"Mr. Rob Zombie feels it would be a little unkind to present this picture without just a word of friendly warning. We are about to unfold the story of El Superbeasto, a man of action. It is one of the strangest tales ever told. I think it will thrill you. It may shock you. It might even horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to, uh— Well, we warned you."
The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is a 2009 animated horror comedy film by Rob Zombie, based upon the comic book series also created by him.
El Superbeasto is a retired luchador who lives in the world of Monsterland, where humans and monsters live together: with the help of his sexy sister Suzi X and her horny sidekick/vehicle Murray the Robot he tries to foil the evil plans of Dr. Satan and his assistant Otto, a gorilla with a British accent.
Marred by a case of Development Hell (it was supposed to come out in May '07), El Superbeasto owes a lot to series like Scooby-Doo and The Ren & Stimpy Show, with a lot more violence and many sexual elements and innuendo added, and therefore it's absolutely no children's cartoon.
The Haunted World of El Superbeasto provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Superbeasto got involved with the plot because he hoped to bang Velvet von Black once he saved her. After a while, he seems to forget about that.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Suzi X and Murray fight triumphantly side by side against a horde of zombified Nazis.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Averted, courtesy of Suzi X and Velvet both having their nipples visible in several scenes.
- Black Comedy: Some of the violent scenes involve dark humor, like Beasto roughing up a werewolf and trying to convince everyone else that he'll be fine after realizing that he had pummeled the lycanthrope with silver.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Interestingly enough, this is one of the lines Beasto will not cross. Despite it being clear that he and Suzi are not related he never shows any interest in her. At one point even is disgusted with himself when he accidentally flirted with her and questioned if it was wrong to see her and Velvet in a Cat Fight.
- The Cameo: Of many horror and science fiction characters, from Jack Torrance to Edward Scissorhands.
- Hell, Beasto runs down Rob Zombie's version of Michael Myers!
- Camp Straight: Dr. Satan comes off as a bit prissy and flamboyant, but he's clearly shown to be into women, has had a crush on Suzi X since high school, and has married 22 women before the events of this film.
- Death of a Child: One of the first things the newly-empowered Dr. Satan does is eat a baby.
- Died on Their Birthday: One of Dr. Satan's violent acts after he becomes a gigantic demon is decapitating an old man on his 100th birthday.
- Dirty Old Man: Captain Spaulding in his cameo appearance cops a feel on Suzi X.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Beasto frequently gets distracted by voluptuous women.
- Do-Anything Robot: Murray the robot can turn into different vehicles and has various weapons built into him.
- Doorstop Baby: El Superbeasto's theme song shows that Suzi X's family took him in when he was a baby left at their doorstep.
- Dreadful Musician: Steve Wachowski/Dr. Satan as a teen tried to woo Suzi X with an atrocious song called "Eat My Love Muffin".
- Epic Fail: Beasto's Prank Call CD. He attempts to prank a woman who knows it's him and isn't fooled in the slightest.
- Everyone Has Standards: Superbeasto is repulsed when he accidentally hits on his adoptive sister Suzy.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: A lot of zombies appear in this movie. Suzi X even spends several scenes fighting Nazi zombies.
- Evil Is Petty: Dr. Satan's entire plan was cooked up for the ultimate purpose of hooking up with Suzi.
- Evil Plan: Dr. Satan's scheme is to find a woman who has 666 on her ass and marry her, which will somehow cause him to transform into a giant demonic being.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Beasto is actually even attracted to both undead women and regular dead ones, but draws the line at Suzi since technically she's his sister.
- Fanservice: Let's just say that if you made a drinking game out of every time the film showed female nudity, you might risk endangering yourself.
- Fan Disservice: And then of course there was Superbeasto's obese Uncle Carl shitting out hundreds of rats...
- Fingore: Before Dr. Satan can propose to Velvet, he has to wait for Otto to retrieve the engagement ring from his previous bride's frozen corpse. With a hacksaw.
- Captain Spaulding cops a feel on Suzi X’s ass, only to end up having it crushed by her angrily and fainting.
- Genius Bruiser: The gorilla becomes more intelligent when the screw in his head is turned.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Dr. Satan turned into a giant monster does disgusting close-ups quite often.
- Hammerspace: Velvet is somehow able to retrieve a cigarette and lighter from between her breasts.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath:
- El Superbeasto only gets involved so he can get laid. And any other heroic acts he does just make things worse.
- Suzy X as well, where despite the guy informing her of the information she wanted, she still kills him.
- Informed Ability: El Superbeasto is supposed to be a lucha libre champion, but during the film he does very little fighting, and usually only punches his adversaries. It's implied pretty strongly that he earned his reputation as a brawler a long-ass time ago and is still trying to parlay that good will into an acting career, though.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Sid Haig and Bill Moseley lend their voices to the animated counterpart of their characters Captain Spaulding and Otis Driftwood from Rob Zombie's previous House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects; also, Tura Satana from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! voices a bit character that's essentially her in the aforementioned movie.
- Killer Gorilla: Dr. Satan's assistent, at least as long as he isn't made more intelligent by turning the screw in his head.
- Lady Swears-a-Lot: Velvet von Black cant seem to go two words without adding a swear word.
- Lampshade Hanging: A lot of remarks about the tropes and references in the movie are made, especially in the song lyrics.
