Monday, May 6, 2024

Rob Zombies House of 1,000 Corpses Turns 20: An Oral History of a Bloody Cult Classic

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He fires his gun multiple times into the camera before the frame goes to black. Then we hear Spaulding proclaim, “God damn motherfucker got blood all over my best clown suit.” And just like that, the world was acquainted with filmmaker Rob Zombie. It’s funny, campy, twisted, weird, and it makes you feel uncomfortable for having watched it.

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The world of the notorious Firefly family is riddled with vivid sideshow aesthetic and gaudy detail. This creates a wonderful contrast from the bleak, beige daytime scenes, which feel completely grounded and subdued in comparison. It feels as if Zombie unleashed decades of pent-up creative inspiration into one film—a feeling he struggles to evoke in his following movies (in my humble opinion).

Rob Zombie Posts '3 From Hell' Picture Of Evil Clown And It's Not Captain Spaulding - Yahoo News

Rob Zombie Posts '3 From Hell' Picture Of Evil Clown And It's Not Captain Spaulding.

Posted: Thu, 22 Nov 2018 08:00:00 GMT [source]

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While the financial terms of Lionsgate's deal were not disclosed, the story goes that the studio made its money back that first weekend. Hence, a sequel, "The Devil's Rejects," was given the green light in short order. Rob Zombie is an incredibly successful recording artist, known for songs like "Dragula" and "Living Dead Girl," as well as his song "More Human Than Human" with the band White Zombie, with nearly 6 million albums sold. Through HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, we begin to see Zombie’s creative genetics – shades of classic vaudeville, Coney Island, rickety funhouses, vintage game shows, rock and roll.

Clown Horror

Take Dr. Satan (Walter Phelan), hands down one of the most interesting beings in the Firefly trilogy. 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. He directs Jerry Goldsmith, Bill Hudley, Denise Willis, and Mary Knowles in the direction of the Firefly house, where they are terrorized by the Fireflies, especially Baby and Otis. When police Lt. George Wydell goes looking for them after Denise's father Don reports them missing, He directs him to the house as well, where Wydell, Willis, Deputy Steve Nash are killed.

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Never Turn Your Back On A Clown: Remembering Sid Haig.

Posted: Mon, 23 Sep 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]

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For Mama Firefly, Zombie turned to Karen Black of Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces fame. Sid Haig, a cult film legend known for his work in Spider Baby and Foxy Brown, was tapped to play the gonzo clown Captain Spaulding. The Devil's Rejects and 3 from Hell have since rounded out the trilogy, so this might come as a surprise to many fans. But Zombie knew the troubles that accompany getting a movie funded, and as the filmmaker explained in a 2013 interview, "If someone's willing to put up that money and make your film happen, you really can't look that gift horse in the mouth."

Rob Zombie’s ‘House of 1,000 Corpses’ Turns 20: An Oral History of a Bloody Cult Classic

house of 1000 corpses clown

The MGM deal lasted mere days before it was dismantled, leaving the film once again in limbo. Things were so sour with MGM that a spokesperson for the studio even denied that they ever had a deal in place. "It was falsely announced in Variety that we had the project. We never had a deal with Rob Zombie. We were in negotiations, let's put it that way, or we were thinking about it," the unnamed spokesperson said at the time. Sure, Universal ponied up the dough for a better ending, but what fate was to befall the film now that they had their ending? In that same interview with Divine, Zombie explained that, by the following Halloween when the maze that was supposed to be titled "House of 1000 Corpses" (it was changed to "American Nightmare") to go along with the film was set to debut, everything had changed. That movie became "House of 1000 Corpses," which Zombie actually cooked up while putting together a maze for Universal's Halloween Horror nights.

That bums me out to learn, and I hope maybe by some extraordinary chance he’ll happen upon this review and gain a better understanding of how and why people have come to love this movie. HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES also remains the most colorful of Rob Zombie’s films, taking inspiration from the giallo films of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. One reason I’ve failed to connect with The Devil’s Rejects in the same way I’ve connected with CORPSES is the difference in the color palette used between the films.

Halloween Horror Nights have brought the Firefly home to the real world

Art that is ahead of its time usually puzzles and confounds only to find its footing with time. HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES continues to age like a fine wine or, in this particular instance, like fine fried chicken and gasoline. He is presumably the father of Mama Firefly, previously known as Gloria Teasdale. She, in turn, is the biological mother of Baby, Rufus, and Tiny, as well as the presumed adoptive mother of Otis, whose last name was previously Driftwood. Captain Spaulding and Mama are Baby's parents, making her the half-sister of Rufus and Tiny.

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Zombie’s debut presents a filmmaker still learning the process, and the movie benefits greatly from it. The actors are given plenty of room to flesh out their characters, and career-defining performances are given by genre veterans such as Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects). This film takes risks in a way that Zombie’s following films would not and in result has a playful energy that few movies have replicated. I have a distinct memory of seeing the trailer for the movie playing in the lobby of my childhood local theater, and even then I was both terrified and undeniably intrigued by the whole spectacle. I was much too young to see HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES in theaters, but my older brother bought the movie on DVD as soon as it was released, and I couldn’t wait to point my eyeballs at it. I’ll never forget the first time my brothers and I sat down and watched the movie together.

An animated musical "sidequel" released in 2009, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, is also part of the tale. 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. At the motel, Otis and Baby take a musical group called Banjo and Sullivan hostage in their room, and Otis shoots the roadie when he returns. Meanwhile, Baby's father, Captain Spaulding, decides to rendezvous with Baby and Otis.

Mixed in with this motley collection of Zombie’s favorite actors were his friends. He gave the role of squeaky psycho Baby Firefly to his then-girlfriend (now wife), Sheri Moon. 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. His finished film was Texas Chainsaw Massacre but more gleeful and carnivalesque; it was The Rocky Horror Picture Show but more cramped and grotesque. It was the Marx Brothers and the Manson family chopped up and blitzed in a blender, then poured straight down your gullet as you’re held down by a late-night horror host from the 1950s and an MTV editor from the 1990s. House of 1000 Corpses contains more intriguing characters than it's actually able to explore.

Captain Spaulding (born Johnny Lee Johns and also known as "Cutter")[2] is a fictional character created by Rob Zombie. The character first appeared in Zombie's 2003 horror film House of 1000 Corpses, portrayed by Sid Haig. Haig reprised his role as Spaulding in the sequels The Devil's Rejects (2005) and 3 from Hell (2019). Haig also voiced Spaulding in the 2009 animated film The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.[3] The character is depicted as a vulgar and murderous clown. After revitalizing his career thanks to House of 1000 Corpses, and teaming twice with Quentin Tarantino (in Jackie Brown and Kill Bill Volume 2), Haig did a run of horror films well-skewed for his newfound fandom, including Hatchet 3, Death House, and Night of the Living Dead 3D.

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