Rob Zombie’s follow-up to House of 1000 Corpses pulls off that rareist of treats: a sequel infinitely better than it’s predecessor. Zombie drops the schlock and gore of Corpses, but ends up with a better (and more disturbing) film because of it. In addition to three simply awesome performances from the leads, The Devil’s Rejects is a note-perfect love letter to the grindhouse cinema of the 70s. The colors, the angles, the fades, and the music feel so authentic that were it not for the older faces of this film’s nostalgia heavy cast, you’d think you were in 1976. Ultimately a deeply disturbing film about vengence and it’s consequences, horror fans should sit up and take notice of a film that reminds us that the scariest monsters of all never require CGI effects. This is a masterpiece of it’s genre.
The Devil’s Rejects
5 Stars
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Rob Zombie’s directorial debut was hyped as the film Universal Studios wouldn’t release, which perhaps gave it a bit more credit as a hardcore horror film than the resulting scattershot mess deserved. Somehow or another Zombie has focused his vision to make a sequel that not only far surpasses it’s predecessor, but might just rank as one of the best, most artistic, and perfectly realized Grindhouse films ever made.
Perhaps sequel isn’t a fair tag to bestow upon The Devil’s Rejects. Sure, the events portrayed in House of 1000 Corpses took place a few months before Rejects (though the characters looked thoroughly modern), and it’s with the same core of characters, but Reject’s shucks the cartoonish and over-simplified thumbnails of the characters and replaces them with living, breathing souls that you just don’t ever want to come across. Sid Haig (Capt. Spaulding), Bill Moseley(Otis), and Sheri Moon (Baby) return as the members of the psychotic Firefly family, while Leslie Easterbrook (from the Police Academy movies, no less) takes over the Mama Firefly role from House’s Karen Black. After an apocalyptic raid on the Firefly house, Otis and Baby attempt to meet up with Captain Spaulding while evading the relentless pursuit of Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe in a career defining role), a man whose task one of both professional justice and personal revenge. Along the way the Firefly’s abduct and terrorize a travelling Country & Western band (led by 70’s staple character actor Geoffrey Lewis), meet up with a immoral pimp (Ken Foree of the Romero classic Dawn of the Dead), tangle with bounty hunters (Danny Trejo and Dallas Page), and generally act as nasty and evil as the title suggests. That is until Sheriff Wydell catches up to them to extract a vengence as terrible as any horror the Firefly family has ever committed.
It’s run of the mill plot belays the sheer power and effectiveness of Zombie’s ability to perfectly capture his vision on film. From the shot-perfect 70’s opening credit sequence to the various fades, transitions, and angles, Zombie has managed to do what Hollywood’s other 70’s obsessed filmmaker Quentin Tarentino cannot; make a homage film that refuses to wink to the audience with a ‘ain’t this hip’ perspective. A soundtrack liberally peppered with the powerhouses of 70’s southern rock only serves to drive home the bastard Texas feel of the whole film, and I found myself in utter shock at how beautiful Rob Zombie made a film about nasty, torturous psychotics. Horror and Grindhouse afficiandos will appreciate Zombie’s cast, which is chock full of genre and cult stars, as well as the various nods and subtle homages to some of cinema’s best horror moments. I shan’t spoil them, as they add a level of enjoyment that is all it’s own.
Even more amazing than the look and feel of the film is the narrative feat Zombie pulls of by the tale’s end. For the majority of the film you’re treated to the horror and destruction that results from the desperate acts of monsters with nothing much left to lose, and you’ll find yourself thoroughly hating the main characters of the film (as you rightly should). However, once Wydell gets his hands on the Firefly family, his sense of justice has become an obsessive need to punish and obliterate the Firefly’s, making him capable of almost inhuman acts of barbarity and cruelty. Zombie’s directorial coup is placing this horrible group of people in a situation so hellish that you find yourself almost, almost rooting for three of the most evil beings ever portrayed on screen. That’s an impressive feat by any standard.
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That not-quite-sympathy is helped along by the note-perfect performances by the film’s lead actors. Forsythe brings a level of malice and intenstity to his performance that makes his previous tough-guy roles look like towel boys at the bath house. Sid Haig walks the fine line between gleeful profanity and hair trigger evil that makes his character scarier without the trademark clown make-up. Sheri Moon plays Baby like a psychotic elf just brimming with malevolant intentions, and never before has a director so lovingly showcased his wife’s finer assets with such abandon. But the real treat here is Bill Moseley as Otis, who walks away with the best dialogue of the film all the while looking like some haggard ex-roadie for Lynyrd Skynyrd. His soft and almost lilting voice provide a jarring juxtaposition with the intensely horrible things that come out of his mouth, not to mention his unspeakable capacity for violence.
There have been better films that have been released this year, to be sure, but I can’t think of a single film (and that is including Batman, Sith, and all the other nerd fests I’ve been drooling over) that I enjoyed more thoroughly than The Devil’s Rejects. In all it’s bloodshed and depravity, Rob Zombie’s second directorial effort managed to be an almost freakishly unique film: one in which the director’s vision is perfectly coveyed on the screen unfettered by studio meddling or squeamish marketing. It’s an unabashedly gleeful terror ride that might just be the first perfect horror film of this decade.