2!" or "hey, that shot is a homage to the cover of Evil Dead!" or "hey, he wears peoples skin like Leatherface!" then you probably arent meant to be seeing this film.
Several factors (like the praising reviews on "The Devil's Rejects"-sequel and conversations with fellow horror fans) nearly forced me to re-watch "House of a 1.000 Corpses" and I'm glad I did.
Rob Zombie's style is often innovating and so overwhelming that it might look overly hectic at first but, in reality, his dedication towards obscurity and his knowledge on classic cinema is one of the best things that could ever happen to the horror genre.
Although he borrowed a little from "Natural Born Killers," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and "Last House on the Left," what great horror film doesn't nowadays?
All Rob Zombie fans, metal music fans, horror fans, or people who want to see a hardcore horror film should go out and see this movie!!
Absolutely.Writer/director Rob Zombie's music has always had a kind of comic book/horror movie sensibility which he translates into his screen project, a tribute to the pioneering take-no-prisoners classics of the 1970's like "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," in fact a prominent role is played by Bill Moseley of "TCM II."  We're informed at the outset that it's Halloween Eve 1977 in some one-horse town in an unspecified region of the country (which of course allows each actor to use any accent he or she likes, even within the same household).
The chief attraction of this town seems to be a "horror museum" run by a Captain Spaulding (who bears no resemblance to Groucho Marx) played by veteran B-movie stalwart Sid Haig, whom I recall from way the hell back in "Busting" as the big menacing bald guy.
Apparently people have been going missing in this town but back in the Seventies the term "serial killer" was waiting to be invented, so no squads of Feds and profilers have arrived.)   For movies like this to work, the actors have to be on the same page in tone; aside from Haig and Moseley I barely knew anyone except Walt Goggins from TV's "The Shield" and of course Karen Black, whose performance is the only one that doesn't quite click.
(I'm old-fashioned, I still think the best way to scare you with something in a movie is just train the camera on it so you can see it coming at you with no way to escape.)  But Mr. Zombie has a nice feel for where to put the camera and how to move a scene along.
Some of his sequences have a kind of sinister poetry to them, like when the two deputies go checking out the homestead from hell, the kind of setup we've seen in how many shlock items (I just saw one in a recent victim of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew) but in this case Zombie replaces all sound with a Slim Whitman tune (we recall how Whitman's voice was enough to slay big-brained Martians a while back) and holds the final crane shot an audaciously long time.
People were understandably a little sceptical of Rob Zombie's debut as a director, but knowing myself that the man is a scholar of the modern horror movie and a raving fanboy himself, I had high expectations of House.
House of 1000 Corpses is an absolute blast to watch, never wallowing in darkness and only really becoming a terror-ride toward the very end, meaning it's a movie that while not for all the family could well put a smile on at least some of their faces.The movies combination of gore-soaked serial-killer horror, Tim Burtonesque visuals and Evil Dead's sense of humour is a fresh turn from a genre currently stuck largely in bleak apartment buildings full of long-faced pouty heroines and even longer-faced pouty ghouls.
To be honest, I'd almost forgot what it was like to be entertained by horror before I watched this.A lot of people love to dissect this movie and venerate it's influences, but the bottom line is unlike Kill Bill which relied on you being as nerdy as Tarantino to enjoy it, Zombie's movie is fun whether or not you've seen the movies he doffs his threadbare circus hat to.
I've seen some obscure horror films too, like Blood Beach, The Company Of Wolves and even seen The Last House On the left (even though I didn't like it that much).Problem I had with this film was it was too sadistic for its own good (the "bunny" killing scene especially made my blood turn cold), the villains antics grew tiresome, and THAT scene where the gun was held on the guy's head was JUST TOO LONG.
I could see that Rob Zombie has an obvious fondness for the horror movie and he set out to create a familiar story with his own sadistic and creative additions.
However, the victims were kind of ho hum.The production design of the film looked impressive too, with a lot of visual points of references to horror clichés.Main problem was that I didn't really enjoy watching it, and I grew bored with it in its latter stages.
This cinematic insult makes "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like "Citizen Kane".I have the feeling that Mr.Zombie went on a "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Top Secret" bender and came up with this pile of fecal matter.
