Table Of Content
As anyone familiar with his music videos can attest to, it's not a surprise that Zombie has etched his name in the annals of horror movie history. What is surprising is that House of 1000 Corpses took such a long and winding road to the theaters, that he initially thought he wouldn't be making sequels, and above all, that it was his first film. The movie simply feels too self-assured, too confident, and frankly, too good to be a first outing. Among film critics, House of 1000 Corpses received a generally negative reaction following its release. The film was critically panned, with critics disapproving of the film's various side-plots and main cast.
Characters
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. Dr. Satan was inspired by a 1950s billboard-sized poster advertising a "live spook show starring a magician called Dr. Satan" that Rob Zombie has in his house. Soon following, the four friends meet Mother Firefly, Baby's mother, Otis B. Driftwood, Baby's adopted brother, Hugo Firefly, Baby's grandfather, and Baby's deformed giant half-brother, Tiny, while being treated to dinner and discover that the family lives on weird Halloween traditions. Mother Firefly then explains that her ex-husband Earl had previously tried to burn Tiny alive along with the Firefly house.
Production
House of 1000 Corpses Ending, Explained - GameRant
House of 1000 Corpses Ending, Explained.
Posted: Wed, 07 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Punctuated by bizarro cutaways and surreal sequences, House of 1,000 Corpses very nearly never saw the light of day, thanks largely to a procession of studio executives who believed they were punk rock enough to ride, only to clutch for their pearls at the last second. It finally hit theaters in 2003, though, much to the distaste of critics—and the delight of a small slice of the moviegoing public. A nasty little stink bomb of a grindhouse slasher, the “plot” of House of 1,000 Corpses, if it can be called that, concerns four kids (including a pre-Office Rainn Wilson) who get lost on the backroads of America while searching for a local legend named Dr. Satan. Instead of finding him, they’re captured by a psychotic family called the Fireflys, who—spoilers—brutally kill off the youngsters one by one.
Release
NECA Reissues 'House Of 1000 Corpses' Figures In March 2024 - Horror News Network
NECA Reissues 'House Of 1000 Corpses' Figures In March 2024.
Posted: Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
House of 1000 Corpses is a 2003 American black comedy horror film[4][5] written, co-scored, and directed by Rob Zombie in his directorial debut, and the first film in the Firefly film series. It stars Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, Karen Black, Rainn Wilson, Chris Hardwick, Tom Towles, Erin Daniels, Jennifer Jostyn, Walton Goggins, and Dennis Fimple in his final role. The plot centers on a group of teenagers who are kidnapped and tortured by a psychotic family during Halloween after traveling across the country to write a book. The Devil's Rejects was released on July 22, 2005, to minor commercial success, and mixed reviews, although it was generally considered an improvement over its predecessor.
What Rob Zombie Learned from ‘House of 1000 Corpses’: Take His First Instinct and ‘Do the Opposite’
"I was a big Marx Brothers fan when I was a little kid because their movies were always on TV," Zombie remarked in 2016. "A Night at the Opera, in particular, was on a lot. So I discovered the Marx Brothers movies around the same time I discovered any movie, really." Otis beats down Bill while he was opening the gate and Tiny manhandles Jerry who tried to help his friend as Denise and Mary look on helplessly. With nothing they could do, the two horrified women lock themselves in the fixed car hoping the attackers can't get to them, however Tiny would smash his way through a window and drag a terrified Denise out of the car and back into the house while Mary screams in horror as Otis bashes in the windshield.
Despite receiving an unfavorable response from critics, it went on to gross $16 million worldwide. Since its release, the film has achieved a cult following, was developed into a haunted-house attraction by Zombie for Universal Studios, and was followed by two sequels, The Devil's Rejects (2005) and 3 from Hell (2019). House of 1000 Corpses won't go down in history as the most commercially successful horror movie of all time, nor the most critically acclaimed. This hardcore horror film's style plays like a terrifying music video, providing a roller coaster ride of gruesomely colorful scenes. To the squeamish, this movie can come off as shocking, repulsive, and downright unwatchable, due to its gory nature.
