“THE DEVIL’S REJECTS” (2005)

Starring: Bill Moseley, Sid Haig & Sherri Moon
Written & Directed by Rob Zombie

Polly Staffle Rating: ***

Sequels are kind of like robbing a bank. It seems like it might be a good idea, but in actuality it never is. “The Devil’s Rejects” is a perfect example. I am truly torn when it comes to this movie. As a stand alone film, I love it. It has a lot going for it. “The Devil’s Rejects” is very stylistic and oozes ‘70s in so many ways you would swear it was made thirty years ago. It’s brutal. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s disturbing. It’s full of nudity and violence and all the good stuff you want in a movie. But it’s a sequel to “House of 1,000 Corpses” and because of that it has to live up to the first film and carry on what House started. This it does poorly and because of it, I hate this movie. From what I understand, writer and director Rob Zombie did not want to do a sequel to House. But the project got green lighted, so he ran with it, making the movie completely his way and trying his best to steer clear of typical sequel pitfalls.

“The Devil’s Rejects” sort of picks up somewhere after the first movie left off. Various characters are missing, including someone really crucial to the first film, but Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), Otis (Bill Mosely) and Baby (Sheri Moon) are back and we get a sort of “Natural Born Killers” road picture.

But the Firefly family isn’t themselves. In fact, Baby and Spaulding aren’t as much fun and neither tries to steal the show this time around. It’s Otis who does. But that’s because he’s no longer the rambling albino of the first film, he’s now a Jesus-like figure with a full blown Charlie Manson beard, and before it’s over with, stigmatic wounds.

More than just the characters have changed; the whole style of this movie is different. Gone is the psychedelic kaleidoscope carnival atmosphere of the first film. In fact this isn’t much of a horror movie, it is actually more of a western with a Texas sheriff heading a posse in search of the Firefly family.

So much is unlike the first film, I feel slighted. It’s kind of like Robert Rodriguez’s mariachi trilogy or Sam Rami’s dead trilogy. From “Evil Dead” to “Evil Dead 2” Ash changes from weakling to bad ass and the guitar player does the same from “El Mariachi” to “Desperado.”

What does work here is the characters are more life-like than the cartoon-like trio we saw previously. This helps bring a bit of realism, not a lot, but a little. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is extremely over the top. But that little bit of realism helps ground us as we watch Baby the angel, Spaulding the clown and Otis the messiah do extremely evil things. We don’t really like them, but we are drawn to them. We can’t help but not look away because we have to see what they are going to do next.

In walks the sheriff with God on his side to save the day. And he’s just as sick and twisted as the Rejects when he gives them a taste of their own medicine. I’ve always liked movies with such a premise. I so wanted Mickey and Malory Knox to get what was coming to them at the end of “Natural Born Killers,” but they didn’t and that movie suffered because of it. The early works of Wes Craven are great examples of bad guys being done in by good guys doing worse. It worked in “Last House on the Left” and “The Hills Have Eyes” and I think it works here as well, although the sheriff should have been toned down a bit.

I won’t give away the ending, but I will say it is truly something else. Zombie does for “Freebird” what Quentin Tarantino did for “Little Green Bag.” Let’s just say Zombie loves slow motion and long drawn out scenes set to music and every time you hear that Lynyrd Skynyrd song you will forever have images of Otis, Baby and Spaulding etched into your mind. And if you’re one of those theater idiots who jumps up right before the credits to “beat the crowd,” you missed the best part.

My brother describes this film as the first movie where he actually felt like the people in it were really getting murdered. And I think that might turn a lot of people away from it. But I think that’s what makes it so damn interesting. Zombie has almost a voyeuristic approach with his first two films.

It reminds me a lot of Larry Clark and his movies “Kids” and “Bully.” There are scenes where the camera just kind of lingers a bit too long and makes you feel uncomfortable. In Clark’s case it’s teenagers having sex, while Zombie lingers as someone gets their head bashed in someone is tortured.

Sure it’s brutal stuff, but nothing worse than a typical Hollywood action movie. (Watch the horribly done and violent PG-13 “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” as an example). Here it’s just done in a way that it feels raw and realistic again like early Craven and since he’s not making shocking films like he used to, at least someone is. I’m sure we will be seeing even better things from Zombie in the future.

Recommendations

“WRONG TURN” (2003)
“HIGH TENSION” (2003)
“UNDERTOW” (2004)
“DELIVERENCE” (1972)
“CABIN FEVER” (2002)
“THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE” (1974)

- CCF, January 2006