The Devil's Rejects
Movie Review
"The Devil's Rejects"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: F
Rating: R
Released: Friday, July 22, 2005
Directed by:
Cast:
Rob Zombie's 2003 film "House of 1000 Corpses" lives in my memory as one of the most unpleasant things I've ever witnessed. It was not with great eagerness, then, that I approached "The Devil's Rejects," Zombie's follow-up and sequel, which I had every reason to believe would be more of the same. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that "The Devil's Rejects" is actually MORE unpleasant than its predecessor. Here I had thought "House of 1000 Corpses" was as repugnant and despicable as filmmaking could be, but no. It gets worse.
"The Devil's Rejects" is a film of unrelenting ugliness. It features ugly actors playing ugly characters who say ugly things while performing ugly deeds. The awfulness continues unabated for all of the film's 101 minutes. There is nothing redeeming or worthwhile about a single moment of it, not even in a prurient, I-love-to-wallow-in-debauchery sort of way. It is simply rancid, unbathed, country-fried filth.
It's set in the South in 1978 (so it LOOKS ugly, too, and I'll give Zombie credit for vividly re-creating that era), a year after the events of "House of 1000 Corpses." You'll recall, perhaps despite hours of therapy, that the central premise of that film involved a white-trash family in the middle of nowhere who killed lost teens who wandered into their territory. As "The Devil's Rejects" commences, the police are raiding the killers' home, taking Mother Firefly (Leslie Easterbrook) into custody and killing several others, but letting Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie, the auteur's wife) escape.
The two, who are either lovers, siblings or both, make contact with Baby's absentee father, a massively loathsome man named Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), who runs a nearby "house of oddities" tourist attraction and dresses as a clown. They tell him the jig is up, so he plans to meet them at a designated motel, whereupon they'll head to a brothel owned by their friend Charlie (Ken Foree) for safekeeping. (For if a whorehouse cannot provide safe harbor, what can?)
So Otis and Baby head for the motel, perpetrating a killing spree on their way and taking a traveling family of musicians hostage once they arrive. I note that, to ensure NO ONE in the film is sympathetic, not even the victims, the patriarch of the musician clan is an adulterer.
In the spot where a good guy should be, we have Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe), a vile, cursing pig who believes he is doing God's work and who kills a suspect in cold blood while that suspect is unarmed and in custody. In the film's last act, he captures the outlaws and tortures them, effectively reversing their roles: The murderers are now in the position that the heroes are usually in at the end of a movie (i.e., trapped by a madman, no chance of escape, and then they escape), and the "hero" is behaving like the villain. Zombie's point? I don't know. I get that he hates us and wants us to hate his movie, but beyond that, his intentions are lost on me.
It is interesting to note that there are relatively few actual killings in the movie. The unpleasantness comes not from the violence (though it is plentiful, make no mistake), but from the ideas. Spaulding, Otis and Baby all seem to hate each other in addition to hating mankind, and I have already mentioned the malignant nature of Sheriff Wydell. People abuse each other physically, emotionally and sexually. Even the women in the traveling band are mean to each other, before they ever encounter the killers. Zombie shows his women unclothed whenever possible, always in a voyeuristic, mean-spirited way: The first shot of the movie is of a deformed hillbilly dragging a dead naked woman through the woods. The film is ripe with naked misogyny, bald-faced sadism, and even some sacrilege, thrown in for good measure.
Understand: I LIKE slasher movies. When they are done well, they are scary and haunting, or at the very least they feature people being killed in creative or amusing ways. When they are done badly, they are usually still entertaining for their outrageousness and for their "what were they thinking?" misguidedness.
But "The Devil's Rejects" fits in neither category. It is not well done -- the killings are matter-of-fact and unalarming -- but neither is it so-bad-it's-funny. It is simply hateful. I can't think of a better way to describe it than that: pure, unadulterated, black-hearted hate. I will not hate it back, though. You can go to hell, "Devil's Rejects," but you're not takin' me with you.
