6/10
equally hilarious and stupid, Rob Zombie takes a swig of Ralph Bakshi
18 November 2009
You want to talk about random animation sometime, and are tired of Family Guy, check this out. This is so random it makes Seth McFarlane's creations look like Mickey Mouse. Rob Zombie and his co-writer, it would appear, got together and took a blender, stuffed a million and one ideas and references (mostly references) and hit frappé. It's inspired to mix together so many horror and just movie and TV things- everything from Nazi Zombies to Carrie (yes, they sing, ripped off Carrie) to Bennie Hill music during a Satan rampage and to the friggin' Godfather- but it's also a little exasperating. There's so much thrown at the viewer in such a short amount of time that it becomes a little tiresome midway through. It's all about 'what-can-stick' comedy, and in that sense it actually is a parody that could have been really bad (think Disaster Movie).

But, at the least, some of it is VERY funny, and it's mostly around just the insane nature of every character. It's like Zombie went and took every little thing he loves in horror movies- clichés, characters, tropes- and then went to the Ralph Bakshi school of animation. There's lots of sex, more than a little innuendo (when a Golem has a constant erection you know you're into the libido-larf), and the main villain, Dr. Satan, is an ex-nerd named Wachowski who got turned down by every girl he ever asked out on a date (and voiced by Paul Giamatti). If there is any semblance of story it's that he wants to marry a woman (this one being his 23rd) that happens to have 666 on her toosh. He finds her, but the only thing standing between him and her is... well, randomness, and maybe El Superbeasto, a wrestler-egotistical jerk who wishes he could be the Tick.

At first the movie drew me in right away with its manic energy and its desire to just get me to laugh at anything. Zombie here, even more than in his previous films, wants to just f*** with the senses: do you laugh or cringe or just look on in shock (or, oddly enough, boredom)? Sometimes it's all at once. And there is a section in the middle where it just becomes too much and too many: too many references without any real pay-off jokes, and too many obvious jokes to actually get a laugh at how extreme they get (oh, we get it, prisoner with huge scrotum, where to go with it though). It does pick up after a little while during the climax- not to mention the greatest tribute to the 'cat-fight' ever created- and by then it's come back around to being... decent.

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is Rob Zombie having fun, and he hopes you do too... no, YOU WILL HAVE FUN! That's more like it the attitude here. It's sometimes funny just based on its warped outrageous track, and how it pokes fun at itself for being random. And other times, frankly, it's retarded. A treat for fans, and certainly not for soccer moms and their moms. Unless of course they like boobs that punch and light cigarettes.
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