Contains Spoilers This film was interesting to see, although my biggest problem with it is that it seemed like Zombie was trying too hard to do homages to too many things and the story was put on the back burner. While I enjoyed the tip offs to some of my favorites, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (probably too much is devoted to this), Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, and even Children of the Corn (suprise ending...) with a few elements of Alice In Woderland, it just seemed like there was nothing to really make it all flow together. Was there gore? Yes, a little. Was there sex? Not much. Was there a story? Yes - three different ones going on simultaneously that didn't really tie to each other.
First we have the whole Captiain Spaulding freskshow clown horror-ride/gas station/chicken place. Okay, it's interesting to see - very neon and odd. What relevance does it have to the story? Not much other than its inclusion of the "Dr. Satan" myth. When four strangers (definitely old enough to know better - we're talking late 20s early 30s here) show up and become interested in the Dr. Satan legend, Spaulding warns them not go near the tree where Satan was supposedly hanged, but of course they go in search of it anyway (and we never do see the tree, except in a dream). We are never told how Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig of Spider Baby fame) or his henchman, Emanual Ravelli (Irwin Keyes) relates to the family the friends are about to meet
They pick up a beatiful stranger (a living dead girl you might say?) and agree to take her home. The girl's brother shoots out their tire and they're forced to stay the night with the odd family (very Texas Chainsaw meets Hills Have Eyes with a dash of Last House and TCM 2, even a little RHPS thrown in). We have Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Mosely of TCM 2 - ChopTop), who is best described as Chop Top + Leatherface times Riff Raff. Then there's Baby (Sheri Moon - the real life Ms. Zombie) who's kind of a cross between Tiffany (Bride of Chucky), Betty Boop and a snakecharmer (also one of those annoying baby dolls with the laugh that makes you want to drop kick it). Mother Firefly (Karen Black in all her lazy-eyed glory) is just plain odd. She's a whore, definitely, but also cares about her kids and has an odd greenish-gray glow to her...?
"Grampa" (Dennis Fimple) is a useless character who basically epitomizes the horny, perverted old man. He does nothing interesting and has no real role. Rufus (Robert Mukes) is the hulking older brother. He's basically and a handyman, but doesn't do much for the story either. Tiny (Matther McGrory) is kind of a Leatherface-type character (in the "feel bad for me because I'm confused and defored" sense, not the "I'm going to chop the crap out of you" way). He was burned in a fire and horribly disfigured. He doesn't do much except offer some comic relief.
It's awfully convenient the strangers show up on Halloween eve - the next nite, of course, being THE night (there's a title homage to John Carpenter's Halloween at this point "October 31" merges into "Halloween"). Anyway, this is when we're supposedly exposed to Dr. Satan, who is really nothing more than an overblown version of Bane from Batman and Robin (sad, very, very sad), who is supposedly still alive and living in an underground chamber lined with corpses in the middle of a field which doubles as a cemetery. How Dr. Satan ties into the Firefly family, we're never told.
The ending is probably disappointing to a lot of mainstream audiences who don't get Rob Zombie's way of thinking (he's rooting FOR the bad guys here). However, when I saw it, there was a round of applause from the audience (probably because the majority of them never saw Children of the Corn). I guess the applause was deserved, because this was definitely Zombie at his peak, but I just feel the entire story needed some work. There's a robbery scene at the beginning of the film inside Spaulding's place that doesn't tie into anything (and has some of the worst acting to ever disgrace celluloid). There is also another story going on with the father of one of the missing girls and two policemen investingating what happens (the policeman are a nod to Last House).
This story leads to an almost never-ending scene where the audience is just cheering, "freakin' do it already!!!"
Overall, the chintzy glow-in the dark, blood-splattered creep house Halloween feel of the whole film worked. The homages were fun, but way too overdone. It's almost like the audience should have been expected to have seen the films in question before coming to see this one (which I kind of like. Today's audiences are not entirely educated in the ways of good 70s horror). Better acting from outsiders would have given the whole thing a better feel, but so it goes.
