Zombie clearly has a love for animation (going all the way back to 1996 and his uncredited work on Beavis and Butt-Head Do America), and The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is more than worthy of your time. The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is a film that aims to offend the unoffendable, and it might just succeed depending on your threshold for such boundary-pushing visual anarchy. Co-written with Tom Papa (who also stars as the titular former wrestler), Zombie’s first foray into adult animation follows an end of the world-style narrative in which El Superbeasto and his sexpot sister, Suzi-X (Sheri Moon Zombie), must prevent the unholy union between Velvet Von Black (Rosario Dawson), the foul-mouthed stripper with a penchant for gold digging, and the goofily evil Dr. It is by far and away the most depraved, filthy, explicit, raunchy, and gratuitously exploitative film Zombie has and probably will ever make.
In saying that, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is a wildly entertaining film that could only work as an animated feature. I won’t be spending too much time talking about The Haunted World of El Superbeasto because, well, Zombie’s next film deserves more of my attention. I suppose it doesn’t matter when you’re not paying for the production, but $8 million is still an insane amount, right?
NAZI ZOMBIE CRAFT SERIES
In fact, the production history is just as fascinating as the film itself, as a series of delays and legal issues saw The Haunted World of El Superbeasto’s budget balloon from $1 million to $8 million, which probably means the financiers will never recuperate their money. The Haunted World of El Superbeasto-based on the stories from Zombie’s Spookshow International comic book series-is the type of film that makes you wonder how on earth it got made. For now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Zombie followed 2009’s Halloween II with 2012’s The Lords of Salem, but there’s actually a little-known, straight-to-DVD animated film that sits in between and is surprisingly his second most expensive film to date. If we’re just going on his most recent film, 31, it looks to me as if Zombie has hit a creative low from which only the Fireflys can help him escape…but more on that later. Still, we know we’re getting 3 from Hell next year, but is he truly developing or is he stuck in a rut? I’m sure every fan reading this would love to see Zombie dive into a new genre beyond horror, as there’s nothing left for him to prove within that arena. The film would’ve been a new and fresh start for Zombie as a filmmaker, and it’s a film I hope gets made at some point in the future. How do you try to constantly evolve within your craft and not alienate your die-hard loyalists? Do you seek to please your fans by giving them what you think they want time and time again, or do you take risks and push yourself beyond the automatic assumptions people make when approaching a new work? I, for one, would’ve loved to have seen Zombie’s take on Broad Street Bullies, because I literally know nothing about the story/sport and therefore would’ve had no preconceived notions about what I was going to see. I’m no artist, but I imagine it’s a constant struggle for those with a ferocious fan base like Zombie. As you can imagine, even though Zombie had more creative freedom with these three projects-due to the lesser risk-the results vary between the most ambitiously original he’s ever been to feeling like he’s simply going through the motions on autopilot. Instead, Zombie has found himself working in straight-to-DVD animation ( The Haunted World of El Superbeasto), the low-budget realm of Blumhouse Productions ( The Lords of Salem), and the dubious space of fan-backed crowdfunding ( 31). Various big-budget original projects ( Tyrannosaurus Rex), visionary remakes ( The Blob), and stories grounded in reality ( Broad Street Bullies, based on the 1970s Philadelphia Flyers ice hockey team) were announced and subsequently scrapped during the past decade, which would’ve seen Zombie’s talents stretched further than ever before. Even as a staunch defender of Rob Zombie’s cinematic output, I think it’s fair to say that his career post- Michael Myers has been a bit of a mixed bag.
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