The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

Blu-ray Release Company: Starz/Anchor Bay Home Entertainment (http://www.starz.com/) & Manga Entertainment (http://www.manga.com/)
Language: English
Length: 77 Minutes
Image: Color
Year: 2009
Rated: R (For Strong Crude And Sexual Content Throughout, Nude Graphics, Language, Violence And Gore)
Release Date: September 21, 2009

“It’s all right to jerk off to cartoons. The Japanese do it everyday. So, rub one out for the U.S.A.” — Hard ‘N Phirm (Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman)

“Holy fun bag titty city, Batman!” — El Superbeasto (Tom Papa)

MOVIE REVIEW

Like the comic book adaptation, and like all the other comic books, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto tries to cram as much sickening, weird, gore and whores, off-the-wall graphic titty material as possible and hopes to be able to come across to the audience as a story you can follow with some clearity. The haunted world represents what takes place inside that shell Rob Zombie calls a cranium – a cross between jumbled mental madness and a fistful of horror icons. You’ll like snazzy feel of the Haunted World but I doubt you’ll think the same of the unfunny El Superbeasto who lives in it.

The abandoned baby El Superbeasto lives in a world of legendary classic monsters, story-insane mad men, zombie Nazis and any and all other lovable genre characters from the decades of horror. In his narcissistic view, he is the celeb of celebrities – he hits up the best club called Haunted Palace, he bangs the hottest women and he treats everyone like the gum on the bottom of his lucha libre wrestling boot. But when ghetto stripper Velvet Von Black takes the dance floor for an all out boobs and butts performance, El Superbeasto can hardly keep his little high flier in his pants. However, the puny Dr. Satan has other plans for Von Black, kidnapping her and forcing her to be his bride in order to become the all powerful Dr. Satan – a gigantic badass satyr with razor teeth. His layout’s motivation is simple – revenge against all those who teased him in high school, especially our masked luchador hero. This has El Superbeasto faced with his toughest challenge he has ever faced – save the girl of his dreams or eat hot wings. With much reluctance, he ultimately chooses Von Black and teams up with his hot bod superhero sister Suzi X and her “horny for Suzi” Murray the Robot to save Von Black and take down Dr. Satan.

With scores of interesting characters, El Superbeasto is the worst! There isn’t a single solitary thing that any person over the age of 14 years old and isn’t a moron would like about him. His whole schtick is to be funny and to be cute with his celebrity glam narcissism. The funny bit bit back in a non-funny third rate stand up comedy kind of way and the narcissism just got old throughout the entire 77 minutes of the film (side note: Again, I can’t stress this enough but 77 minutes is a complete blur for this movie). I know he is a comic book hero but comic book heroes and heroines usually change or learn something about themselves…usually, right? At least from all my issues of Marvel, DC and Dark Horse that I own, I know this to be true. So, why make a comic and a feature film about this bloated, full of shit womanizing wrestler? Is it just for the womanizing? He seems to be good at banging a lot of chicks. I’m not going to rag on Tom Papa. The guy did an amazing job on the voice but the character needs to be revised or be erased.

Beasto sings of himself…

I would have called this film The Haunted World of Suzi X. She seemed to have more of a screen appearance than El Superbeasto did. Sheri Moon Zombie did the voice and I see her being the epitome of voice overs. There is this cuteness yet sarcastic, sweet yet sassy, innocent yet slutty tone and her little quirky laugh is perfect for voice overs! Suzi X is a sexy kick ass superhero type who is bane of mens’ fantasies and the annihilator of anything and everything evil that is in her path. Throughout most of the movie, the army of Nazi zombies are numerously obliterated and constantly mocked for their incompetence by Suzi. She is a quick talker, gun-slinging, subconsciously horny super vixen. Her drawn scenes with Murray the Robot remind me a lot of Saturday Night Live’s The Ambiguously Gay Duo sketches except without the gayness and with more of a woman and her machine feel.

Suzi X kicking Nazi ass!

