10 Most Polarising Horror Movies Of All Time
8. House Of 1000 Corpses
There was a time when horror fans thought that Rob Zombie had the potential to be the "next great director" working in the genre. Since the release of The Devil's Rejects it has attained a significant cult following and has entered the canon of admired 21st century horror movies.
The murderous Firefly family of The Devil's Rejects were first introduced to horror fans in Zombie's debut, House Of 1000 Corpses, a film indebted to the classic psychopathic family movies of the 1970s such as The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A troubled production, the film met with a largely negative reaction from critics who saw it as a cheap and nasty horror flick lacking the integrity of the material it sought to emulate.
Horror fans were divided into two distinct camps. There were some who agreed with the critics, preferring the slick thrills of The Devil's Rejects over the lurid visuals of House Of 1000 Corpses, more reminiscent of the music videos Rob Zombie directed for his releases as a solo artist than a coherent and gripping horror film.
Others relished the grotesque imagery and exaggerated sense of the macabre, considering the final act - in which the hapless protagonist finds herself in Dr. Satan's underground lunatic asylum - as a high point in the director's hugely unpredictable career (and a high point in horror set pieces in general). For those in this second camp, the absence of Dr. Satan and the Professor from The Devil's Rejects was the real disappointment of Zombie's early career.