House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Bill, Jerry, Mary, and Denise are traveling across the country, writing a book about off-beat roadside attractions. When they come across Captain's Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen (Gasoline and Fried Chicken), they think they've hit the jackpot. The place is wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling with crazy memorabilia from the Fiji mermaid to masks of the Famous Monsters of Filmland. And to top it off, there's... the Murder Ride: a ride-through haunted tour showing vignettes of history's most notorious serial killers. It culminates with one of the area's "local heroes" - S. Quentin Quale, a.k.a. Doctor Satan.

Jerry decides he wants to see the tree where Doctor Satan was supposedly hanged, and they follow Captain Spaulding's crude map to the site. On the way, they pick up a strange young woman hitchhiking in the rain. When their tire is shot out by a mysterious man by the side of the road, they have to make their way to the hitchhiker's house.

And then it all goes bug-nuts from there. Seriously, just off the rails.

Writer/director Rob Zombie (not his real name) knows exactly what he wants out of his big screen debut. He wants, and achieves, a heightened version of the cheapo exploitation movies that his music has revolved around for years.

The music in House of 1000 Corpses is pure grindhouse, full of low synth, sleazy rock-and-roll, and even forgotten yodeling country songs played over slow-motion scenes of bloody violence.

Zombie revels in visual excess here, to the point that the movie becomes something like the Natural Born Killers of horror. The camera zooms and smashes and dives in on the protagonists' screaming faces. We get closeups so extreme that the picture distorts. There are revolving camera shots, snaps to a severe grain filter, cuts to washed-out scenes of Sherri Moon Zombie making out with skeletons, and so forth. It's utter madness that perfectly represents Rob Zombie's unique trash aesthetic.

I had forgotten how relentlessly unsettling and disturbing House Of 1000 Corpses was, especially towards the end. There are scenes of horrific violence, characters whose insanity comes with no explanation, and moments that make you question just what exactly you are watching. This is the music video Zombie has been wanting to make since he played his first rock show, spread out over 90 lunatic minutes of horror. Check it out.