Movie Review The Devil's Rejects

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Directed by Rob Zombie 

Written by Rob Zombie 

Starring Sid Haig, Sheri Moon Zombie, Bill Mosely, Diamond Dallas Page, Danny Trejo

Release Date July 22nd, 2005

Published July 23rd, 2005

Rob Zombie is a talented artist and musician and a very interesting personality. However, in his short career as a filmmaker he has not acquitted himself well. Zombie's House of a Thousand Corpses was about as skillfully directed as a twelve-year-old shooting a Mountain Dew commercial with a handy cam, and his latest effort, the nihilistic serial killer film The Devil's Rejects, shows no improvement. Once again Zombie has committed to film his dark Id, and while there may be something disturbingly fascinating in there, it takes a far more skillful filmmaker than himself to find that and bring it to light.

The Devil's Rejects is not exactly a sequel to House of a Thousand Corpses. Sid Haig, who played the crazed clown Captain Spaulding in House, returns to that role in The Devil's Rejects. Spaulding, with his children Otis (Bill Mosely) and Baby (Sheri Moon), are serial killers who have for years abducted, tortured, and murdered innumerable teenage girls and one dedicated cop. 

That dead cop happens to have been the brother of sheriff Wydell, played by the always sadistic William Forsythe. Not surprisingly, capturing the captain and his clan is a crusade for Sheriff Wydell, who will do anything inside or outside the law to get them. His methods include hiring a pair of sick, twisted, biker bounty hunters (Danny Trejo and Diamond Dallas Page) to hunt the family down and kill anyone who gets in the way of their capture.

The above description amounts to a semblance of a plot but it's not what The Devil's Rejects is about. Rather, the film is about just how twisted and disturbing Zombie can be in presenting violence and gore. In what could have been an interesting break in form, The Devil's Rejects never bothers to establish a connection with the audience through a heroic character. Instead, the audience is forced to witness everything from the perspective of these deplorable murderers. This could be an interesting challenge but it is a failure in execution.

There has to have been a central idea to The Devil's Rejects, something Zombie was attempting to say or demonstrate with these characters but I could not find it. In the end, The Devil's Rejects is pointless, like watching Rob Zombie's twisted imagination come to life. It's an insight into his mind that leaves you feeling that he should seek counseling rather than committing his disturbing fantasies to film for the whole world to see.

In the horror genre you can get away with a lot of sick and twisted stuff in an attempt to frighten audiences. But there is a limit to what even the most forgiving horror fan can take. The Devil's Rejects surpasses that limit by not merely being sadistic but by glorifying sadism. The film is a love letter to the murderous behavior of its sick characters.

A scene where a group of touring musicians is taken hostage in a motel room is used as an opportunity for Zombie to lovingly capture the near naked form of his wife, Sherry Moon, as she goes through the titillating motions of humiliating a female captive. The slow deaths of each of the musicians is a pointless exercise in gore for the sake of gore. This is not typical horror movie gore, with a wink and a nod. No, Zombie takes a nearly verite approach to the violence of these scenes and seeks to tap the twisted excitement someone might find in a snuff film.

Zombie revels in these characters' violent sexual assaults and cruel murders as if they were poetic misunderstood outlaws just out for a good time. The influence of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers can be felt throughout, but where Stone was at least experimenting in form while exercising his sick and twisted side, Zombie lacks the talent and imagination to mix his horror with artful filmmaking. That is not to forgive Natural Born Killers which I also did not care for, but it's certainly better than the mess that is The Devil's Rejects.

The Devil's Rejects is experimental in that it has no point beyond its graphic violence, but it's an experiment with no real results. What should we take away from this film other than the idea that Rob Zombie lives in a very dark place?

Movie Review House of 1000 Corpses

House of 1000 Corpses (2003) 

Directed by Rob Zombie 

Written by Rob Zombie 

Starring Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Karen Black 

Release Date April 11th, 2003

Published April 10th, 2003

Horror fans have been buzzing for three years about rocker Rob Zombie's first foray into feature films, House of 1,000 Corpses. Based on Zombie's unique music videos and avowed love of classic horror films, fans of Fangoria have been foaming at the mouth in anticipation of what Zombie could produce. Now after three years of studio leapfrogging and MPAA kowtowing in an attempt to avoid the kiss of box office death NC 17 rating, House Of 1,000 Corpses is finally receiving a limited theatrical run. Was it worth the wait?

House begins as the story of four college kids in the late 1970's on the road writing a little travelog about kitschy roadside attractions. It stars a couple of unknowns alongside a couple of where-have-I-seen-that-guy-befores who make the mistake of picking up a hitchhiker on a dark rainy night. The hitchhiker is named Baby, a sexy looking blonde with a laugh like a kitten in a blender and personality to match. A flat tire leads the kids to Baby's house where her brother will supposedly use his tow truck to help them get it fixed. Unfortunately, Baby's family is completely insane and demonically obsessed with a dead serial killer known as Dr. Satan.

