Zombie film a lifeless ‘Corpse’

Glenn Whipp

Monday, April 14, 2003 | 8:42 a.m.

Grade: *

Starring: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, Karen Black

Screenplay: Rob Zombie.

Director: Rob Zombie.

Rated: R.

Running time: 88 minutes.

Rob Zombie's hideous little exercise in theme-park horror, "House of 1000 Corpses," has been sitting on the shelves for three years, and I'd like to be able to say it has been worth the wait. But I can't. It's awful.

"Corpses" has plenty of blood but generates little in the way of genuine terror or suspense. Intended to be an homage to '70s splatter "classics" such as Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," the movie occasionally nails the low-fi, creepy atmosphere but botches on delivering the gruesome goods. Even the midnight-movie crowd would be hard-pressed to stay awake for the duration of this one.

The movie begins promisingly enough at Capt. Spaulding's Museum of Monsters, a roadside carnival attraction that offers fried chicken with a full tank of gas. Spaulding (Roger Corman veteran Sid Haig) entertains two visiting couples in his museum, telling them the ripe story of Dr. Satan and his assorted atrocities. Soon the kids go off in search of Satan with the expected sordid results.

In addition to borrowing liberally from Craven and Tobe Hooper, Zombie pays homage to Stanley Kubrick, substituting Slim Whitman's "I Remember You" for Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" in the movie's "Clockwork Orange"-style musical brush with brutality.

The only problem is that when Zombie and his droogs go for the old ultra-violence here, it feels less like a kick to the old yarbles than it does a feather brush on the gulliver. Or something like that.

Of course, Zombie isn't going for anything as profound as "Clockwork," but it would have been nice if he could have incorporated some sense of fear into his graphic scenes of butchery and torture. A touch of the old Ludwig Van would have been nice, too.