I understand Rob's fascination with gore,blood and the like,as I have seen him perform live with his band,and they were quite good,but for the love of God,Rob,stop making movies.
House of 1000 Corpses is a throwback to old school horror movies such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but succeeds much more.
Zombie's directing debut is wonderful, and had some uniqe and unusual touches to make the film that much more bizarre and spooky, such as the split screen effect, I mean I haven't seen that used since the movie Carrie!
Practically plotless, Zombie borrowed too many ideas from Texas Chainsaw massacre when scripting this musterpiece (meaning is that all he could come up with,) and lingered far too long on pointless camera shots in an attempt to capture an artistic sense of suspense(?
I have all but convinced myself that Rob Zombie just wanted to have a character in his movie named Dr. Satan because it was "cool" and kids would "dig" it.
Neither is it scary, creepy, or really entertaining.With a plot pulled from Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-visioned so that it can star Rob Zombie's wife, this film was a disappointment at first and then became comically bad as it progressed.
It's like remember those lame haunted house rides you used to go on as a kid where you would pay tickets and sit in a car and it would go around in the dark while lights and buzzers went off and maybe like a coffin would pop open or a door would shut really loud behind you or something...now imagine watching 90 minutes of that.Then throw in a girl giggling at the top of her lungs in the most annoying way possible EVERY 2 SECONDS FOR NO REASON, well, no reason other than maybe waking you from the coma/sleeping marathon the movie will undoubtably put you in, and you'll grasp how painfully annoying and awful this film is.
Watch one of the Iraqi hostages being slowly beheaded and then come back and tell me that graphic violence is cool.Rob Zombie has put himself under the illusion that because he writes music about dark subjects this somehow qualifies him become a film director.Utter dross..
Rob Zombie directed and wrote the film and he apparently watched a lot of old horror films.
House of 1000 Corpses also gets really ridiculous at times and the film seems like it wants to achieve cult status, which it probably will.
House of 1000 Corpses somehow manages even to mess up when it comes to plot structure, something even the lowest of horror movies can usually pull off.It does have a few redeeming elements; the carnival sideshow style of horror is an interesting motif for the film, Sid Haig's character is cool and underused unfortunately, and occasionally Zombie manages to unnerve by using quick jumps to snuff like 16mm footage, a technique that would have been better served if the director was able to exercise more restraint, especially in the early film.
I get what he was going for, I've seen the dinner scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (there is that comparison again, but I can't help if the shoe fits), Zombie just doesn't achieve the disquieting creepy effect that film had.
After what is a close approximation of the last teen going through a house of horrors, the films ends on a truly predictably note that once again feels ripped from TCM.Overall this movie just kinda sucks plain and simple.
Perhaps I've seen too much of genre that this 'breath of fresh air to the horror film' just fell flat on its face.I'd sooner watch the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mother's Day, or The Hills Have Eyes..
For the most hardcore and die-hard fans of horror flicks and Rob Zombie fans, it's a treat I suppose, but for someone like I, who has seen many horror films and listened to Zombie's music, it's a little too much (the expectation levels from scene-to-scene are numbingly painful at times).
Scary is the last thing applicable to this film, unless you're still afraid of characters like the good ole Freddy Krueger and his boring and trivial massacre techniques.
"1000 Corpses" fails to produce tension and tingle the nerve like "The Ring" does with its amazing background music and less-than-a-second flashing snapshots.In short, I found this movie a disappointment, an annoyance and a waste of good time.
it is the worst movie i have ever seen, the 2nd worst is Kung Pow, but this takes the cake.i hope that out there somewhere someone reads this and decides not to see it, if that happens then i can die a happy man.....and if i get to kick Rob Zombie in the balls for two hours straight, so that we are even for the two hours he stole from me..
Clearly Rob Zombie is a big fan of Tobe Hooper's classic "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" as this movie is basically one long copy of the house sequence in the far superior classic.
If you like horror films then you will love this movie.
I compare almost all new horror movies to this one, and few come close to the extremity and violence of this film.
You don't have to be a Rob Zombie fan to like this movie, anyone I have ever watched this with has been horrified (to say the least) and that is what most people are looking for when turning to a truly scary movie for entertainment.
