House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Director: Rob Zombie
Starring: Sid Haig, Karen Black, Bill Moseley

Synopsis:
A group of young thrillseekers stumble on a family of murderous sadists in the backwoods of Texas.

Impressions:
I can vaguely remember Rob Zombie making some waves when he made his splash in the moviemaking scene, but I didn't really look into it myself. Though late to the party, when I saw the opportunity to give this a watch, I did. What did I think of it? Well, you wouldn't expect a hillbilly horror gore flick to have auteur touches to it, but there you go. Maybe you'll find Zombie's cinematographical tricks to be clever and maybe you'll think it's pretentious. Either way, it adds a bit of style to what my otherwise be considered little more than a poor man's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A lot of recent horror films make the meat insufferable (I guess so you don't miss them when they get butchered), but here the meat is fairly likable (well, the guys at least; the chicks on the other hand were rather irritable leading up to their predicament). I liked Sid Haig as Captain Spaulding and Sheri Moon embodies the concept of "cute but cacophonic" as backwoods clan member Baby. The effects are decent and there's actually some creative visual design for the final sequence. If you like gory horror flicks, you might like this, but if you want genuine suspense, you're going to be disappointed. The vulgarity is likely to offend folks, but I don't think people with delicate sensibilities are going to watch a movie called House of 1000 Corpses anyway. Weigh your options and make your choice.

Rating:
50/50