Hey folks Harry here with an agent called Foe Jarrell... who has chimed in with our first look at Rob Zombie's HOUSE OF A 1000 CORPSES... Now... We've long been hoping that this will be a great horror film by a great horror fan that has a great sense of taste in cool horror flicks of yesteryear... but... BUT can Rob pull it off? Well, if this is a straight up and on the level review... I'd say it looks good, BUT we've never heard from this guy before and Foe Jarrell is a suspicious name... somehow familiar... Hmmmmm....
Harry,
First time writing in for me.... I live just north of Sacramento here in California, and I'm always reading with envy about people seeing early screenings.
Well my dream has come true..it started this weekend... My buddy and I went to see Goat on Fire and Smiling Fish, and a woman came over to us with a clipboard and asked us if we wanted to see a preview on Thursday.
She read us a description. All I rememeber is two words: Rob Zombie.
I knew he'd directed a movie, so we said yes and we were given the details. The company (Movie View) called us to confirm that we were coming on Tuesday.
So tonight, off we went to the Laguna Village theaters. THEY ACTUALLY CARDED US TO SEE IF WE WERE OVER 17!!! They said it would be rated R.
It started right on time at 7pm...its called "HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES," and the only credit said it was written and directed by Rob Zombie.
This is, seriously, one of the most whacked-out, intense and scary things I've seen in years..... Everything about is unique.. Its got this crazy cast, most of them I didn't recognize, except for Karen Black (as this backwoods nympho grandma) and Michael J Pollard (from Bonnie & Clyde and that episode of Star Trek with the girl from True Grit), and the guy whose name i don't know who was in Frankenstein General Hospital. PLUS... the guy who was the father (not the grandfather) in The Teaxs Chainsaw Massacre plays a "normal" role...the father of the one of the group that ends up in the wrong house on the wrong night with the WRONG people.
Its full of weird color, weird sets, WEIRD music...a lot of tunes from the 30s or 40s over these whacked out scenes of these road-trippers being victimized by this crazy family in a strange house in the woods. Its not like recent horror films.... Its not predictable slasher moments... The situations are truly horrifying...and very very intense. Its like your worst nightmare about what could happen if you knock on the wrong door.
There were two women behind us that were just whimpering toward the end of it, they were so scared. now THAT I haven't seen in many many years.
Rob Zombie must love the movies of Mario Bava, and Herschel Gordon Louis and even the good, early Wes Craven, (the one who made Last House On the Left and Hills Have Eyes, before he sold out and made crap like Scream and that fucking thing with Meryl Streep as the music teacher). Its definitely an homage to those kinds of films, but it takes them a step sideways and this movie definitely has its own twisted personality.
It was still in pretty rough shape; they explained that at the beginning, and I noticed there was music from other older movies used in a few places.
Anyway, Rob Zombie has reinvented the classic 70s horror movie...the ones with lurid color and desolate setting and insane characters, and i couldn't be happier. i just hope they don't make him cut the really intense stuff...its all too good to go.
Foe Jarrell
