When Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses was released in 2003 (following numerous distribution delays by its original producer Universal Studios due to objectionable content), many chalked it up to the vanity project of a rockstar. Zombie, after all, had made his name first with the band White Zombie and then as a solo artist, mixing and matching classic horror movie monsters, Max Fleischer cartoons, The Munsters, and Alice Cooper into a heady stew. He was part carnival barker, part unhinged sociopath, part Stan Lee, always ready to proselytize for old B-movies and the sort of bric-a-brac that accompanies Halloween funhouses. Corpses became notable mostly for casting future pop-culture mainstays Chris Hardwick and Rainn Wilson in early roles and for its bald-faced liftings from Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre parts 1 & 2, leading to a mildly diverting horror oddity that couldn’t quite overcome Zombie’s fanboyish adoration of ‘70s genre classics.
Part of Kicking the Canon – The Film Canon.
Published as part of InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 2