I wish we didn't have to wait so long to finally see this film. I guess it really was better left to an exclusively independent film company (Lion's Gate) than Universal (which, incidently, DID give us a teaser trailer a few years back that I distincly recall seeing in a theatre). I hope the uncut DVD version will explain more, because the R-rated version really did leave a lot of questions to be answered.....
First we have the whole Captiain Spaulding freskshow clown horror-ride/gas station/chicken place. Okay, it's interesting to see - very neon and odd. What relevance does it have to the story? Not much other than its inclusion of the "Dr. Satan" myth. When four strangers (definitely old enough to know better - we're talking late 20s early 30s here) show up and become interested in the Dr. Satan legend, Spaulding warns them not go near the tree where Satan was supposedly hanged, but of course they go in search of it anyway (and we never do see the tree, except in a dream). We are never told how Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig of Spider Baby fame) or his henchman, Emanual Ravelli (Irwin Keyes) relates to the family the friends are about to meet
They pick up a beatiful stranger (a living dead girl you might say?) and agree to take her home. The girl's brother shoots out their tire and they're forced to stay the night with the odd family (very Texas Chainsaw meets Hills Have Eyes with a dash of Last House and TCM 2, even a little RHPS thrown in). We have Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Mosely of TCM 2 - ChopTop), who is best described as Chop Top + Leatherface times Riff Raff. Then there's Baby (Sheri Moon - the real life Ms. Zombie) who's kind of a cross between Tiffany (Bride of Chucky), Betty Boop and a snakecharmer (also one of those annoying baby dolls with the laugh that makes you want to drop kick it). Mother Firefly (Karen Black in all her lazy-eyed glory) is just plain odd. She's a whore, definitely, but also cares about her kids and has an odd greenish-gray glow to her...?
"Grampa" (Dennis Fimple) is a useless character who basically epitomizes the horny, perverted old man. He does nothing interesting and has no real role. Rufus (Robert Mukes) is the hulking older brother. He's basically and a handyman, but doesn't do much for the story either. Tiny (Matther McGrory) is kind of a Leatherface-type character (in the "feel bad for me because I'm confused and defored" sense, not the "I'm going to chop the crap out of you" way). He was burned in a fire and horribly disfigured. He doesn't do much except offer some comic relief.
It's awfully convenient the strangers show up on Halloween eve - the next nite, of course, being THE night (there's a title homage to John Carpenter's Halloween at this point "October 31" merges into "Halloween"). Anyway, this is when we're supposedly exposed to Dr. Satan, who is really nothing more than an overblown version of Bane from Batman and Robin (sad, very, very sad), who is supposedly still alive and living in an underground chamber lined with corpses in the middle of a field which doubles as a cemetery. How Dr. Satan ties into the Firefly family, we're never told.
The ending is probably disappointing to a lot of mainstream audiences who don't get Rob Zombie's way of thinking (he's rooting FOR the bad guys here). However, when I saw it, there was a round of applause from the audience (probably because the majority of them never saw Children of the Corn). I guess the applause was deserved, because this was definitely Zombie at his peak, but I just feel the entire story needed some work. There's a robbery scene at the beginning of the film inside Spaulding's place that doesn't tie into anything (and has some of the worst acting to ever disgrace celluloid). There is also another story going on with the father of one of the missing girls and two policemen investingating what happens (the policeman are a nod to Last House).
This story leads to an almost never-ending scene where the audience is just cheering, "freakin' do it already!!!"
Overall, the chintzy glow-in the dark, blood-splattered creep house Halloween feel of the whole film worked. The homages were fun, but way too overdone. It's almost like the audience should have been expected to have seen the films in question before coming to see this one (which I kind of like. Today's audiences are not entirely educated in the ways of good 70s horror). Better acting from outsiders would have given the whole thing a better feel, but so it goes.
I wish we didn't have to wait so long to finally see this film. I guess it really was better left to an exclusively independent film company (Lion's Gate) than Universal (which, incidently, DID give us a teaser trailer a few years back that I distincly recall seeing in a theatre). I hope the uncut DVD version will explain more, because the R-rated version really did leave a lot of questions to be answered.....