Blu-ray Review: ‘The Haunted World of El Superbeasto’

The Movie:

It took years for Rob Zombie to get his animated vision of a Lucha Libre wrestling superstar who battles evil in a world of monsters from head to screen.  Being a fan of Zombie’s work (I dug what he had to offer in ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ and ‘The Devil’s Rejects,’ was mildly entertained by ‘Halloween,’ and ended up being one of about four people who really liked ‘Halloween II’), I was curious to see what he had to offer to the world of animation.  I’ve seen the music videos he’s hand-drawn and his albums offer some of the craziest, most curiously twisted artwork around.  Unfortunately, while ‘The Haunted World of El Superbeasto’ has a lot to offer to the world of flashy and morbid animation, it fails so miserably in every, other area.

El Superbeasto, voiced by co-writer Tom Papa, is a masked luchador has-been who resides in the world of Monsterland.  Here, famous movie monsters from all eras of cinema walk the streets, most of them sexually charged for reasons only known to Zombie.  Superbeasto and his sister, Suzi X, voiced by Sheri Moon Zombie, must stop the dastardly deeds of Doctor Satan, voiced by Paul Giamatti.  You see, Doctor Satan has this plan to wed some stripper, voiced by Rosario Dawson, who has a “666” tattoo, and that, in turn, will cause the good doctor to become invincible.

It’s all a bit convoluted, but that’s only because the film has no idea how to tell its story.  Zombie jumps from one scene to the next, never giving us any inkling as to what is going on.  There are nonsensical moments that have nothing to do with the rest of the film.  At one point, El Superbeasto is driving down the street and he runs over Michael Myers.  Doesn’t play into anything.  I think Zombie just wanted to give the Shape a quick shout-out.  A quick scene showing some  back story  to El Superbeasto and Suzi is thrown in, but be sure not to blink.

A lot of the problems in following the story falls in the area of the film’s humor.  For all of its horror-based wackiness, the film is a comedy, but there is very little to laugh about.  Most of the jokes fall horribly flat, and, it seems, whenever Zombie can’t think up a joke, he has someone fart or has some huge-breasted woman flash everyone.

Most of the film’s only real laughs comes from the soundtrack, most of which is brought to us by the band Hard ‘n Phirm.  Made up by Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman, a lot of the songs are just the two of them commenting on things happening on screen.  This is actually funnier than it sounds, as evidenced by the film’s “shining moment,” “Nazi Zombies.”  It’s funny, not hilarious, but, hidden amongst the near boredom found in the rest of the movie, being simply funny is a rousing success.  At least, if nothing else, they bring the only clever pieces of artistry to a film that is severely lacking elsewhere.

There is very little in regards to inspiration when it comes to the voice acting, either.  Papa is bland, Moon Zombie is piercing, and Dawson is indecipherable.  Giamatti pulls out a good performance.  You can almost sit in glee thinking on the recording sessions.  Tom Kenny and Brian Posehn also turn in commendable, vocal performances as Otto, Doctor Satan’s ape assistant and Murray, the ‘Phantom Creeps’-like robot who serves as Suzi X’s sidekick, respectively.

‘The Haunted World of El Superbeasto’ is sure to be a trivial moment in the filmmaking career of Rob Zombie.  For all the time it took to get the film released, it feels like, in terms of the screenplay, anyway, it was thrown together in an afternoon.  Never hilarious and rarely worth a chuckle, it tells the world that Zombie should stay in horror where his bread is buttered.  God help us all if he decides to ever go full-blown comedy.

The Blu-ray:

The animation in the film is sharp, sharp, sharp.  Zombie’s animation looks pristine when seen through the lens of a digital transfer.  The color is actually quite breathtaking, and the film could almost be viewed without any sound at all.  In fact, that’s probably a good idea.  The quality of the picture on this thing is the only flawless part of the whole package.

As far as sound goes, you got your two choices between mono and surround, no choices in terms of languages, and only one, English subtitle track.  Despite the lack of variety, the sound is almost as amazing as the picture.  With lots of bombastic effects and intense music, the film’s sound would be perfect.  Unfortunately, Rosario Dawson and Sheri Moon Zombie’s voices come through just as pristine.  By themselves, they are pain-inducing.  Collectively in the film’s later “cat fight” moments, they make you want to drive nails into your ear drums.

The Features:

Let’s just say, overall, this Blu-ray is seriously lacking in a number of different areas.  Not only is the film what it is, but, all told, there is just over three hours of content.  Being an animated film, and being as Zombie’s discs are generally loaded to the brim with features, this Blu-ray should have hours and hours of non-ending content to peruse through.

“Feature Length Animatics” (1:17:32) – Did I say three hours of content?  That’s only if you count the actual film AND this feature, which is, essentially, the entire film as seen through different stages of the animation.  Some are at the very start, only black and white shots, others are near completion.  The feature, while interesting to skim through for a little while, offers absolutely nothing and would have benefited greatly from some commentary.

“Deleted Scenes and Shots” (4:28) – Okay, let’s figure this out.  The entire film is 77 minutes long.  What would it have hurt to include this extra, four-and-a-half minutes of footage?  The entire film’s running time would have ended up at 82 minutes, not exactly ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ in terms of run time.  This feature is just a string of quick, little scenes or shots strewn together without any context or commentary.

“Alternate Scenes” (35:17) – This feature offers a number of scenes that play out differently than they did in the finished version of the film.  Some have different narration.  Some add a little bit more.  In fact, any of these alternate scenes going over El Superbeasto’s back story would have benefited the film far greater than what we actually ended up with.  While there is no commentary on these, a running theme in case you weren’t paying attention, there are title cards indicating what we are about to see.  At least, we have that little bit of context to go with while watching.

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5