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House of 1,000 Corpses (2001)
Plot: Two young couples find themselves stuck in a creepy town when their car breaks down. This leaves them at the mercy of Mother Firefly her daughter Baby and her son Tiny.
News:
30 August, 2002
Lions Gate Films has finally given this little horror hot potato a home. The small studio picked up distribution rights to the film. "With House of 1000 Corpses, Rob Zombie has created an in-your-face, unrelenting horror film experience," said Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films Releasing. "We are really looking forward to working with Rob and having a lot of fun with this campaign."
The studio bought both the R rated and unrated versions of the film. The R rated version will be released in theaters in early 2003. The unrated version will appear on DVD.
25 July, 2002
Rob Zombie has given up on the idea of getting a studio to release the film and will release it independently. In an interview with MTV, he talked about getting dumped by Universal, picked up by MGM and then dumped by MGM. "What I think the reality of the situation is, whether it's MGM or Universal, or whatever, the movie's not anything that a major studio wants to touch," he said. "They don't want to deal with it. Everyone will go, 'What about "Hannibal"?' but 'Hannibal's gonna make $300 million, so they're fine. What we've done now is I own the film, and I just hired a company that will do the prints and the advertising. And I'm just gonna release it myself so it cuts out the middle man."
He hasn't soured on the filmmaking process, just accepted the realities of it. "I mean, it was a drag," Zombie explained. "But now, looking back, it was completely unrealistic [to think a studio would release the film]. ... These studios are just such big corporate entities, owned by these other companies, and so many investors and stockholders. It's just [that] they don't want controversy. It's just a different time for movies," he added. "I've been talking to a lot of people in the business, and it's just like, there's a lot of movies that you love [that could not be made today]. They'd be hard pressed to get Taxi Driver made now."
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9 October, 2001
In an interview with Media Play, Rob Zombie stated that the movie had finally found a distributor and would be released sometime during 2002.
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15 August, 2001
Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films Releasing spoke to the LA Times about the film, "I'm going to screen it this week," he said. Lions Gate hasn't yet made a decision on picking up the film.
10 May, 2001
Over at Creature Corner they managed to talk to horror legend Bill Moseley about his role in the movie. He talks about the treatment by Universal and the fact that Rob Zombie has found a new distributor and is close to signing a deal. Moseley plays Otis, a less than friendly guy.
RR: Do you think your character, Otis, will attract the same kind of cult following as Choptop?
BM: Maybe, but for different reasons. Choptop was a lot goofier than Otis, a lot more squirmy and deadly like a diving rabid bat. Otis doesn't move that fast, comes at you from the front, not the side. There's more meat on Otis, more intelligence between the ears. Both characters are stone killers, but both are very moral men, real family men. Only problem is, they regard the rest of the human race as dinner.
You can read the entire interview here.
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6 March, 2001
Universal has officially gotten cold feet and bestowed hot potato status on Rob Zombie's horror creation. The studio has decided that the movie is simply too intense and that they cannot effectively market it. Zombie has been allowed to retain the rights and seek a new distributor for the film. "We have the utmost respect for Rob, who made a really intense and compelling movie, but it turned out far more intense than we could have possibly imagined," Universal chairman Stacey Snider says. "When I looked at the cumulative effect of the entire film, it was clear that the best version of the movie would end up getting an NC-17 rating, and we felt that would make the marketing and distribution of the movie impossible for us."
The parting is described as amicable. "I have to admit that it would've been great if they'd released the film, but it felt weird from the get-go," says Zombie. "Here we were, making this crazy [expletive] horror film, with this big corporate entity behind us. If you look at the history of horror films, the really scary ones, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, were made by little independent companies, not big corporations."
The movie was first screened to the studio in January. It was well received but it was clearly too much for Snider. "It was obvious that Stacey was disturbed by the movie, which I took as a compliment," says Zombie. "It was like, great, she's really freaked out by it. It must be a really scary movie. To me, what was most important was that the audience dug it. My feeling is that horror movies are like heavy-metal music. If you show it to the wrong person, they're going to be disgusted by it. Horror movies are supposed to be dark and disturbing. What offends some people is exactly what makes it cool to other people. So for me to cut out all the violence would be like saying, 'Hey, we made a porno movie, but we're taking out all the sex scenes.' I mean, why do you think people are going to see it?"
Terry Curtin, head of publicity for Universal sides with Snider. "I'm not sure where the line is, but it was clear from watching the film that it had crossed it," she explains. "It's probably the first time in my career that I felt I'd have trouble working on a movie. What made it even more bizarre was that it didn't seem to offend the audience a bit, which disturbed me even more."
A rough cut of the movie was delivered to the MPAA for rating and was returned with the dreaded NC-17. However Zombie has been willing to cut the movie to meet his obligation of delivering an R rated movie. At least two independent film companies have expressed interest in distributing the film. "Maybe some people will be offended, but I think the title 'House of 1000 Corpses' doesn't leave much to the imagination," says Zombie, who hopes to have the movie out later this summer after the release of his new solo album. "It's not some weird art movie. It's for Middle America, for people who work at 7-Eleven and listen to Metallica and love horror movies. And whether this movie ends up on 300 screens or 3,000 screens, I bet its audience is going to find it."
28 June, 2000
Rob Zombie has convinced B movie actress Karen Black to join his cast playing the role of a mother. Black may not ring a bell but she is a prolific actor having in appeared in 115 movies and TV roles. She was once a hot property back in the 70s, appearing in Easy Rider, Airport '75 and Five Easy Pieces, for which she received an Oscar nomination.
Since then Black has appeared in countless low budget movies and became something of a cult favorite for her work in horror movies. It was her work in such movies that led Zombie to cast her in his movie. This hasn't by plan though, she says her career has been "very circumstantial, very happenstantial, which is no way to run anything." She certainly didn't plan to appear in so many horror films. "Speaking of not planning," she says, "here's a woman who loves doing very fine character work -- I do amazingly accurate accents -- and here I am doing horror movies. Silliest thing in the world."
24 April, 2000
Rob Zombie is apparently going to write and direct a horror movie to be called House of 1,000 Corpses. Not familiar with Rob Zombie? He was the front man for the metal band White Zombie for many years before striking out on his own two years ago with the album Hellbilly Deluxe. Personally I've been a big fan of his music for awhile now. Can he write and direct? Who knows but he was once set to write and direct The Crow: 2037. The movie was never made but he was signed to do it so someone has faith in his abilities. He does almost all the artwork for his albums so we know he has a good eye for design.
He is going to build a walk through maze to give fans an advance look at the movie for Universal's theme parks. That should be available in October. Production is scheduled to begin later this month aiming for release in early 2001. No one has been cast in the movie just yet.
According to Zombie, he wanted to make something that combined the things he likes. He says it will combine elements of 30s Universal monster movies and 70s horror like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I Spit Upon Your Grave. You can listen to him talk about this himself at the movie's website.
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