Chris Hardwick, a buddy he’d met at the MTV Music Awards, was asked to play Jerry, one of the four kids, with Zombie telling him he’d written the part of a “loud, obnoxious asshole” specifically for him. After he leaves the brothel, Wydell threatens Charlie to give up the Fireflys. With the help of the "Unholy Two," the sheriff takes the family back to the Firefly house where Wydell tortures them, using similar methods they used on their own victims. He nails Otis' hands to his chair and staples crime-scene photographs to Otis's and Baby's stomachs, then he beats and shocks Captain Spaulding and Otis with a cattle prod and taunts Baby about the death of her mother. On May 18, 1978,[a] Texas Sheriff John Quincey Wydell and a large posse of state troopers issue a search and destroy mission on the Firefly family, who are responsible for over 75 homicides and disappearances over the past several years. Rufus is killed and Mother Firefly is taken into custody while Otis and Baby escape.
Clint Morris of Film Threat slammed the film as "an hour and a half of undecipherable plot" and found the film to be "sickening" overall. James Brundage of Filmcritic.com wrote that the film was simply "hick after hick, cheap scary image after cheap scary image, lots of southern accents and psychotic murders," and was "too highbrow to be a good cheap horror movie, too lowbrow to be satire, and too boring to bear the value of the ticket." Like other cult classics, House of 1,000 Corpses has also benefited from everyone being online all the time. “It’s gotten really big,” observed Cherry, a costume designer who cosplays as Baby Firefly, and once played her in a haunted house at Zombie’s annual Great American Nightmare scarefest.
At the time of release and in the years since, the film has garnered a cult following. It was the final film to feature Matthew McGrory before his death the same year, although he did have a posthumous cameo in 2017's The Evil Within, which had been filmed in 2002, and the film's DVD release was dedicated to his "loving memory." People tend to be their own worst critics — although critics have plenty of scathing things to say about House of 1000 Corpses. While House of 1000 Corpses is brilliant to many, it was, as mentioned earlier, Zombie's directorial debut, so he's bound to look back and find issues with it. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that he took a different artistic approach to the following Firefly movies.
When Denise doesn't come home, her father Don calls the police to report her missing. Don, a former policeman, is called to the scene to help the deputies search. They arrive at the Firefly house and Wydell questions Mother Firefly about the missing teens. Mother Firefly shoots Wydell in the head and kills him; Don and Steve are then killed by Otis when they find more bodies of missing cheerleaders in the barn, along with a barely conscious Mary. On October 30, 1977, amateur criminals Killer Karl and Richard Wick attempt an armed robbery at a gas station/horror museum, but are killed by the owner, Captain Spaulding, and his assistant, Ravelli.
Zombie feared Snider would give him money and say "go re-shoot everything". He would rather have them dump the film then having him going back and re-shooting his vision. Lions Gate Entertainment picked up House of 1000 Corpses because they were interested in getting into the horror scene.
The cyborg scientist appears briefly in the movie, but will haunt viewers' nightmares forever, even if he doesn't necessarily fit in with the style of subsequent flicks. The three Corpses leads (Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Sheri Moon Zombie) also appear as voices in Zombie's animated film The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. Haig and Moseley made cameos as their characters from both films, Captain Spaulding and Otis B. Driftwood, respectively, while Sheri Moon Zombie voiced one of the lead characters, Suzie X.
The film opened on April 11, 2003 without being pre-screened for critics. Frank Schrek of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film "lives up to the spirit but not the quality of its inspirations" and is ultimately a "cheesy and ultra gory exploitation horror flick" and "strangely devoid of thrills, shocks or horror." Stacey Snider, who was head of Universal at the time called Zombie up for a meeting.
