Sin #46: Road Kill

The Fireflys’ aren’t your typical run-of-the-mill family; they live in an old decrepit house that would settle in the” middle of nowhere” if only “middle of nowhere” were an actual address on the map. The mother is a screaming lunatic and her oldest son is a serial killer who loves to practice the art of vivisection with his victims (usually cheerleaders) and turn them into grotesque trophies; the less said about the rest of the family the better (and that’s not counting the depraved Dr. Satan who lives in the subterranean catacombs beneath the house).

When Rob Zombie released “House of 1000 Corpses” back in 2002 it was reviled by almost every critic. Since the horror genre has been paralyzed for some time thanks to hundreds of retreats and remakes, I pretty much thought Zombie’s debut (he began as a musician and a music video director) as a filmmaker would be a witless bore.

I was very wrong, “House of 1000 Corpses” is a manic and thoroughly entertaining freak show of a movie, and while the film is hardly scary or suspenseful it is amusing, funny and engrossing thanks to some of the most original characters I’ve seen in a while (Captain Spaulding has already become a popular icon). Zombie directs the movie with gusto using lots of visual trickery that includes split screens, old grainy footage, reverse negatives and psychedelic colors making the experience a kaleidoscopic wild ride. It may be shallow but it’s a lot of fun.

For the sequel “The Devil’s Rejects”, Zombie went for a more brutal, down-to-earth approach. Gone were the gimmicky visual tricks and instead there’s an unrelenting focus on these psychopaths and their journey towards doom. “The Devil’s Rejects” feels like a Grindhouse 70’s picture (right down to the barren landscapes, the violence and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic “Freebird”) and is a lot more disturbing than “House of 100o Corpses” thanks to its stark and realistic scenes of torture and overall mayhem. Even though the movie features some of the most despicable characters ever seen on the screen, Zombie achieves the difficult task of giving them dignity and empathy; the last frames even acquire an unexpected poignancy (he fails, however, to add any shred of credibility or interest to his “Halloween” remakes which make the mistakes “The Devil Reject’s” avoids).

Most movies focus on their heroes and forget about their villains; their motivations never go beyond punishing those who trespass their lands and they never get to become more than mere movie monsters. With “House of 1000 Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects” however we care about the villains and their destinies and have a blast watching them on their inevitable spiral of death. How many horror movies can claim to do the same?