Rob Zombie's theatrical directing debut "House of 1000 Corpses" has often been sold as wacky horror comedy. But it's everything else than that.

Zombie does a good job with making the viewer feel save in the first half of the movie. The first scene could have been right out of "From Dusk Till Dawn" or one of its countless rip-offs: Two people having a funny conversation and it all ends in a blood bath. Been there, done that more than once. Then your typical teen-horror characters get introduced. All of them more annoying than likable. And so the movie goes on and you are pretty sure that nothing too interesting will happen anymore. WRONG! Suddenly Rob Zombie shifts gear and what started as an average teenie-slasher, becomes a twisted and frightening piece of unexpected terror. And I mean REALLY unexpected, not just "creative killings". You can't tell what happens next, especially not in the last act.

Many viewers have complained about the "Video clip style" of the movie. Well, I can see that it might be annoying for some viewers, but it also adds a surreal quality to the movie. The whole thing looks and feels like a nightmare! Colours change from normal to screaming, people say things that don't make any sense, you see crazy pictures, everything you might have witnessed in a dream is in that movie! Seriously, this is an underrated piece of horror film. At one side just being an update of gritty horror movies like "Texas Chain Saw Massacre", on the other side something completely original. At first sight it looks like a complete mess, but it's a well calculated kick in the stomach!