As the kids wait for the car to be fixed on the night before Halloween, the family, led by mom (horror staple Karen Black) and Otis, the family's top psycho, prepare to raise Dr. Satan from the grave.

Zombie brings his trademark visual style from his music videos and paints a unique horror canvas with poorly focused cameras and the occasional intercutting of black and white scenes from classic horror films so numerous you can't keep up with them. Zombie, long a fan of horror classics from the black and white era, seems to want to recreate the aura of those films but can't resist falling back on the horror cliches of the more modern era the 1970's. Indeed House Of 1,000 Corpses has much more in common with Texas Chainsaw Massacre than any of the black and white movies Zombie claims as inspiration.

There is nothing wrong with an homage to 70's horror movies but House Of 1,000 Corpses seems more rip-off than homage. Outside of Zombie's visuals, everything in the film seems a direct lift from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The film's most fatal flaw however is its lack of interesting characters. The characters we are supposed to sympathize with are one-note characters that are either whiny or obnoxious. The villains are over the top obnoxious and, rather than being frightening, they are simply annoying. Zombies fail to create a rooting interest on either the side of good or evil. A good horror film has to have a character to cheer for whether it's Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween or Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street. House of 1,000 Corpses never provides that charismatic character that holds your interest beginning to end.

The lack of a rooting interest leaves the film to rely solely on the director’s skill with visuals and set pieces. As successful as Rob Zombie is with those elements, it's not enough to hold an audience's interest. 

Movie Review: Creature

Creature (2011) 

Directed by Fred M Andrews 

Written by Fred M Andrews, Tracy Morse 

Starring Sig Haig, Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Amanda Fuller 

Release Date (NA) 

Published October 5th, 2011 

This review of Creature will be filled with spoilers, you’ve been warned. The fact is, there is nothing worth writing about Creature if you can’t use a few spoilers. I have to be able to tell you about the creature at the center of Creature and in doing so I will ruin what is the only reason to see this movie. Then again, after reading my description of the creature in Creature you may be motivated by apoplexy to verify what I am telling you. 

The idea behind the creature in Creature is so baffling and bizarre that it creates within the audience a need to share the idea with others in order to regain your sanity with the verification from others of how wildly bizarre this idea truly is. So, there it is; if for some reason you must have this experience for yourself, tune out now. The rest of you are invited to question whether I am telling you the truth as what I am about to describe will read as the completely false invention of a sleep deprived, caffeine addled mind.

Creature begins as most horror films begin with several nubile young’uns driving into a backwoods town that even the census can’t find. On hand to welcome them are the usual assortment of toothless weirdos offering vague warnings of doom. Among the weirdos is the ingratiating Chopper (Sid Haig), so named because he’s the only man in town with teeth. Chopper encourages the kids to travel to a legendary former tourist trap said to be home to Grimley, a half man-half alligator creature. 

Naturally, the kids are eager not just to seek the creature but to have sex on the creature’s property in a variety of combinations. The gratuitous nudity in Creature is really it's only redeeming value; the flesh on display is the only reminder that you’re watching actual human beings. Now for the spoiler. This is your last warning; I am going to reveal the origin of the creature. Grimley (Daniel Bernhardt) was a local legend in the early 1900’s. He and his sister Caroline (Rebekah Kennedy) are the last of their family which was devastated by a vicious and rare white alligator.

The brother and sister are intent on continuing the family line by getting married. Unfortunately, Caroline gets eaten by the legendary white alligator. Enraged, Grimley follows the gator back to its cave. After taking his revenge against the gator, Grimley consumes the beast down to the bones. Then, Grimley eats the human remains of the gator’s victims; including his beloved sister. The cannibalism turns Grimley into a half human/half gator to whom the locals sacrifice strangers. 

Our young heroes are thus the human in the latest human sacrifice to Grimley and they line up for their doom with typical horror movie aplomb. Creature is a real movie and not in fact a fever dream I had after watching too much Cinemax. A man named Fred Andrews, a production designer by trade, directed and co-wrote Creature. Andrews and a man named Tracy Morse sat together and conceived of this idea. They took this idea to another man who then secured financing and distribution for Creature.

I recount this information not for your benefit but for my own. I have to keep reminding myself that Creature was real. That reassurance in place I can attempt to make the turn back to being a film critic and discuss the film’s merits. If you are one of those souls who is intrigued enough to want to verify whether I have made all of  this up; I wish you well. I understand your curiosity; the film is just as crazy as I have described. I don’t recommend that you follow through on your curiosity but I understand your motivation; I still have to remind myself that Creature is a real movie.