The Devil's Rejects Reviews

Since I kept hearing some good things about Rob Zombie's work, I was really eager to check out one of his flicks. Eventually, it turned out to be pretty good. Indeed, there were many aspects which made it look like any other uninspiring slasher flicks but there were also some details which made it stand out and worth watching. For example, it all started with a shoot-out which is something that usually comes towards the end. The weird thing was that, during this shoot-out, I was actually rooting for the bad guys and not really for the police. That was some clever directing here. The psychopath familly was actually quite charismatic and they kept throwing some clever and witty oneliners throughout the whole thing. Of course, at some point, they had to molest and kill a bunch of people otherwise they wouldn't be some serial killers but those scenes were not really interesting. I mean, I have seen my share of slasher flicks so I didn't care much about those scenes but I definitely enjoyed the way they developed the characters which was quite refreshing. Even if you don't like the genre, you have to admit that the guy knows how to direct a movie and I really enjoyed the music as well. To conclude, even though it was not a masterpiece whatsoever, it was still a well made and original horror flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Rob Zombie's film directing debut, House of 1000 Corpses, was quite frankly nothing but inexorable torture porn with no heart holding everything together. That film received extremely mixed reviews and there is little wonder why. I can't stress this enough: Rob Zombie may be able to produce some decent music but his movies leave a lot to be desired. When Rob's House of 1000 Corpses finally got a distributor (the original distributor pulled out at the last second) it was a cult hit and of course inspired a sequel. Alas, ladies and gentlemen...lo and behold The Devil's Rejects. This sequel is essentially another slab of relentless torture porn. All the gory mutilations, killings, sex scenes and filthy dialogue are simply present to get a rise out of its audience. Everything has been inflated to almost hyperbolic proportions! Many of the same flaws that surfaced in the first movie make a customary return in the sequel.

The Devil's Rejects opens with news reports filled with information about a police raiding of the house that inhabited the psychotics that we were introduced to in House of 1000 Corpses. All the corpses they used to blemish the premises have been found rotting by the police. After a prolonged action scene to introduce the film, we find Baby Firefly (Zombie), Captain Spaulding (Haig) and Otis (Moseley) on the run subsequent to a manhunt being commenced by the police. While trying to evade the hordes of Texas policemen that are pursuing them, the troublesome trio of sadistic serial killers hit the road...leaving an enormous trail of corpses behind them. Because of the nature and callousness of the heinous crimes the trio have committed, Sheriff Wydell (Forsythe) aims to bring them to justice. But this quest slowly questions his sanity as he begins going above the law to bring what he feels is a necessary level of justice to the serial killing family that the media have labelled "The Devil's Rejects" (logically enough, therein lies the title).

Okay, I will admit that it's definitely an original and un-clichéd idea to follow the bad guys in a horror movie, in this case an unsavoury bunch of bastards. The key problem is that the heroes and the villains are blurred tremendously. We're supposed to empathise with some sick psychos who kill people for pleasure? On the other side of the law, we're expected to cheer for an unstable sheriff who turns out to be just as worse as the people he is pursuing?

Director Rob Zombie casually tosses away the subtle horror film homages that were a prominent element in House of 1000 Corpses. Now the film is nothing but violence and gore with a detestable bunch of characters. It's also really predictable as well as becoming increasingly boring. Essentially what you have here is a film that just wants to shock with violence and unlikable characters. Once you're desensitised to the violence or gratuity of it all, this isn't really enough to keep a film going. In the similar vein of gore-fests like Hostel, the film supplies nothing but mindless torture porn.

Another massive complaint about this movie is the despicable screenplay! Rob Zombie also penned the screenplay himself. There are no lines of dialogue that attempt to sound witty. This is typical Rob Zombie dialogue: swearing, swearing, swearing, heavy profanity and of course more swearing! The number of f-words that are constantly utilised can easily set a record! At the end of the day, Rob's aim was not to place the f-word here and there when it's most appropriate...instead he places the word in almost every sentence to the point that it sounds unrealistic and almost plain offensive! Rob also wants the film to dig down into the lives of these serial killers. Aside from the obvious motive of character development that horror films usually fail at, there doesn't seem to be much point at all. These people are disconcerting psychotics and they expect that fleshing out their story will help the movie?

This pathetic screenplay is not exactly assisted by the actors. Just like the first film, the actors are a bunch of losers. Sid Haig was very underused in the first film and this disappointed me. I was hoping that the second film would show more of the eccentric clown. I actually got that! But not what I was expecting...you see I wanted clever dialogue that he frequently delivered in the first film. Here we are just fed a bunch of profanity and a revolting background. Sheri Moon Zombie is only here because she is the wife of director Rob Zombie. Rob just wants to flaunt his wife and hopefully make people think that he's a lucky man. But his wife cannot act! She's an annoying jabber-jaw with a knack for making the dialogue sound even worse. I thought my ears were going to explode! Bill Moseley is more of the same.

The filmmaking is everything we've come to expect from director Rob Zombie: terrible editing and bad cinematography mixed with fast, jumpy edits and loud rock music. I could barely stand it. The only redeeming features include some of the satisfying gore, and there are a number of laughs. Aside from that it's also mildly entertaining for the first half an hour before trailing off into the universe of monotonous, pointless storytelling.

Overall, The Devil's Rejects may be marginally better than its predecessor, but that still isn't saying much. The horror scenes don't have much depth and aren't suspenseful. It seems the director wants to create gore, not horror scenes. The worst part is that the songs employed by the filmmakers may be good music, but are used inappropriately in my opinion. The script tries to shock with vulgarity in the dialogue that ultimately backfires completely.

This film strives to reference the horror films of the early days of the genre that were relentless and satisfying. Rob relies on people who like that sort of stuff. In a sense he found his target audiences because a lot of moviegoers liked it. Well, they are entitled to their own opinion I guess. The target audience must be too foolish to realise they are just watching a bunch of garbage. Most of the sequences in the film are stretched out and forced. The hotel hostage situation kept dragging on and on...there was never any freaking point! The biggest detractor and insult is luring the audiences into empathising with the murderous family that the film follows. The lines between good and bad are so blurred that you just don't really care and you are never given a reason to care!

5.1/10