THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005)

The Devil's Rejects is director Rob Zombie's critically acclaimed follow-up to his House of 1ooo Corpses. "House" was more or less his homage to horror films of the 70s, most notably Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Over the years, TCM (not Turner Classic Movies) has become the watermark of horror films. It is either immitated, reprised, remade, or referred to by directors who wish to establish themselves as serious genre contenders.

Not that TCM did its director Tobe Hooper any good. After his success with "Poltergeist" in the early 80s, his career has pretty much hit the skids. I was among the few stupefied viewers who attempted to watch "Crocodile" on Sci-Fi in disbelief that Mr. Hooper actually had helmed the project. As I recall there was also a dreadful Brad Douriff vehicle entitled "Spontaneous Combustion" which coincidentally was about spontaneous combustion. Clever title, that. In my humble opinion, Tobe Hooper is no more.

"House" was a blatant TCM rip-off which featured a quartet of young dimwits who stumble upon the murderous Firefly family and are dispatched one by one. For some reason left unexplained, while the goofy and comical murderers are above ground, there exists also some strange beings underground who perform all sorts of torture style operations on victims the Fireflies don't finish off themselves. I don't know, maybe I was just too tired to try to figure it out, but the underground weirdos seemed to belong to a different movie entirely.

The Devil's Rejects, for those of us who had been waiting with bated breath for the continuation of the family Firefly's story, is the continuation of the family Firefly's story. They've been found out, they're surrounded by police, they make their escape and are for the remainder of the film pursued by a rather crazed William Forsythe, who is hellbent on bringing them to justice for the murder of his brother in the first film. While Forsythe's character tracks the Fireflies, the Firefly clan kidnap people who they have crossed paths with and torture, humiliate and kill them. Fun viewing indeed.

What ultimately makes this film a cut above the usual genre fare is Zombie's willingness to turn the tables on the Firefly family as Forsythe, descending in vengeance-seeking madness, becomes their stalker, torturer and executioner. In a genre that often barely pays lip service to anything resembling character development, this change is practically revolutionary. Unfortunately, and this may be a clear indication that after all these years I'm moving further and further away from an appreciation of the genre, none of this ultimately matters. It's as if the entire message of the film is that good people die horrible deaths and bad people torture and kill people before dying horrible deaths themselves.

If the true purpose of horror is to frighten and terrify the viewer then this movie fails. Ever since the strange bedfellows of comedy and horror/gore got together, the result has been films that can perhaps shock or disturb but rarely simply terrify. And the critics who seem to enjoy them the most are the one's for whom the comic elements during grand-guinol style violence makes the film work.

Me? I don't get it. Once the credits began to roll my reaction was "pffft...whatever. Next." I give The Devil's Rejects the entire output of the Three Stooges to pour over and perhaps learn from.
BTW, the underground beings from House of 1000 Corpses were completely dropped. Perhaps their story will be continued in Mr. Zombie's next highly anticipated feature.