I remember the first time I pulled Rob Zombie’s 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses off of the horror rack at Blockbuster, stricken by the bloody-faced mutant staring back at me as I slid it onto the counter to check out, a task my older brother would have had to help me with.
I didn't honestly know what to expect from Zombie, especially at an age when my taste was still developing, but from the moment my brothers and I slid it into the DVD player I knew that Zombie was onto something.
It wasn't necessarily that what Zombie had done with the film was better than others in the same vein (of which there are a myriad: teenagers driving cross country stop at the wrong gas station), but it was more surprising.
It was the style in House of 1000 Corpses that set it apart, just as Zombie has been setting himself apart ever since.
One way he’s trying to do that is with his new film, 31. 31, which is set for a 2015 release, follows the journey of five people who have been kidnapped and forced to battle their way through “Murder World” in a vicious clown-filled blood sport.
As fascinating a premise as it is, what interests me more is Zombie’s choice to crowd fund the project. Fans of Zombie’s work have created a cult following, getting Sid Haig as Captain Spaulding or one of Sheri Moon Zombie’s many roles tattooed to their bodies.
“When you love something so much, you just want to be a part of it,” said Zombie in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. “And that’s what I think about this crowd-funding campaign – you can be a part of it.”
Zombie’s choice to crowd-fund the film shows that he cares about his fans, and wants to reward them with a chance to be a part of his movie in a very real way. While fans who back the project can receive rewards for their funding, including prizes from a cell phone case to an executive producer credit, the appeal to most horror fans is simply an opportunity to say you were a part of it, in any small capacity. Back the project here.
The film also represents a coming out, so to speak, for the horror community. While the mainstream has seemingly eluded the horror genre, for better or worse, 31 is giving fans a chance to be active participants in creating something they are passionate about.
Of course before audiences could become fans of Zombie, he needed to give them something to be passionate about.
House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
In Rob Zombie’s first film, House of 1000 Corpses, Zombie provides viewers with a familiar horror narrative, but with a post-modern stylistic approach.
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| Image from doodleblog, licensed through Creative Commons |
The opening sequence gives the audience a thrill as a dated Halloween special on television reminds them of something they may have peaked through their fingers at as children, a kind of nostalgic kick to the stomach. Zombie capitalizes on this feeling immediately by presenting a clown to the mix, both a staple of childhood fears and Rob Zombie himself (1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, Halloween, 31 all have clowns).
Zombie utilizes an interesting mixture of subtleties and the utter lack of subtlety in the movie. At the beginning of the movie a truck drives by with a sign that reads “God is Dead,” a recurrent and, in the context of the film, difficult to argue sentiment. Later in the film Zombie offers the audience the ramblings of an old, shotgun toting man who is confident that the reality they are experiencing is not earth or purgatory, but hell itself.
A later descent into a hell on earth and an obsession with masks (that shows up in all of Zombie’s films), prove to be the less penetrating symbols in the film.
Perhaps what made the film so polarizing was Zombie’s decision to abandon the southern torture paradigm and drop the characters into a hellish landscape, presided over by Dr. Satan. The change, while frightening, is jarring like so much of the film. It seems as if Zombie is insistent on reminding the audience every now and again that they are watching a movie, as an array of interesting visual elements in the film sometimes break the illusion of the picture.
As a result the entire thing ends up feeling like a scary dream, where acts of violence and sadism are explored through a very nontraditional format.
Under the surface the film may reflect anxiety over a dying American sentiment of a traditional family. The dinner scene reminds viewers of the Sawyer family from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, wherein a traditional familial practice of sharing dinner is perverted by the insanity of each the family and the legend of Dr. Satan.
Bill Mosely as Otis delivers an especially disturbing performance, capturing the macabre nature of his companions with every movement and declaration. His transparency as a character is chilling, as there is no veil of humanity or compassion surrounding him. Meanwhile he believes his actions to be artistic and justified, putting himself up on a pedestal as a revolutionary.
“How could I, being born of such, uh... conventional stock, arrive a leader of the rebellion? An escapist from a conformist world, destined to find happiness only in that which cannot be explained?” Otis says. “I brought you here for a reason, but unfortunately you and your sentimental minds are doing me no good! My brain is frozen. Locked! I have to break free from this culture of mechanical reproductions and the thick encrustations dying on the surface!”
In a way Otis is a much more respectable character than the other members of his family. It is clear that the lot of them are unhesitant in their killing, and furthermore tend to enjoy the act but while the rest of them kill for joy, Otis at least gives purpose to the people he kills, however contrived it would seem to anyone sitting in a chair in front of him.
Like most of Zombie’s films, House of 1000 Corpses isn't for everyone. There is a level of grotesqueness and debauchery that will disturb the easily offended and shock the faint of heart. But it’s definitely one worth watching, even just to get a glimpse of Rob Zombie’s unique style implemented in the film.
Regardless of any personal opinions about the film, it did successfully break Zombie into the movie business and propel him to a person of interest in the horror world. The Devil’s Rejects and Halloween would help to cement him into that world.
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