When the lights went down and the movie began with a fake CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE broadcast, I felt really good about House of 1000 Corpses. And in ten short minutes, that good feeling was drained out of me like blood from a skull. I could spend a great deal of time complaining about this movie (and i have, elsewhere) but I am also aware that each complaint could easily be answered with, “but you paid money to see House of 1000 Corpses.” Touché.
I realize one must aggressively manage expectations over a movie like this, but shouldn’t I have been able to expect, at the very least, one house filled with (or composed of) 1,000 corpses? There was a house, to be sure. And there were some corpses. But 1,000? I didn’t stay until the end because that would have meant ditching my plan to shout, “fuck you, Rob Zombie! I’m sneaking into What a Girl Wants!!!” However, with less than 20 minutes left in the film, there were only about 30 corpses total. That is a generous figure. Unless those homeowners were expecting a FedEx delivery of hundreds and hundreds or dead bodies, House of 1000 Corpses either had the most spectacular finale in the history of horror films, or the second-most misleading title. (William Castle’s failed gimmick movie, Everyone Who Stays Till the End Gets a Reach-Around and a Handful of Butterscotch Candy still holds top honors in that category.)
