Rob Zombie is someone that has garnered my interest since the mid-nineties and the first time I ever heard of him with the music group White Zombie. His music is awesome and now he has moved on to films and other such projects which are just as good in my opinion. House Of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. His re-imaginings of Halloween and Halloween II. The guy has put forth material that has disturbed me while entertained me and I’ve never once thought of him as weird or even over the top. The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto is Zombie’s trek into animation based off of his comic book and for the first time I have sat back, witnessed something he has done, and just had to say “WTF?”
El Superbeasto is a masked wrestler that also takes part in many films (mostly of the adult variety) and has one of the biggest egos in the history of creation. Superbeasto has a sister by the name of Suzy X that is an eye-patch wearing, hard nosed, ass-kicking woman that takes nothing from no one. Together they make movies, battle hordes of zombie Nazis, and pretty much do as they please because there is no-one that can tell them differently or stop them. That may all come to change soon though as Superbeasto’s high school enemy has transformed himself into the evil and demented Dr. Satan. Once Dr. Satan finds the woman of his dreams (she who has “666” tattooed on her butt) and marries her, then he will become an all powerful and unstoppable demon. The time has come for Dr. Satan to get back at the one who tormented him for years as he has finally found his wife to be, but Superbeasto wants her as his own and with the help of Suzy X, he plans to get her.
Now that little description is about as good as I can possibly describe what is mainly going on El Superbeasto, but there is about fifty more things happening throughout the duration of eighty minutes. There are constant jokes and one-liners along with plenty of prop and sight gags. Animated nudity and sex scenes are sporadically thrown in and quite humorous in their own right. Random scenes that make absolutely no sense at all are also in there along with somewhat pointless cameos. They may be pointless, but you don’t really seem to mind them for some reason. Michael Myers of Halloween fame makes an appearance early on only to get run over by Superbeasto as he barrels down the road. It’s really is very weird and strange, but you sort of begin to accept it after a while and no, I don’t know why.
Haunted World is rather hard to comprehend if you’re not used to Zombie’s past work and mind. Hell, it’s difficult to understand even if you’ve followed his career for over the past decade, but certain things about it still make it a lot of fun. One of the brightest spots amidst all the insanity is the awesome actors he got to voice the characters. Tom Papa who voices Superbeasto is joined by the hilarious and phenomenal Brian Posehn and Paul Giamatti. Rosario Dawson shows up and fits into her role absolutely perfectly. Then there are the horror and Zombie regulars such as Ken Foree, Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Zombie’s wife Sheri Moon Zombie. Haig reprising his role as Captain Spaulding but now in an animated form just made me all kinds of horror geek-out.
The film is presented in 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format and the animation is quite good. Don’t go expecting something of Pixar proportions here because there is no computer imagery as this is all hand drawn. It is over the top and very reminiscent of Ren & Stimpy, but that just screams awesome anyway.
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound is the film’s soundtrack and you just had to know it was going to sound good. All voices come through well making the dialogue heard nicely at all times while the surrounding speakers are great with the sound effects and kick ass soundtrack.
Deleted Scenes & Shots – A few cut scenes that are not too bad. One of Superbeasto in the mirror flexing his ass had me laughing a little bit, but not much else to this. (4:27)
Alternate Scenes – Essentially the same thing as the deleted scenes, but most or all of these are incomplete. Backgrounds aren’t put in or the characters are only in pencil sketch and stuff like that. An interesting storyboard for an alternate opening is in there, but I’m glad they kept the one in the finished film. (35:14)
This is one of the hardest reviews I have ever done, because it is just so much of an off-the-wall film that recommending it to those who aren’t hardcore Zombie fans would prove difficult. There may be the ultra-conservative types that somehow get a copy of El Superbeasto and fall in love with it. No matter who watches it, you’ve got to be able to tolerate crudeness, cursing, nudity, disturbing material, disgusting scenes, plenty of sacrilegious stuff, and a whole list of other things that may offend you. The special features aren’t really much to write home about, but it’s probably all we’ll ever get because I can’t see this being a DVD that ever gets a “special edition” release. El Superbeasto is…well you see it’s…but in a nutshell it can be described as…I don’t know man. It’s weird, just straight up weird.
Anchor Bay presents The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto. Directed by: Rob Zombie. Starring (voices): Tom Papa, Sheri Moon Zombie, Rosario Dawson, Paul Giamatti, Brian Posehn, Tom Kenny, Geoffrey Lewis, Ken Foree. Written by: Rob Zombie & Tom Papa. Running time: 77 minutes. Rating: R. Released on DVD: September 22, 2009. Available at Amazon.com
