| Film Review | Dana Place |
The Devil’s Rejects
This sequel to “House of a Thousand Corpses” begins with a
raid on the Firefly family house. Baby (Sheri Moon-Zombie),
Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), and Otis (Bill Moseley) escape
the raid by the Texas State police, leaving Mother Firefly
(Leslie Easterbrook) in the hands of Sheriff John Wydell
(William Forsyth), brother of the murdered Sheriff in the
original. On the run from a sheriff hell bent on retribution
for the murder of over a thousand people in the area and
more importantly to him, his brother, the Firefly clan do
what they do best. They go on a murderous rampage. With the
help of Captain Spaulding’s half brother Charlie Altamont
(Ken Foree), they find a place to rest at an abandoned boy’s
town. The Sheriff and a few hired hitmen (Danny Trejo and
Diamond Dallas Page, who looks as though he lost a bar fight
with a lawnmower), track down the remaining gang members and
attempt to enact an “old fashioned Alabama ass whopping”.
The
original film was a direct homage to “B” horror films like
“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Last House on the Left”,
with music video like cutaways and a fast paced style that
jumped from one frightful scene to the next. The sequel to
“House of a Thousand Corpses” takes a completely different
turn, and if it weren’t for the inclusion of the Firefly
clan, is a completely different film altogether. The 2nd
movie is slow and deliberate, abandoning the quick cut style
of the first for slow motion shots and long, drawn out
murder scenes. The Devil’s Rejects takes a lot of it’s
inspiration from old “Super Action” films, as they are known
in your local Blockbuster. Films like “Big Bad Mama” ,
“Gator Bait”, or Death Wish, where the only prerequisites
are loads of violence and plenty of T and A. This is not a
horror film and anyone walking into this expecting a movie
like the original will probably be sorely disappointed.
This is actually a movie about one brother’s thirst for
revenge over his brother’s death. He just happens to be
chasing a twisted “family” that enjoys toying with people
and killing them. And as such, this movie is as close to
those old drive-in movies as has come across the big screen
in 20 years. Sheriff Wydell’s single-minded, to the point of
making him one dimensional, pursuit of these mass murderers
turns him into more of a villain than the people he is
chasing. For all of the horror of the first film and the
blood lust in the second, by the end of the film, the
Firefly clan come out of the series as a strange type of
pseudo-likeable people. Which I think was the overall point
(writer/director) Rob Zombie was trying to make.
After watching the first film, which I thoroughly enjoyed,
and not sure what to make of his experimental style, I
wasn’t exactly sure what to expect in Rob Zombie’s newest
film. The complete difference in the two films only makes me
enjoy both more, so…
On a scale of one to ten stars, I give “The Devil’s
Rejects” 7 stars
