The maddest story

Rob Zombie's not without his good points. Chief among these I count the resurrection of Sid Haig, whose nutty turn in a few minutes of House of 1000 Corpses was the closest thing to a redeeming value to be found in that flick, though a) it helps that it's in the beginning, before you know just how bad it's gonna get, and b) Zombie's attempt to flesh out the character in The Devil's Rejects (in part by revealing Captain Spaulding - a name cribbed from Animal Crackers - to be alternately called Cutter, a name very likely and boringly lifted from Haig's character in The Aftermath) retroactively sucked all the fun out of the previous role.

Sid quit acting in 1992; something about Boris and Natasha must have been the final straw. His hiatus lasted five years, until Quentin Tarantino gave him a revival in Jackie Brown. Whether it didn't take or whether Haig didn't pursue acting (he had a new line as a hypnotherapist by this time, which is pretty great, as I can't imagine casting a better face than Haig's as a charlatan hypnotist), he wouldn't show up onscreen again until House of 1000 Corpses in 2003.

Tarantino worships at the altar of Jack Hill, who cast Haig regularly. After one student short together (The Host, 1960), a lanky, wild-eyed 25-year-old Haig appeared in Hill's sublime Spider Baby in 1964. Almost everyone in Spider Baby is great; Haig gives a fine, simian sort of performance as one of the...medically unique Merrye children.

Tarantino's seen every one of the Hill/Haig collaborations; the triumvirate of Jack Hill/Pam Grier/Sid Haig (most famously in Coffy and Foxy Brown, along with three of Hill's women-in-prison pictures from 1971-1972) led Tarantino to cast Haig into Grier's path in Jackie Brown. I'm sure Rob Zombie's seen some of those too, but it also turns out that he and his brother Powerman 5000 grew up watching Haig as baddie Dragos in Saturday-morning serial Jason of Star Command. You make the call as to which has more cred.

The Captain Spaulding character brought Haig back as an icon for a the current gang of horror fans and directors, the latter group rushing to offer Haig work in whatever low-budget horror movies they could pitch. Haig, bless him, went along for the ride, though it means he can now be seen in such dubious titles as House of the Dead 2, Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned, and Night of the Living Dead 3D.

This last was a widely maligned 2006 takeoff, featuring a white protagonist taking refuge in a farmhouse owned by elderly pot-growing hippies. With Night of the Living Dead in the public domain, you too can feel free to make your own version without paying George Romero either royalties or respects.

NotLD3D director Jeff Broadstreet and writer Robert Valding have Haig in their sights again, setting up a remake of Spider Baby. It stands to reason that Haig would take over Lon Chaney's role as caretaker Bruno, but while Haig's got his charms, it was a unique circumstance that brought about Chaney's performance. Heavily alcoholic, Chaney wanted the part enough to swear off the sauce for the twelve-day shooting schedule, and the result is a very fine performance that must have come about due to the situation behind the scenes. Chaney's beleaguered character paralleled his own life, trying to keep things on an even keel despite the filmic/real life obstacles (deranged children/withdrawal symptoms) that threatened chaos.

Anyway, it's all moot for now, as Haig denies that he's even been consulted, let alone confirmed.

A previous incarnation of the Spider Baby remake, with an Adam Turner script making the rounds, was a story of high-school twin sisters with the ability to turn into killer spiders of some kind, and is as such worth mentioning only in the interest of full disclosure. Spider Baby: The Musical played this year in Oregon and Florida.

I was quite pleased with my copy of the 1996 Image Entertainment DVD, released soon after Johnny Legend engineered a small cast-and-crew reunion at the Nuart Theatre, but Dark Sky recently issued a new special edition with a better transfer and a batch of new features.



Cleopatra Jones was in this thing too?! Maybe Rob deserves more credit than I'm giving him.