house of 1000 corpses

Plot

House of 1000 Corpses begins with the tale of four youths: nerdy Bill Hudley, his hyper and wise-cracking friend, Jerry Goldsmith, Bill’s snotty girlfriend, Mary Knowles, and Jerry’s level-headed girlfriend, Denise Willis. On the night before Halloween of 1977, the four of them are driving in the middle of nowhere to Denise’s house in a town called Ruggsville. Running out of gas, the group stops at Captain Spaulding’s Museum of Monsters and Madmen, an unusual establishment that serves as a gas station, museum of oddities, haunted house attraction, and chicken wing fry. Inside, the group (whose male members are enthusiasts of offbeat roadside attractions) meet Captain Spaulding, a foul-mouthed, slobbish, and somewhat psychotic clown. After riding his “famous” murder ride, a cheap dark-ride full of monster props and serial killer exhibits, Jerry becomes infatuated with the local legend of a surgeon known as Doctor Satan for his cruel treatment of mental patients. Obsessed with finding the tree where a mob allegedly lynched the mass murderer, Jerry begs Spaulding for hand-drawn directions and coerces the group to drive out in search of it in an oncoming storm. On the way, the foursome picks up a beautiful, but eccentric hitchhiker who later calls herself Baby. She offers to lend shelter to the four when their tire flattens under mysterious circumstances. Inside the isolated farmhouse, the couples meet Baby’s equally eccentric family consisting of Otis Driftwood, a Charles Manson-esque sadist with a God complex, Mother Firefly, a flirtatious old hag who dresses in burlesque outfits, Rufus, Jr., a hulking brute in bearskin who has a knack for repairing things, Tiny, a silent and deformed freak with a nonviolent nature, and Grandpa Hugo, a crude and dirty old man of banal aesthetic. While the Firefly family tries to entertain the four bewildered guests, it soon becomes apparent to the youths that the family intends to hold them captive for a series of grisly Halloween rituals. While the Ruggsville police and Denise's father begin a vain search attempt, the couples learn more about the legend of Doctor Satan than they would have ever cared to know.

Cast

Themes

Backwoods Horror

House of 1000 Corpses is at heart a tribute to 1970s exploitation horror, particularly backwoods slasher flicks like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. The very basic outline of its plot follows the normal backwoods slasher standard: A person or group of people get lost in a rural area they are unfamiliar with and one by one fall prey to some sort of local murderer, oftentimes a whole clan of them. What separates it from others of the genre is the offbeat, surreal style Rob Zombie uses to convey it. Though most backwoods slasher flicks involve no element of the supernatural, House of 1000 Corpses does utilize some stylistic elements similar to the Evil Dead series to give some of its villains a supernatural vibe.

American Folklore

The point of the film is to relish in the American tradition of tall tales and urban legends. The back story that the movie is set to the legend of Dr. Satan, though completely made up by Rob Zombie, it is in the spirit of childish campfire stories. The main story starts with a skeptical tone to the myth of the mad doctor, but as the plot progresses, the characters find themselves knee deep in Ruggsville folklore until they actually become part of the legend they were seeking.

Roadside America and Trash Culture

House... is also immersed in appreciation for the oddities and seedy aspects of American culture. The adventure begins at a desert bound gas station/tourist trap, and the whole landscape of the film is dotted with curious landmarks. These include strange signs, areas of legend, and sleazy businesses. Bright, jarring images burst out from nearly every corner of the screen. Highly prevalent, are many short montages in between scenes (more on this in stylistic elements section). Often, they showcase "trashy" pieces of pop culture such as horror, exploitation, and porno films. All this serves to highlight the backwards atmosphere and is similar to Natural Born Killers.

Halloween Culture

In addition to the appreciation of oddities, House... also revels in Halloween traditions in America. Being that the movie takes place during the last two nights of October, the scenery is naturally decorated with all sorts of Halloween props. Of the many harsh montage interruptions throughout the film, is the continuing horror movie marathon hosted by Dr. Wolfenstein, an archetypal '70s monster show host. The traditional view of Halloween being a time of mystery serves to accentuate the growing strangeness and eventual horror of the four youths' situation.

Stylistic Elements

Black Humor

While perhaps not a full-fledged black comedy, House of 1,000 Corpses keeps the tone of the movie on a humorous side, even if the jokes tend to be "sick". The early events of the film, especially the outright comedic scenes with the highly memorable Captain Spaulding, may even give the viewer the misinterpretation that this is a horror movie spoof. The events do, however, shift into a tale of nastiness where the humor is through the eyes of sadistic torturers.

Montages

Montages of seemingly random footage frequently interrupt portions of the movie, usually to underscore certain events or to give a quick break from the main action. Some, such as the "home interviews" with the villains were filmed in Rob Zombie's basement after the main production was over. Others, such as the "skunk ape" dream Denise has were originally intended for prominent use in the film, but were later found to be too deviating from the main plot. Still others are obviously clips from an array of horror and exploitation movies, and random homemade footage.

Surrealism

Visuals: While certainly very far from being surrealist film, House of 1000 Corpses has a tone of heightened reality, similar to Natural Born Killers. The random montages are quite similar to many of the visual techniques used in the latter movie as well.

Plot Structure: As mentioned before, the plot follows the basic formula for the backwoods slasher film, but it also has an interesting structure in and of itself. It begins on fairly realistic tone and gradually becomes more and more fanciful until reaching an over-the-top apex in the bizarre climax of the movie. The pacing of the plot fits with the theme of a tall tale, and it is also reminiscent of a Halloween dark ride attraction. The mood begins cheerful and grounded in reality, then shifts to a state of terror as the events become increasingly carnivalesque.

Trivia

• The film was originally given an NC-17 rating, and several minutes of footage had to be cut to earn an R-rating.
• The film spent several years shelved, trying to find distribution after Universal balked at the rough cut, which they feared would get an NC-17. It was reportedly completed in 2000, but was not released in cinemas until 2003.
• The film's opening weekend in the United States was $3,460,666
• Total box office revenues are $16,829,545 worldwide ($4,194,583 of that amount foreign box office), and the final production costs totalled $7 million.^[1]
• The names of the villains were taken from the names of Groucho Marx characters. ("Captain Spaulding", "Otis B. Driftwood", "Rufus T. Firefly" and "Hugo Z. Hackenbush", among others.) While this was left as a subtle allusion in the first movie, the sequel The Devil's Rejects brought it out into the open, with the names becoming integral to the plot.
• Various portions of the film were lifted from "Faces of Death", the famous pseudo-documentary on death.
• Rob Zombie composed the score himself (together with Scott Humphrey), being his first film music. It is isolated on the DVD as a separate audio track.

See also

• House of 1000 Corpses Soundtrack
• The Devil's Rejects (2005)

References

1. ^ "Box Office Mojo". Retrieved on 2006-06-22.

External links

• Official site
• House of 1000 Corpses at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Message Board