Grade: F
Rated R, pervasive harsh profanity, some strong sexuality, a lot of nudity, abundant violence and some torture
1 hr., 41 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 10 comments
June 5, 2007 at 2:06 pm
i think your to hard on this pic eric it was prety cool actualy the acting was good and the sherif made me luagh he realy did man u need to liten up some and enjoy
June 6, 2007 at 12:17 pm
*..AK...Ughh.... uuuhhhhhhhhh.........(dies)*
June 6, 2007 at 2:17 pm
#1 has to be a joke, S&GF. No one spells that bad, especially anyone who would have been allowed to see it or is capable of reading this review. Someone's trying to be famous by playing the fool.
June 10, 2007 at 10:20 am
Excellent
This is exactly the kind of review that shows how awesome this movie is
That an absolute puss like yourself would find it so despicably ugly in comparison to your beloved slasher flicks shows that you actually watched and took in the movie, and that it did everything it needed to. Rob Zombie hates slasher films.
Your review reminds me of the review Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen described as the thing that made him realise what a huge success The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was going to be, which included the phrase "A vile little piece of sick crap with literally nothing to recommend it."
Hope you don't wet the bed, or that if you do, you may at least drown and rid us of your problematic existence.
June 10, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Mill - do you get this upset every time someone disagrees with you, or is there something about Eric that draws extra venom (and childishness) from you?
You did provide me with one of my new favorite quotes though - the perfect thing to use against my many enemies:
"Hope you don't wet the bed, or that if you do, you may at least drown and rid us of your problematic existence."
June 10, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Mill is pretty tame compared to what happened to the message boards a year or so ago about this. The cult that worships this film came and decided to take over Eric's boards. They were banned, but it was amazing how incredibly childish and stupid most of them were. The slightest courtesy was beyond them. They reflect this movie well. Don't try to understand them, it would make a sane person's head hurt to wrap your head about their faulty logic.
September 6, 2007 at 12:56 pm
hmm... the only reason to be that angry about a movie is if it's too scary for you.
both mr. zombies house of 1000 corpses and the devil's rejects are great movies! and ugly? well... i think otis is really sexy...
December 6, 2007 at 5:53 pm
I agree with Mrs Driftwood... wouldn't ever want to run into him, but there is something very sexy about Otis! Now for the rest of my comment: Let me say I am not a deviant and I don't belong to any cults. I LOVE horror films, and this has been my favorite since the first time I saw it!!! So many films are repetitive, I almost feel like I've seen them before. I find Rob Zombie to be a breath of fresh air with his originality (forgive me if I am wrong here, but I personally have never seen anything like it). I love the fact that by the end of the movie, I had to remind myself who I was rooting for. I love the fact that you can see the "family" in them, even though they are twisted... and lastly; it's a movie... if you don't want to see the sickness, don't watch it :o)
July 30, 2008 at 6:11 am
I've always been drawn to the film, even though its storytelling is a little sloppy in parts. I ultimately, think Zombie has subtly and right under the nose's of everyone, including its fans, created a film that is an example of the inherent value of human life. Which seems to slam in the face of how ugly and vile it appears to be, but notice the attention Zombie gives to smaller moments. There's certainly extended scenes of sadism, but notice the way Zombie gives an equal or greater number of scenes of people simply *living*. Even a minor, minor character, like the mom whose car is stolen by Sid Haig, has a short little scene with her son before being robbed.
Zombie is interested in people. And he is showing that everyone, even the minor characters, are people and have lives of their own and that has an inherent value.
But to prove that point, to really prove it, you have to prove that even vile, ugly, sadistic people's lives have an inherent worth. It reminds me of A Clockwork Orange (one of Zombie's favorite films). In order to prove that conditioning is bad, you have to prove it's bad with even the most vile person.
The clinching moment is the turn where the "villains" are made victims themselves. And in those moments, they fear for their lives and they support each other. They are human beings. And we care about them and don't want them to die. Meanwhile, the ugly "hero" is made out to be despicable.
So the two strongest themes of the film are a condemnation of revenge (as opposed to justice) and the sanctity of life (an extension of this theme is an obvious condemnation of the death penalty). But again, to prove those, one must prove them both to be true in the worst circumstances, with the most vile human beings. Zombie does that here. I think it's a better film than many critics admit to, if hard for most to stomach.
Sean
July 14, 2010 at 12:05 pm
"...an example of the inherent value of human life."
You mean as slaves? I guess slaves *do* have inherent value. Especialy since once they're old you can kill them and feed them to your dogs, so it like, 'fre dog food'.
Good point, Sean.