Rocker Rob Zombie is an apparent horror film buff and this long-delayed film (and censored, even the version I saw was apparently cut) marks his inauspicious but admirable debut.
Youngsters doing a tour of roadside attractions stop by Captain Spalding’s (Haig) place for some crappy horror-themed fun, and fried chicken (in a brief cameo at the beginning, Michael J. Pollard turns up as a buddy of Spalding’s- so, don’t say you weren’t warned!). Spalding, a surly and grotesque man (in clown makeup) nonetheless is obliging and tells the travellers of Dr. Satan, an infamously unscrupulous local physician and even draws them a map to his hanging tree.
Somehow they end up terrorised by a family of nutbars; slutty-yet-childlike Moon, blowsy matriarch Black, gabby Moseley, Grandpa Fimple, and others. Towles (from “Day of the Dead”, “Fortress”, and “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”) plays a cop in an underdeveloped role.
Probably not as bad as you’ve heard, but once one gets past all the MTV-style shots and editing, the constant film references and overall in-your-face style of this 2003 Rob Zombie tribute to 70s and 80s grindhouse horror…you realise there’s very little new about it. Sure, the fact that Zombie has included reference after movie reference and packaged it like a 90 minute music clip makes it seem original, but after a while, what at first was fun, grows tiresome.
What keeps you watching (aside from the gore, which is often quite good for those who are into that kind of thing) are the assortment of freaks and geeks on display here, a B-movie fan’s delight, with even the usually horrid Black (surely one of the weirdest and worst actresses to ever earn an Oscar nomination) finally finding her niche. But even then we see that Moseley, whilst amusing, is just doing his Chop-Top shtick again, and the whole film actually plays like a mixture of the first two “Chainsaw Massacre” films and a touch of “Motel Hell”. Haig steals it in a wonderfully foul performance, even though his character isn’t entirely successfully integrated into the fabric of the film.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Admirable from a film buff’s perspective (and if it was released back in 1981, perhaps…), full of engagingly twisted characters and performances that keep it going for a while. Unfortunately, Zombie crosses the line from homage into plagiarism and the fun begins to wear off this over-edited, and noisy film after a while. Nice try, and I hear Zombie’s follow-up is pretty good.
