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Got Blood All Over My Best Mindhole Blowers: 'House of 1,000 Corpses'

By Jodi Smith | Mindhole Blowers | April 11, 2017 |

By Jodi Smith | Mindhole Blowers | April 11, 2017 |


I think anyone that has read my Pajiba contributions long enough knows I have a complicated relationship with Rob Zombie’s movies because I hate them and love the dude. Regardless of that, House of 1,000 Corpses is a cult classic and many horror fans love it. So let’s get some creepy facts about Zombie’s directorial debut.

1. The Firefly house was the same house used in the Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds flick The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Universal Studios originally owned House of 1,000 Corpses and a large portion of the film was completed on their back lots. Back lots that were still a part of their tram ride, causing production to shut down for the tourists regularly passing through.

2. Universal Studios decided not to release the film because they believed it would receive a NC-17 rating, which is box office death. This also explains why the movie was filmed in 2000 and not released until three years later. Lions Gate would eventually release the movie.

3. Since the NC-17 rating is always a possibility with gory horror films, Zombie filmed two versions of most scenes. One scene would be shot with blood and then without. Or a scene would have regular lighting and then be filmed again with lighting that would give it a more sinister feel.

4. After the 25 day shooting schedule was completed, Zombie and some of his actors shot additional scenes in his basement. These scenes were shot on a handheld 16mm camera and show Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) masturbating with the skeleton, the torture of the cheerleaders by Otis (Bill Moseley), and other cutaway scenes in the final film.

5. House of 1,000 Corpses started when Zombie was tapped to create a haunted house for Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights in 1999. Zombie had come up with the house idea for the following year and then pitched it on the fly for someone in production at Universal. The name of the haunted house was eventually changed since it opened after Universal had already postponed the release of Corpses. The finished film would eventually get an eponymous house at Halloween Horror Night 2011.

6. When the teens take the murder tour in Captain Spaulding’s (Sid Haig) um, establishment, a failed clone experiment from Alien: Resurrection can be seen.

7. Some members of the psychotic Firefly family were named after Groucho Marx characters. Captain Spaulding (Animal Crackers,1930); Rufus T. Firefly (Duck Soup, 1933); Otis B. Driftwood (A Night at the Opera, 1935); Hugo Z. Hackenbush (A Day at the Races, 1937).

Sources: Christian Divine; Wikipedia; IMDB