By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Remember that weird picture of a dress from about a decade ago where nobody could definitively figure out if it was colored black and blue or white and gold? That was mostly a meme-based optical illusion, but this phenomenon also exists in the world of horror whenever fans debate whether a director is secretly brilliant or just plain awful. For example, nobody can decide if music legend Rob Zombie is a good director or a bad director, and the only real way to find out is to check out his debut film House of 1000 Corpses (now streaming for free on Tubi) and decide for yourself.
House Of 1000 Corpses On Tubi
It’s fair to say that House of 1000 Corpses has one of the weirdest plots of any horror film streaming on Tubi, which is saying quite a bit. We begin with a group of hapless characters who become fascinated by the local legend of Doctor Satan and end up in the clutches of a deranged family. What follows is the kind of steep descent into familial debauchery and visceral blood-letting that hasn’t graced the silver screen since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
House of 1000 Corpses has a more eclectic cast than most horror films on streaming, starting with the late, great Sid Haig, a veteran character actor who appeared in everything from the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever to the Quentin Tarantino classic Kill Bill, Vol. 2. Zombie’s film also stars Bill Mosely, a horror veteran who has appeared in such genre classics as Repo! The Genetic Opera and the surprisingly great Night of the Living Dead remake. Rounding out the core Firefly family is Sheri Moon Zombie, someone best known for appearing in almost all of Rob Zombie’s films and several of his music videos.
While those performers make House of 1000 Corpses and its sequels quite memorable, those streaming this film for the first time may be more surprised to find some familiar faces that we don’t usually see in horror. This includes Rainn Wilson (best known for playing the irascible Dwight Schrute on The Office) and Chris Hardwick (best known for Singled Out and creating The Nerdist website). Zombie’s film also stars Walton Goggins, an iconic character actor perhaps best known to genre fans for his ghoulish performance in the Fallout television series.
Long before House of 1000 Corpses began streaming for free on Tubi, it gained both fame and infamy at the box office, where it earned $16.8 million against a budget of $7 million. While this is a relatively modest profit, it was enough to merit two sequels: The Devil’s Rejects and 3 From Hell. Those sequels notably vary in quality, but they helped to transform the Firefly family into some of the recognizable horror villains of the modern age.
Unfortunately, House of 1000 Corpses didn’t dazzle critics with its stylish excess: on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 21 percent critical rating. Generally speaking, critics complained that the film focused too much on gore and didn’t offer any witty humor or an interesting story to counterbalance the many buckets of blood. Notably, the film has a 65 percent audience rating, setting up a dynamic that would dominate Rob Zombie’s entire career as a director: namely, his fans love him and his critics hate him.
When you watch House of 1000 Corpses on streaming, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether the famous musician behind it is a skilled director or simply a veteran rocker passing off extended music videos as films. There’s an undeniable sense of style to this debut film that would come to characterize the director’s entire body of work, but the critics are correct that this isn’t the most robust horror story ever brought to life. Enjoying it means that you have to have a thorough love of weird casting choices, demented world-building, and over-the-top gore, which rules out those who just want to watch a simple slasher.
Even if House of 1000 Corpses doesn’t sound like your streaming cup of tea, it’s arguably worth checking out on Tubi because of the outsized impact that Rob Zombie has had on the horror genre. He was already a genre icon thanks to his musical career and sick music videos, and Zombie would later direct modern adaptations of the John Carpenter classic Halloween as well as the vintage TV show The Munsters. For better or for worse, he’s left a permanent mark on the world of horror, and anyone who loves all things spooky owes it to themselves to check out his directorial debut.
Will you find House of 1000 Corpses as fascinatingly weird as I did, or would you rather be attacked by a killer clown than streaming until the credits roll? You won’t know until you check this one out on Tubi for yourself. Love it or hate it, this is one gory tribute to the splatterhouse films of yesterday you will never forget.
