House of 1000 Corpses

Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses has nostalgia on its side but not much else.

A tour-de-farce of depressing inanity, that's unable to do anything more than offer a messy, incoherent pastiche of other, better movies.

Zombie wants his film to be gleefully demented, but he fails to grasp that loud, inbred evil people torturing stupid, grating benign people isn't disturbing as much as tedious.

But what does it all mean?

Zombie's attempted post-modernism has neither the intelligence nor the conviction to work: he may fancy himself a genuine devil, but he comes off here as a poseur of a cheap and low order.

Even if it's not a great movie, I wish every horror movie were more like this movie. We'd all have a lot more fun come Halloween, squirming in a chair like we're meant to.

More proof of concept of Zombie's capacity to embark on a directorial career than cohesive narrative, House of 1000 Corpses is more interested in its villains and homages to quintessential texts from Zombie's past. Bold, gritty, and often quite gross

Using split screens, atmospheric and subversive music, 16mm and old film footage and the crowd-pleasing stalking camera, Zombie creates a visually-arresting molotov cocktail.

Rob Zombie's directorial debut is arguably his coolest looking and most stylish outing but it contains all of his signature downfalls. Its Texas Chainsaw Massacre with all the trashy elements cranked to 11 and no attempts at plot or character development.