- Lorre Lookalike: The emcee at The Haunted Palace is an obvious parody of Lorre, with his soft voice and heavy eyelids.
- Monster and the Maiden: Suzi X is a bubbly, one-eyed super agent who fights crime and monsters in the city with her partner Murray The Robot (who also serves as Suzi's vehicles and has a huge crush on her.)
- Monster Mash: In Monsterland humans coexist with every kind of creature, including famous horror movie characters outside the monster genre (slashers like Michael Myers and Ghostface, Xenomorphs, Jack Torrance from The Shining, The Phantom, etc.)
- More Deadly Than the Male: While Beasto is a competent fighter, Suzi X is far less likely to be Distracted by the Sexy.
- Off with His Head!: During Dr. Satan's rampage, he rips off the head of an old man celebrating his 100th birthday.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Velvet von Black is lily-white, and talks like a jive turkey. Ironically, she's voiced by Rosario Dawson.
- Really Gets Around:
- Otto suggests this for Dr. Satan's first wife.
Otto: She was beneath you, sir... as well as beneath the entire football team.- Beasto tries to have sex with every woman he meets.
- "Schoolhouse Rock!" Lesson: Otto explains Dr. Satan's plan using this type of style.
- Self-Deprecation:
- While tearing about in his Cool Car, Beasto runs over Michael Myers, who whines impotently whilst bleeding on Beasto's windshield. This was more than likely intended as a playful jab towards Rob Zombie's remake of the original movie.
- Several scenes have the movie take shots at itself, like El Superbeasto pointing out how ridiculous it is that a character had a book explaining how to stop Dr. Satan the whole time and an entire musical number dedicated to lambasting the film for "ripping off Carrie".
- Sequel Hook: The end of credits mentions to look out for Beasto for his next adventure, around next summer. It didn't happen.
- Sex Bot: Murray a robot who is attracted to Suzi X and even has, er, equipment.
- Shout-Out: Too many references to horror fiction to be mentioned. To give but one example, the movie begins with a spoof of the opening to Frankenstein, complete with an Edward Van Sloan lookalike warning the audience of the movie's content.
- Murray is visually based on the bizarre robot from the 1939 film The Phantom Creeps.
- Sistine Steal: Can be seen very briefly when Dr. Satan grows and shatters the ceiling of the wedding chapel: of course, Dr. Satan replaces the man in the painting.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Dr. Satan's gorilla assistant. After being threatened about being sent back to the jungle and visualizing all of the horrific things in said jungle, the main reason he states why he does not want to go back is because there is no cable in the jungle.
- Beasto takes a long time debating if he should go rescue Velvet after she was kidnapped due to the fact his hot wings were almost ready.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Beasto had the right size ego for his large fame in the past, it just hasn't down now that he isn't as famous.
- Sorry, I Left the BGM On: Lampshaded and inverted. El Superbeasto is about to kick a monster's ass, and stops abruptly, because the sound technician forgot to turn the BGM on.
- Spared by the Adaptation: El Gato is unceremoniously killed and eaten by Dr. Satan's sewer monster in the comics, but manages to survive the encounter in the movie (albeit with a very sore ball sack).
- Take That!: Otto at one point remarks that it was a mistake to cast George Lazenby as James Bond.
- Take That Us: The entirety of "Why'd You Have To Rip Off Carrie?" is lambasting the movie for doing a shot-for-shot rip-off of the prom scene from Carrie (1976) with a line asking if anyone bothered to get permission from Stephen King or Brian De Palma.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: Subverted at the beginning: Beasto is having an audition for his next movie, but since he's going to shoot a porno, he only chooses the good-looking and dumb girls. Among the ones who weren't chosen there are parodies of Norma Desmond, Liza Minnelli in Cabaret and so on.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Every time someone gets into Dr. Satan's elevator, the man controlling the elevator unsuccessfully tries to start conversation.
- Unreliable Narrator: Beasto while describing as to why he couldn't back Suzi up during a number of their adventures. It's made clear that all his excuses were lies to cover that he overslept or was focused on flirting with pretty girls.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: El Superbeasto all the way. He isn't remotely a good person and a lot of humor comes from how selfish and rude he is.
- Unusual Euphemism: Suzi goes through a list of increasigly-bizarre euphemisms for "pussy" while accusing Beasto of just wanting to get into Velvet's pants.Suzi X: Beasto, man, don't waste my time. Is this about pussy?El Superbeasto: No.Suzi: Poontang?Beasto: Nada.Suzi: Tool shed?Beasto: Nein.Suzi: Cockpit?Beasto: Nope.Suzi: Love box?Beasto: Negative.Suzi: Fur patch?Beasto: No.Suzi: Bearded clam? Nipsey Russell? Fish patty? Panty hamster? Vertical bacon sandwich?Beasto: No Ma'am.Suzi: Okay I'll help.Beasto: [quietly] You didn't say "bat cave".
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Beasto's two greatest fears are his Uncle Carl in a thong, and rats. Dr. Satan traps him in a dungeon with both.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Dr. Satan. At the end he seems to think that this is a film where the Nerdy Hero (aka himself) gets the prom queen (Suzi) and beats up the Jerk Jock (Beasto). The brutal wedgie he gets after clearly informs him this is not the case.
- X Rated Opening: Opens up with Beasto casting girls for a porno, then showing said porno.
