Review #265: House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

This review was originally written in October 2023.

Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #19 - House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

House of 1000 Corpses follows a group of four friends driving across the country to write a book about offbeat roadside attractions. They find one for the record books in the form of Captain Spaulding's Museum of Monsters & Mayhem, where Captain Spaulding himself gives them a tour of historical serial killers and maniacs. Intrigued by the story of Dr. Satan, a local serial killer who was never caught, the teens drive into the dark rainy countryside to find it. Along the way, they're lured into the home of a crazy redneck murder family, most of them eventually are killed, and then as the only survivor escapes we're left with a literal "The End?" title card.

First things first: this movie looks great on-screen, but it's really hard for me to care about yet another crazy redneck murder family, let alone one who puts as much time and effect into their pageantry as this one. It's just hard to take them seriously when they've got a fully-choreographed song and dance number they perform in a theater full of fake audience members while they fix the protagonists' car thirty seconds before they smash the aforementioned car and kill the aforementioned protagonists.

This movie also does some really weird stuff both cinematographically (like the constant cutaways to grainy footage that seems unrelated to what's happening, possibly even including dream sequences between scenes) and within the world of the movie (like when, instead of being killed, two of the protagonists are lowered in a coffin down into a pit where, for all intents and purposes, zombies are just hanging out and don't really get an explanation). It was incredibly hard to follow at certain parts for these reasons, which I think is probably beyond the point of the movie as I expect it was intended to just be a fun ride without the audience thinking too much about any one detail.

I really liked the character of Captain Spaulding, and I liked the Americana aspect of the movie (even some of the bizarre cutaways included footage of roadside attraction signs and bits of story about cryptids and urban legends), and I would have liked more of that, but instead the final act of the movie is the final girl running from an axe-wielding maniac in an underground mine or something. So it kind of lost me interest-wise.

I do also have to ask: is there a reason this movie was a period piece, taking place in 1977? Apart from one or two mentions of the Manson family (which is evergreen, obviously) I really didn't see any indicator of the era in the entire film. This movie was apparently shot in 2000 (released in 2003), so it was right on the cusp of when it would have still been acceptable for characters to not have cell phones on them, so I really have to wonder what the reasoning was. Apparently there was like 15 minutes of material excised from the director's cut (and supposedly that was already 40 minutes shorter than the first rough cut), so maybe there were more timely references in there that we missed out on. Bummer.

Anyway, I recommend this for a single watch, maybe not much more than that though.

Overall Rating: 6/10 Agatha Crispies

Fun Shooting Location: The majority of this film was shot in the actual house used in the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which is on the Universal Studios' tram tour. Apparently, Universal refused to stop the tours even while House of 1000 Corpses was being filmed, which caused considerable delays and ruined many shots!