#25 - The Devil's Rejects (2005)
(dir. Rob Zombie)
A sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, this movie picks up right where the first one left off. A police raid on the Firefly's house sends Baby and Otis on the run, and the rest of the household either dead or arrested. They shack up in a run-down motel, where they take hostages and wait for Captain Spaulding to join them. They are being hunted by Sheriff Wydell, a lawman hell-bent on avenging his brother's death and doing the Lord's work through "the cleansing of the wicked."
Zombie
swaps the surreal music-video aesthetic of the previous movie for a
gritty, sleazy, exploitation film style. By taking the Fireflys out of
the carnival-like setting of their house, their insane and violent
behavior feels much more sadistic and cruel. Their victims aren't kids
who stuck their noses into the wrong mystery - they're just innocent
bystanders that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The film
gets extremely uncomfortable as Baby and Otis torture and violate these
people, which is the appropriate reaction to their actions.
I
think that the "Devil's Rejects" is more than a cool-sounding nickname
for the killers. If you consider their farm house to represent Hell
(not much of a stretch, especially considering that "Doctor Satan" lives
underground nearby), then the movie begins with them literally being
driven out of Hell. With nowhere to go, they need somewhere to hide,
and what could be a more appropriate refuge for transient demons than a
seedy motel? They use seduction and trickery to force their way in,
they completely dominate and violate their victims like a demon
possessing a host, and they do it for fun.
Meanwhile,
Sheriff Wydell is a man of God, doing God's work and walking the line.
His obsession with catching the rejects leads to his downfall - in a
dream he speaks to his brother's spirit in the basement of the Firefly's
house, who convinces him to ignore the law and just kill the bastards.
What begins as a righteous crusade turns into a fall from grace, as he
makes an unholy deal to capture the rejects (the bikers he hires
literally refer to themselves as "the unholy ones"). Wydell goes to
hell and drags them with him, and in the basement of their own home tells them that his family has "always been devil slayers".
I
could go on, but you get the idea. I think this a brilliant film, and
probably still Zombie's best effort to date (although I'll be rewatching The Lords of Salem soon, which may
be a contender). Even if the violence is too much for you, there's no
arguing that this is an extremely effective film. A lot of horror fans
consider this a modern masterpiece, and I'm inclined to agree.
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