Gather round, children, for the legend of Dr. Satan. In a place called Hollywood, a man who stole his name said that he had a ghost story to tell, and a studio (Universal) said they wanted him to tell his story, and that they would pay him to do so. When he told them the story, they said that they didn’t like it, and that they would not, as is the folk tradition, pass the story on to others, and Rob Zombie had to buy the rights to the movie back so he could shop it around to other distributors. MGM said they wanted it, until Zombie told Ben Affleck on the set of Daredevil that MGM would release it since they apparently had no morals, ostensibly in jest; the story was overheard (the film crew, there to shoot Zombie interviewing the cast for an MTV special, must have been eavesdropping), related on the MTV website and then in Variety, and MGM canned the project; Zombie was approached by Lion’s Gate, who finally released it.

The prevailing wisdom on why Universal, at least, refused to release House of 1000 Corpses is that it was overly gory and shocking, but viewing reveals that it’s not noticeably more gory than Ghost Ship, and there’s nothing shocking about it unless the viewer was expecting a Pixar film. Alternate explanations, then: Rob Zombie is a pretentious, self-indulgent guy who refused to make even the slightest alteration to his flick, or b) it really stinks and the studio didn’t want it. A combination of possibilities is that Zombie was under contract to release an R-rated film and Universal didn’t think it could be released as an R, which combines the gore/shock idea and the indulgence.

Zombie’s generally accepted and oft-boasted motivation was to revive 1970s shock horror, which is all well and good, but which in practice means of course Texas Chainsaw Massacre, of which 1000 Corpses is a loose remake, without character or surprise, and with doses of some really phony evil stuff which is neither particularly human-themed enough to be disturbing or realistic nor otherworldly enough to be creative. It’s placeholder evil, MacGuffin evil meriting just the briefest explanation before that explanation - and any possible sense - is scrapped, leaving its arrival so completely nonsensical that it’s unclear why it’s there at all, feeling like nothing so much as the fourth act of a one-act play.

As far as evoking the feel of the 70s, other than its shameless Chainsaw jocking, 1000 Corpses has going for it a sparse couple of straight sunlit shots, some lighting-processing-filter combination that recalls the questionable filmstock of much shock cinema without duplicating it, and used to effect it could have been enjoyable, even insightful in its reference, a formal updating of the lapsed years that does in a couple of shots what Zombie aimed for (and missed) in script, gore effects, and style.

Rob Zombie, for his part, cobbles the thing together in a way that makes it look like he’s still working on the More Human Than Human video he was working on in 1993 or so. In fact, the whole movie is an amalgam of Zombie throwing in bits of his own projects for the last ten years or so. He’s using the same music-video filters and camera tricks from White Zombie videos (not, probably, based on any horror music videos from the 70s, and lacking even the dated-effects charm of old Alice Cooper presentations). He adds, obtrusively, from his obsessions with Bela Lugosi movies, carny-kitsch, and the much more successful melding of the two found in Elvira and Ghoulardi. We get it, you like...

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Topics: horror, movies

Elvis and JFK battle a cowboy mummy in an old folks home - the premise alone should earn this movie good marks. Bruce Campbell stars in the role of Elvis. Things are sounding even better! Ultimately, however, despite the tremendous potential of this brilliant chemistry I left the theatre feeling that the film, ultimately, was just pretty good, and not as great as it could have been.

At parts the first two thirds of the movie seem to plod along in exposition, and the plot is utterly straight forward and lacking in the kinds of twists, turns, and plot development that should carry a movie through it's middle, leaving it with the feel of a movie that has a beginning, an end, and nothing in between. At the same time, plot does not seem to be one of the goals of this movie. Rather, it seems intentionally more just a hastily constructed platform to create a truly bizarre scenario and some very funny Bruce Campbell moments (although none quite as good as the best in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness).

As a result, members of the Cult of All That is Bruce Campbell will still thoroughly enjoy this film simply for the fact that it combines Bruce Campbell's trademark one-liner deliveries with a portrayal of geriatric Elvis. Other performances in the movie were well done, but hopelessly overshadowed by Bruce Campbell's inconquerable presence. If you are not a fan of Bruce Campbell, however, the movie has the potential of becoming a bit laborious at times.

Rating: C+

Topics: movies