I can't give 'House of 1,000 Corpses' enough praises for stepping outside the box of the general horror movie equation, adding both an intense plot and gruesome (not cheesy) effects.
Rob Zombie has created a disgrace to the Horror genre, in an inhuman movie with no deeper elements that killing people in the most painful, and goriest way humanly possible.
Whoever gave Rob Zombie the money to make this ludicrous, poorly written, crummily directed, shot, edited and acted piece of crap should be made to watch it over and over until they are insane.
Look, I think most horror movies made these days suck, especially all the seen-it-all-before post-'I Know What You Did Last Summer' slashers, but 'House Of 1000 Corpses' is NOT the savior of contemporary horror.
All of Rob Zombie's films share this quality in that even the most minor characters have their own backstory and personality so I believe that the building of characters is Rob's strongest trait as a filmmaker.The synopsis sounds like your stereotypical, run-of-the-mill slasher film in which a group of people whose car "breaks down" seek refuge in a house full of serial killers overnight.
It has a certain quality of surrealism to it that makes the film seem like a crazy dream or hallucination at times rather than a simple movie.
It seemed like everyone truly loved playing their characters and truly had fun starring in the film.The movie is extremely violent, gory, and has it's share of foul language and nudity.
It's almost like Rob Zombie thought it would be a really cool idea to make a movie that didn't have anything new to it.
Any 15 year old who REALLY likes horror/slasher movies with a tiny bit of visual talent could have made this film.
If it wasn't directed by Rob Zombie I'd probably give this movie rating 2/10:) If you want a good B horror movie go for Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn or Planet Terror.
Why cant horror films be more original and just scare the pants off people like they used to?
Rob Zombie strings together several music-video style parodies/pastiches of well-known horror movie cliches that offer a few laughs, but he fails on the whole to integrate or invigorate his material.
As a fan of horror and gore, B-movies, and Rob Zombie, I walked in to see this biased that I would like it no matter what.
I was rather excited about seeing this movie, as I had not seen a good new horror film in a long time.
I think the only real change in this movie is that this one doesn't have th4e chainsaw which was the highlight of the original.The thin plot of this movie has four people who are looking for scary things in Texas (irony, i think not) and they come across I creepy gas station that has a haunted tour ride that apparently shows the psychos that had lived in Texas (leatherface was not there) and there is one really creepy one named Dr. Satan.
I probably wouldn't have seen this movie other wise.Bottom Line: Ew, disgusting, gross, puke worth, Rob Zombie why?
Rob Zombie wanted to make a tribute to slasher films of 70s, but he contributed nothing to the horror genre himself.
They end in the hands of a dysfunctional sadistic family of serial killers."House of 1000 Corpses" is another teen horror movie, indeed a rip-off of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and other slash movies.
"House Of 1000 Corpses" is like Rob Zombie's version of that show.
I can't understand who is actually letting Rob Zombie (a rock singer or whatever he is) to direct this piece of crap, because he is even worse horror movie director than famous "Ed Wood".
I can understand why some people might not like it, but if you ask me, that only further proves how great of a horror movie it is.
If you don't like horror movies or are easily offended in any way, don't watch it.
This is not surprising given that Rob Zombie belongs to that breed of "heavy metal horror fan" that equates real-life killers like Charles Manson with fictional movie monsters.
The answer to all these questions would have to be something like "well no, not exactly, but actually kind of, heck f*** me if I know!" The only way I could tag this film would be "Rob Zombie".
Rob Zombie, in a way, is the Tarantino of Horror films, and deserves a genre of his own..
This movie is like watching Rob Zombie masturbate to Texas Chainsaw Massacre for 88 minutes.
It all gave me a headache.However, there are some truly awesome parts that show that Rob Zombie is actually a filmmaker, and not just a creepy person who masturbates to horror movies and films it.
(well, two but there's this really annoying part in one of the scenes where she stops and talks with a guy for about a minute and you don't get to see it until she walks away again, so I"ll say three) It gets even more screen time in Rob Zombie's first film, The Devil's Rejects.
I wanted to see this movie so bad after knowing rob zombie's vast knowledge and love of horror films, but this turned out to be an over done, overly long, bad movie.
Bad throwback to the horror movie of yesteryears lacks the substance and the humor of its forefathers with Rob Zombie's debut as a director.