I can’t just limit myself to Suzi, nor can I make multiple paragraphs about each and every single colorful character. But here is one paragraph, describing some of of the most notable. First off, Dr. Satan, played by Paul Giamatti, is a spin-off character from Zombie’s first feature film House of 1000 Corpses. This Dr. Satan is the actual Satan himself and him and his smart henchman gorilla have a desire to make the world their bitch, but the character is drawn to be made weak and sensitive unlike El Superbeasto who opposites Dr. Satan as being strong and insensitive. We are suppose to root for the first pair of characteristics usually but Rob Zombie had switched them, making us root for more for those qualities usually associated with villains. Rosario Dawnson takes on Velvet Von Black, the hottest, ghettoized girl that captures the lustful eyes of El Superbeasto. I have to hand it to Rosario – you really can’t tell its her. She really lays on the ghetto lingo thick and ads on kinkiness just to make it classy in a Rob Zombie trailer park fashion. Then, there are the Nazi zombies. I have a soft spot in my heart for Nazi zombies – I mean, I own Shock Waves, Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies, I followed closely the ill-fated Worst Case Scenario, and I will soon own Dead Snow whenever the hell it receives a U.S. release. So, when I heard that there were an undead Third Reich, I wet my already continuously soiled hot pants. These ghouls, led by the Hitler Head in a jar and voice actor Rob Paulsen as Commandant Hess, are basically in the film for Suzi X and Murray to decapitate, amputate and incinerate. And, last but not least, the Devil’s Rejects make an appearance! Captain Spaulding and Otis Driftwood, voiced by none other than the one and only duo Sid Haig and Bill Moseley, make a brief cameo. Speaking of cameos, you might recognize many familiar characters besides the Rejects: Nosferatu, Bride of Frankenstein, Janeane Garofalo, the alien from Alien, and, yes, even Michael Myers – who would have thought? There are many more and too many to write for one review!

Reject Spaulding copping a feel.

I dig the animation. It has that Ren & Stimpygritty, slapstick feel. Actually, it is much like the 90′s animated short but when you throw in the loads of gore, loads of strong language and the loads of nudity, you have a glimpse of what I believe Ren & Stimpy was suppose to be about until Nickelodeon producers slashed and hacked to dumb it down to a relatively light PG-13 animated series. If you are one lucky ones to have witnessed the never before seen footage of Ren & Stimpy, there is nudity. Many artists from Disney studios came to work on this project and I heard that they were eagerly excited to do so because I’m sure working on nothing but goody-to-shoe, happy-go-lucky material all the time would drive any sane person to having unspeakable cravings for little girl princesses with their Pinocchio extending…uh…”noses.” Lets keep this review rated R, instead of going beyond XXX. Speaking of hardcore pornography, the animation is damn near it. With have animated tits left and right and even a couple of full frontal nude scenes with Suzi X, it is a bit unsettling because it comes straight out of left field and seeing a totally nude cartoon that isn’t an animated gif image of The Simpsons is just awkward in my demented book. Don’t worry, it is a good demented awkwardness.

Just a taste of the animated jugg-a-thon this Zombie film has to offer.

If you have no interest in the film, do, and I mean do, check out the soundtrack for this. The hilarious music comedy duo of Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman form Hard ‘N Phrim and they make enjoyable, very funny soundtracks that incorporate the current scene being played out. Tyler Bates does the musical score and this is no surprise here because he has worked with Zombie in the past on the Halloween remake films. Bates does an excellent job creating a haunted atmosphere but he makes it fun too. I’m just surprised the Rob Zombie’s Superbeast didn’t make the cut into the film…odd, isn’t it?

The overall review for The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is high. This is most definitely not your average Saturday morning cartoon nor is it a hardcore porn parody illustration but what we get for our money is an entertaining, shockingly outrageous fantasy ride. It might make you cringe at the unfunny moments but there are times when laughter becomes uncontrollable. It also might make you tingle in your private areas but like the quote at the top of this review says, “rub one out for the U.S.A.”

DVD REVIEW

I got my hands on the blu-ray single disc copy, released by Starz Entertainment and Manga Entertainment, and it is extremely vibrant with all the various colors used. I couldn’t ask for anything more brilliant with this sweet 1080p animated film. No grain what so ever. I do have one problem though but it might just be my copy. I receive no sound from the company intros or the start of the animated menu until I either select the Dolby Digital 5.1 or the Uncompressed 5.1 and then the sound is full blast. Product glitch? Anyway, the extras are fairly poor. Most of what you get from the special features are pre-production storyboards and alternate and deleted scene storyboards. That is it. No trailer, no commentary, no behind-the-scenes…nothing else. The DVD art is retro and captures some of the scenes from the movie – nothing too exciting here either.

The overall review of the blu-ray is very low. If it wasn’t for the clear picture, this might have been a bomb when considering blu-rays. The extras are bare for a film that has had such a stream of updates and news bits that its sad to say that there are more extras in news releases that we’ve posted here at HorrorYearbook than there are in the special features. If my audio played correctly, this might get a little bump up but for it not playing during the opening company credits and menu sequence, I have to conclude that it is a product glitch. Also, with the the cover art being anything to brag about, I stand behind my ranking of this piss-poor release.