BLU-RAY/DVD REVIEWS

Deep in the bowels of Monsterland, a washed up Mexican wrestler sex addict and his sexy superspy sister must work together to stop the evil Dr. Satan from marrying his special bride and taking over the world.

We’ve been hearing about Rob Zombie’s THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO for a long time now. I dug his animated segment in BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD DO AMERICA and was a big fan of THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, but I was still not prepared for this manic, wacky and just plain bizarre adult cartoon.

Based on Zombie’s comic book of the same name, you can kinda see that EL SUPERBEASTO comes from the creative, music-obsessed and horror-worshipping mind of Rob Zombie, but it’s definitely not like anything we’ve seen from the man before. There’s irreverent music numbers, graphic animated sex, ridiculous dialogue (“She could suck the gay off a painting of a unicorn!”) and tongue in cheek gags (like a song about ripping off De Palma during a blatant homage to CARRIE), but the movie has more in common with “Ren and Stimpy” or a really dirty “Spongebob Squarepants” than anything else.

The film opens with a Mexican wrestler shooting a porn and getting attacked by zombies, while a hot female spy stealing Hitler’s decapitated head. Needless to say EL SUPERBEASTO is unapologetically weird and thus hard to follow at first. However, once you get used to the tone, subject matter and the breakneck pace, it all becomes amusing and entertaining. On one hand you can appreciate it for trying so hard, but fans will especially welcome the constant genre references. There are some fun digs at pop culture as well as endless nods to famous horror icons from Peter Lorrre to Nosferatu to Jack Torrance; even appearances by Zombie’s own WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE S.S. and an ironic scene where the main character runs over an effeminate Michael Myers with his car. It’s almost like a horror version of ROGER RABBIT with all its references.

It’s definitely not a movie for everyone and it probably needs more than one viewing just to comprehend it’s almost stream of consciousness style and pace, but it’s unique and more along the lines of what Rob Zombie should be doing with his career. And you can’t deny he collected one hell of a cast for this, including Roasario Dawson, Paul Giamatti, Danny Trejo, comedian Tom Papa, Harland Williams, Brian Posehn and Zombie regulars Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, and (of course) Sheri Moon Zombie.

I can’t believe there aren’t any interviews with the cast or even commentary or interviews with Rob Zombie.

Full Length Animatic: The entire movie presented in storyboard and animatic format. It’s cool to see how things progress, but I can’t imagine anybody actually sitting there and watching the entire thing.

Deleted Scenes: At less than 5 minutes, these are all really short additions, some literally just extra shots. Kind of worthless.

Alternate Scenes: Over half an hour of material including early versions of some scenes in rough storyboard format.

THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO is not a perfect movie by any means, but it’s weird, funny, profane and tailor-made for serious horror buffs. I’d much rather see Rob Zombie tackling stuff like this than wasting his time with pointless remakes.

Extra Tidbit: Other celebrity voices in the film include FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! ’s Tura Satana, DAWN OF THE DEAD’s Ken Foree, Elvira herself Cassandra Peterson and Clint Howard…as Cthulu.