This kind of animation haunts only my bowels...

Day two of the Exploitation Film Extravaganza presents...

THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO (2009)

D. Rob Zombie

Anchor Bay/ Starz

1.77 Anamorphic

This long in production animated exploitation in joked laden extravaganza owes as much to Scooby-Do as it does to the horror and exploitation that director Rob Zombie grew up with. It unfortunately is not nearly as intelligent as the average episode of said kid’s show. The idea here is not unlike Zombie’s first feature film HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES where he just threw all his influences into the cinematic blender and hoped it would all blend into some sort of entertaining cocktail. But unlike CORPSES which entertains almost on sheer passion and love of the genre, this just becomes annoying rather quickly, not matter how many genre references are made or cartoon titties are bounced into the camera.

"Bride of Frankenstein gets a little lip to lip action from the Creature From The Black Lagoon"

What little plot there is deals with the hero El Superbeasto a Wrestling movie celebrity who moonlights as a superhero and his bodacious busty blond sister Suzi X who is the real hero of the family. Together they fight monsters, zombies and what ever the hell else happens to be sliming around. Suzi is currently trying to dig up the severed head of Adolph Hitler from the zombie army while Beasto is trying to find the stripper kidnapped by Dr. Satan who intends to use her to become some super-demon who can rule the world. Stuffed into this whole mess is every conceivable in-joke, racial stereotype, sex gag, big tit gag, boner joke, and classic monster reference you can choke down. All with pretty terrible sub Trey Parker-esque songs the tell you what is happening on screen.

"Cartoon fetishism at it's very best?"

The design of the movie is very lovely with great animation; why the movie took so damn long to produce. The backgrounds and character design are always interesting to  look at and whenever a female character takes off her top suddenly the animation seems to get a little bit better spending more time on the bouncing breasts or undulating ass. But the writing is from the loins of an eleven year old, aimed directly at that level all the way around. I’m sure Rob Zombie feels he is living it up in the same vein as someone such as Ralph Bakshi, but there is nothing in this movie that holds a candle to even the worst of Bakshi’s work. Bakshi pushed boundaries and had something of interest to say. This is just the out of control libido and fascinations of an obsessed fan boy splashed out in colorful animation.

"It is okay to masturbate to cartoons. The Japanese do it all the time!"

That is not to say it isn’t amusing now and again. Occasionally there is a funny moment such as the cat-fight that climaxes the movie and the song explaining how it is okay to masturbate to cartoons because the Japanese do it all the time. Or the big giant monster chase/ destruction scene set to “yackety Sax “from Benny Hill complete with ladies getting their dresses ripped off. But when Zombie starts trotting out his own characters from his own movies for cameo’s the small favors the movie has already gained feel really slight indeed.

"In jokes are fine, but when Zombie starts throwing in his own characters, the jokes wear out their welcome."

I’m sure this is one big labor of love for Rob Zombie and he thinks it is a riot. But as a cohesive movie this really doesn’t work. To call it a mess is being kind.



Review © Andrew Copp