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THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005)
A sequel so soon, Mr. Z? Good thing it's good... Rob Zombie's House Of 1000 Corpses was a lot like his music - great fun while you're enjoying it and a gorgeous girl is shaking her ass in your face, but it seemed to fade almost entirely from memory once it was over. Seriously, what I remember best about it is that my brother still hasn't forgiven me for bringing him along. Ironic that Zombie's second movie is a sequel to his first, since he has always insisted that the proliferation of sequels is pretty much what killed the horror movie, or at least put it into a coma. To his credit, The Devil's Rejects seems to be made with the intention of sealing off any possibility of further sequels. It's a morning like any other at the house of a thousand corpses, with the freak family therein snuggling up to the stiffening carcasses of whoever they killed the night before...until teams of police cars led by a gruff Texas lawman (William Forsythe, his best role in years) pull up and besiege the house. This is a battle for which the family is well-prepared, with weapons, armor, and for two of them, an escape route. The escapees are Otis (the wonderful Bill Mosely, made to look like Charles Manson and a little like Zombie himself) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie). The mechanically augmented Dr. Satan is nowhere to be seen. The two fugitives try to meet up with patriarch Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), but not before doing some awful shit to some people at a motel. There are a lot of cheap, sentimental ploys Zombie could've used to make us care about the Rejects more than three unredeemable psychopaths deserve, but he allows us to appreciate them on their own terms; Otis because of his energy, that he's sane enough to see faults in the trio's plans, and his savage dismissal of a dying victim's attempt to be defiant. Spaulding because of his commanding aura of authority, that he knows the fun of striking a life-long fear of clowns into a kid, and that he at least wears clean white dentures in his TV ads. (Spaulding does appear to have "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on his knuckles - I didn't let that slip with that guy in Unspeakable, so I can't excuse it here.) And Baby because...well, okay, I didn't muster up a lot of sympathy for Baby. That witchy cackle of hers all but negates her obvious sex appeal, which was the only thing offsetting the baseness of her cruelty. Forsythe is more the obvious "hero"; this is the first movie I've seen with a torture scene where I felt badly for the torturer. Of course, there are no heroes in a movie like this, but somebody's gotta give us some motives that normal humans can understand, and this is that guy. The Devil's Rejects has little in the way of "stalking in the night"-type scenes, isn't really suspenseful (except in its more relentlessly brutal scenes), not much jumping out and going "boo" - this is a horror movie made less to scare you than to make you squirm in discomfort. Remember that scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 where Stretch's friend's face is cut off and put on her like a mask? Imagine if that wasn't played for comedy - though the sudden punch line to this bit did get a bit of a shocked chuckle. Like its predecessor, The Devil's Rejects is grim, ugly fun mixed with a good sense of humor...but I think this one has a little more staying power. It left me exhausted, smirking a little, and pleased that the right people were dead and that some semblance of justice has been carried out. Still, Zombie continues to rely way too much on referencing and resurrecting the great bits and icons of yesterday's movies. The dude is homage-happy. It's not that it doesn't work (Ken Foree's R-rated impression of Lando Calrissian's first scene is hilarious, especially once you notice the hair on his whores) - Zombie's understanding of what made the movies of the past work should be the envy of just about any of today's horror filmmakers. But until he starts making movies for and of the 21st century, he's never going to be more than a pastiche artist. It's great to see Michael Berryman, but when one of the guys from Mortician is making horror movies in twenty years, who's gonna be HIS Michael Berryman? (c) Brian J. Wright 2005 BACK TO THE D's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |