Captain Spaulding

Short Biography

In House of 1000 Corpses, Captain Spaulding was introduced as a vulgar clown and the proprietor of a gas station that doubled as a museum/haunted house ride with a focus on serial killers, madmen and freaks and freaks of nature. His main purpose in the first film was to redirect a group of young adults looking for the local legend of "Dr. Satan" to the tree where he was supposedly hanged, where they instead end up running into the murderous Firefly family.Rob Zombie described Spaulding on the commentary for House of 1000 Corpses as a "lovable a**h*le" and wanted to make the character's motivations ambiguous as to whether or not he was in league with the family or was just a murderous vigilante unconnected to the Firefly clan (in the film's opening scene, he kills two burglars attempting to rob his store). He is described in the script for Corpses as a "crusty looking old man in a filthy clown suit and smeared make-up". He has the words "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on his knuckles, a reference to the character Reverend Harry Powell from Night of the Hunter.The second film gave Spaulding a much more significant role, establishing him as the patriarch of the Firefly family. For The Devil's Rejects, Captain Spaulding's character was changed slightly; the director wanted him to be less cartoonish in the more realistic and gritty sequel. As such, Spaulding only has his clown makeup on in the beginning of the film.In describing Spaulding for his review for The Devil's Rejects, film critic Roger Ebert wrote "He is a man whose teeth are so bad, they're more frightening than his clown makeup. He plays such a thoroughly disgusting person, indeed, that I was driven to discover that in real life Sid looks, well, presentable... This was a relief to me, because anyone who really looked like Captain Spaulding would send shoppers screaming from the Wal-Mart."