Rob Zombie Horror Movie Sets Return to Theaters

Rob Zombie's debut horror movie, House of 1000 Corpses, is set to return to theaters this October. Collider reports that Fathom Events is bringing the film back as part of their Fright Fest lineup. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, House of 1000 Corpses will be screening in cinemas on Oct. 8, and Oct. 11. Click here to find tickets in your area.

Premiering on April 3, 2003, House of 1000 Corpses is a dark and twisted tail of four unsuspect travelers who end up captured and tortured by a family of murderous psychos. The movie boasts an impressive cast including Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, Karen Black, Rainn Wilson, Chris Hardwick, Tom Towles, Erin Daniels, Jennifer Jostyn, Walton Goggins, and Dennis Fimple. The movie was Zombie's debut as a feature film director, from a script he also wrote. He was inspired by classic horror movies such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes.

House of 1000 Corpses would go on to spark a trilogy, with its first sequel, The Devil's Rejects, opening in theaters in 2005. While House of 1000 Corpses was initially panned by critics — though it would eventually gain a cult following — The Devil's Rejects was much better received. Finally, in 2019 Zombie released 3 from Hell, the final movie in the trilogy. It did not have a wide-release, but was shown in theaters through Fathom Events before streaming exclusively on Shudder.

Earlier this year, in commemoration of the film's two-decade anniversary, Zombie opened up about making House of 1000 Corpses and shared that a lot of what made the film so magical for horror fans is that he was inexperienced and learning as he went along. "For a lot of years I was dissatisfied with it because you go in with an idea of what you're going to do, but your idea and your skill set don't match," Zombie told IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. 

He went on to share that he never meant for House of 1000 Corpses to have so much humor — as he had been trying to inject sheer terror into the project — but he came to understand its "goofy" tone that he simply decided to come to terms with. "Now when I watch it, I can appreciate it because I would never make that movie," he admitted. "You can only make something like that when you don't know what you're doing. Sometimes that makes great things come; you do crazy s— that you would never do now because you know too much to be naive and primitive."