House Of 1,000 Corpses (Blu-ray)
Picture: B+
Sound: B Extras: C Film: D
Long before his inability to stick to his Rock Music
career and long before
his pathetic recycling of John Carpenter’s Halloween, Rob Zombie made his first
Horror film, House Of 1,000 Corpses. Originally, it was to be released by
Universal, but they delayed it and delayed it until they outright dropped
it. This shocked the industry and bad
word of mouth on the film surfaced.
Lionsgate picked it up and it became a hit, launching the most unlikely
(and so far, highly unfortunate) directing career of late. The film finally arrived in 2003 and the rest
is history.
It is
also a very bad film. Once again,
nameless, faceless, underdeveloped teens are invited to go somewhere as a
joke/challenge and get slashed and tortured to death as a result. The result is the usual set-up-and-kill
formula that grows tired quickly and is endlessly derivative to no end. That leaves the same old tired, fake make-up
effects picking up the slack and a film that you either will like or
despise. Along with its lame sequel The Devil’s Rejects (see the Blu-ray
review elsewhere on this site), shows
Zombie can only reanimated unoriginal ideas for the fanboy fanbase that wants
them.
I was unimpressed with the HD transfer on Rejects and Lionsgate has gone out of
its way to make this look better, so the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition
image can show us the degraded images throughout with even more clarity than
before. Though shot in 35mm, it might as
well have been HD or low def for what we get and only gets its picture rating
because there is enough evidence this started at some point in 35mm. The original digital 5.1 master has been
upgraded for DTS 7.1 and the mix stretches the original sound out a bit, even
if you cannot play back all 7.1 channels.
However, the DTS is warm and rich enough to make this sound better than if
it were just Dolby,
Extras
include Zombie’s audio commentary, a making of featurette, casting footage,
rehearsal footage, cast/crew interviews, original theatrical trailer and silly
interactive game dubbed Escape from
Zombie Mountain. The best way to
escape is to not watch his films!
For more
on Zombie, try these links:
Devil’s Rejects (Blu-ray)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4390/The+Devil%E2%80%99s+Rejects
Halloween
(2007/Theatrical Film Review)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5906/Halloween+(2007/Theatrical+Film
- Nicholas Sheffo
