By Stephen Pytak 

     The only complaint I have about this flick is the 
running time, 88 minutes.
     After I saw "House of 1000 Corpses" for the 
second time the other day, I just wanted more and 
more. Heck, I could've watched Rob Zombie's 
Texas-Chainsaw, Evil-Dead hillbillies torture those 
stupid kids for at least another hour or so.
     Maybe I'm crazy. No. Come to think of it, there's 
no doubt about it. The pressures of day-to-day life 
have pushed my sanity over the line somewhere. 
There's no other way to describe it. And there's 
hardly a cure.
     But in Zombie's "House," I found a release.
     It's a bumpy funhouse ride, not unlike the one 
Sid Haig's character "Captain Spaulding" invites 
gas pumpers to see at his fried chicken stand.
     You'll see sideshow freaks, a babe who can 
laugh like Ash's "Linda" and some occasional shots 
of some topless girl who looks like Bettie Page. But 
that's just for starters.
     There are beatings and choppings and 
stabbings and skinnings. There's also a few 
shootings. But wait. There's more.
     You'll bust a gut watching Bill Moseley's "Otis" 
preach his own brand of backwards common sense. 
You'll drool in awe when Sheri Moon's "Baby" gets 
all dressed up and lip-synchs Helen Kane's "I 
Wanna Be Loved By You." You'll be surprised 
when you check your watch as the credits roll and 
realize you still have an hour before dinner.
     You know, I was on Internet Movie Data Base 
tonight, just checking over the running time. And 
look what I found. It states that the version we're 
watching over here is 88 minutes long and in 
Argentina the run time is 105!
     Should I buy a plane ticket or wait for DVD? 
Hmmmmmmmmm.
     In short, "House of 1000 Corpses" is Rob 
Zombie's homage to horror films.
     It's got one of the best openings I've seen in a 
long time.
     It opens up like one of those ancient, black-and-
white Saturday afternoon TV horror movie 
programs. The one we're treated to is something 
Zombie whipped up called "Dr. Wolfenstein's 
Creature Feature Show."
     Then, click, we go to a commercial for "Captain 
Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen," 
which promises "blood, violence, freaks of nature" 
and "tasty fried chicken" which "tastes so damn 
good."
     The next thing you know, we're there on a rainy 
night in 1977. The clown man is hamming it up 
with his clerk about a local guy who got a little too 
personal with a "Planet of the Apes" doll, "Dr. 
Zaius" I believe it was. Then two dopes with masks 
and guns bust in.
     They want money. They get what Spaulding 
promised in his commercial. And our film kicks off 
with a bang!
     After a bit of Rob Zombie music, some credits 
and a hodgepodge of black-and-white images of a 
house and some nude chick, the story continues.
     It's the same night. Two young couples exploring 
off-road tourist attractions visit Spaulding's and take 
his "Murder Ride." They learn about a local 
legend, "Dr. Satan," and decide to visit the tree 
where the ol' doc' was supposedly hung.
     The kids take a seriously wrong turn and 
stumble upon a bunch of crazed killers and learn 
the meaning of horror.
     Some people on the Internet have complained a 
bit about this part of the movie because it's kind of 
cliché. We've seen this kind of thing, of course, in 
"Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)" and "Tourist 
Trap (1979)."
     But you can't have homage without some 
imitation.  
     I don't know what they're complaining about 
anyway. This crazy flick offered horror fans a heck 
of a lot more to consider.
     There are a thousand wonderful sights to 
behold.
     You got cheerleaders tied up. One even gets 
stripped, carved up and tossed into a car trunk.
     You got victims scared senseless. They're cut, 
beaten, tied up. Heck, the killers even dress them up 
like rabbits and hang them up. I never saw 
anything like that before. 
     And, of course, you got the zombies, super-freaks 
or whatever those things were living under the 
house.
     The film has its scary moments. 
     There's the scarecrow attack.
     There's the part where "Otis" comes downstairs 
after doing a butcher job on one of the characters 
and he's wearing that character's face and chest. 
     Then, of course, there's the last few frames.
     I was trying to describe this film to my wife the 
other day. And I kept talking about the parts that 
were downright  funny. 
     I love it when "Baby" goes out and buys $185. 
in booze from "G.O.OBER" at a roadside 
distributor called "Pussy Liquor." That part is 
priceless.
     I doubt I can afford a ticket to Argentina this 
week, but I'll probably buy my way into this flick 
again before it leaves Reading or Hazleton. 
     In a year where sequels and remakes seem to be 
the rage, this may be the most fun I'll have at the 
movies.