Zombie film ‘Corpses’oozes
with genuine visual horror
Movie review
Ryan Nyburg
Pulse Columnist
I remember a time when horror
movies used to be good. Even the
bad ones were good. Some horror
films, such as “The Exorcist,” were
even great. I don’t know what hap
pened, but at some point between
“Evil Dead II” and the present,
horror films turned into bland,
commercial garbage. They all seem
content to rerun the same boring
cliches, the same visual themes
and the same insipid ideas. Roger
Gorman made more worthwhile
and original horror films in an av
erage week than New Line Cinema
has released in the past decade.
This might explain why I felt so
good after seeing “House of 1,000
Corpses.” It’s refreshing to know that
someone is trying, though not neces
sarily succeeding, to recapture what
made some of the old horror films so
much damn fun. Directed by Rob
Zombie, that most visual of heavy
metal stars, the movie is an amazing
collection of visual excesses inspired
in no small part by such classics as
“Night of the Living Dead” and “The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
The story, so much as there is one,
is standard horror film fare. A group
of youths stop by a bizarre roadside
attraction, “Captain Spaulding’s Mu
seum of Murderers and Madmen,”
and end up the victims of a twisted
family of rather gleeful homicidal
maniacs. Most of the focus is on the
family rather than the victims, a good
narrative choice, given that the vic
tims are your standard horror film
cannon fodder. They exist to be
slaughtered. The family, on the oth
er hand, is made up of an offbeat col
lection of loonies who, while never
given any particular motive for their
crimes, at least commit them with
style and flourish. They are played by
an equally diverse group of actors,
most of whom are veterans of horror
and exploitation films.
Other than its lack of any notice
able character development, the
film’s biggest flaw is that its visual
tricks are inconsistent. It often
switches into grainy digital photog
raphy to show flashbacks or any
thing not connected to the chrono
logical story line. This is, at times,
gruesomely effective, but too often
feels like filler material. The art di
rection, though, deserves some kind
of special award. Zombie has creat
ed an almost surreal landscape of
trash and pop culture paraphernalia
left over from the past five decades.
Watching the background closely
can be rewarding for the amount of
sly visual gags (personal favorite: a
collection of “missing” posters, one
of which reads “Dog Head Missing”).
The fact that most of the killers are
named after characters played by
Groucho Marx didn’t escape my at
tention either.
However, it is difficult to criti
cize this film for having filler or
missing character development.
The original print was 105 min
utes, but had 17 minutes cut out in
order to receive an R rating. Who
knows what else was lost along with
the gore? One of the scenes that did
remain, a high angle shot showing
one of the killers holding a gun to a
man’s head for nearly a full minute
of perfect, silent tension, is so well
constructed it makes you squirm in
your seat. More scenes such as this
could render the film a classic. As it
is, it works well as enjoyable, but
not perfect, entertainment for hor
ror fans.
Contact the Pulse columnist at
ryannyburg@dailyemerald.com.
Wild
continued from page 5
But Lula proves to be just as split.
There’s a “girl next door” beneath
the jet black wig and gaudy jewelry.
And just as Lula is there to handcuff
Charlie to the bed for a night of
crazy drunken sex, Charlie is there
the next morning with Pepto-Bis
mol for her hangover. They are two
welcome halves of the same coin.
But that’s obvious. The character
revelations that follow make their
need for each other even more
complex and less trite. These are
not characters with clearly defined
goals. They are content to drift
along in their own unchanging uni
verses — more concerned with how
others view them than with their
own desires — unaware of their
desperate need for change.
By the time the two get to Lula’s
high school reunion, where Charlie
rOCKLER'5
Ice Cream and Coffee Parlour
poses as her husband, we have no
clue where the action will take us
next. Any desire to guess the out
come is replaced by a willingness to
enjoy the ride.
And just when the movie seems
ready to setde into a cliche road com
edy, Lula’s ex-husband, Ray (Ray Li
otta) shows up to spin the movie off
in a deeper and darker direction.
“Something Wild” is Demme’s
vision of America as a perverse but
welcome mixture of cultures.
From the obvious differences be
tween Lula and Charlie to the dull
ness of the status seekers at the re
union to Ray’s unchanging
adolescent aggression, the movie
gives us an odd cocktail of every
thing wonderful and obnoxious
about the United States.
Demme has always had a knack
for shaping characters of genuine
truth. It’s the reason “Silence of the
Lambs” was so terrifying and
“Melvin and Howard” was so
touching. He is great with actors,
and from “Something Wild,” one
gets the sense that the characters
on screen are far more than what
existed on the pages of E. Max
Frye’s script.
The movie proves the director is
at his best when he’s having fun. He
has since drifted from that style into
more dramatic fare like “Philadel
phia” and “Beloved.” His recent
“The Truth About Charlie” was a re
turn to instinctive cinema but with
less entertaining results.
“Something Wild” is definitely a
child of the 1980s. The inherent
tackiness is distracting at times but
ultimately serves Demme’s view of
America during this period. Few
movies of such day-glo clutter get
richer with repeated viewing.
“Something Wild” does.
Contact the senior Pulse reporter at
ryanbornheimer@dailyemerald.com.
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