‘The Devils Rejects’ marks the second theatrical outing for artist, musician and the worlds renowned horror fanboy ‘Rob Zombie’. And its essentially a sequel to his first venture ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ Though, somethings changed in the 2 and a bit years since ‘House’ hit theaters…It seems lessons were learnt and craft developed…

The plot picks up about 12 months or so afte the events of ‘House’ and the family are still grillin and killing out in the backwaters. But their harmonious slashing fare is going to be rudely interrupted when armed troopers storm their shack, murder most of the family barring Baby, Otis and Tiny, and take Mother Firefly into custody.

From there, the film is essentially an ‘on the run’ picture, with 3 main storylines running across the full runtime taking up equal parts of the screentime.

At first, Otis and Baby make it out of the shack alive, they cant find Tiny, so they decide to hit up their dad ‘Captain Spaulding’ who is MUCH more prominent here than in ‘Corpses’. Spaulding leaves his latest hookup and tells the two to head to a motel where they’ll reconvene. Meanwhile, the cops begin to investigate the property and find 75 corpses they can identify, alongside all manner of other gruesome bodyparts and a mass grave…But they also find diaries documenting ALL the killings the family have done over the years, and most importantly photographic evidence linking Spaulding to the crimes as well.

The police and media go into overdrive, organising a manhunt to take the gang in, Our posse meanwhile arrive at a motel to wait for Spaulding, and its here really where the first plotline starts up. A travelling cross country band are stopping at the motel, and Otis and Baby essentially hold them hostage in a kind of ‘motel invasion’ scenario while they wait. Otis takes a couple of the guys out to the desert to help him dig up some guns they buried for just such an occasion…and I wont go into too much detail because I dont want to spoil anything, but its a bit of a ride.

Eventiually Spaulding turns up and the gang head out to a brothel to try and lie low. The cops however have started to piece together a bit of timeline for our villains, and one particular cop, Sheriff Wydell is particularly invested in bringing the family to justice, hiring two vigilantes called ‘The Unholy two’ to track the gang down and bring them to him for ‘interrogation’.

while these plotlines are going on, we also have several interrogation scenes with Mother firefly as the sheriff tries to get information out of her…and eventually finds out more than he would have liked to have heard.

Probably my biggest issue I had with ‘Corpses’ was that Rob Zombie is (as mentioned) a HUGE horror fanboy, and that man just could NOT resist trying to show HOW much his big sexy horror brain knew about horror 1930 – 1979. and it impacted the film, it felt like someone just rented a stack of movies, watched through them, stole the best bits of all of them and rolled them up (unchanged and with minimal modernising) into just one film that jumped all over the place and was quite uneven.

Well, ‘The Devils Rejects’ feels like something of an improvement. Rather than just blatently lifting 3 dozen of the finest grindhouse scenes and shoving them all into one movie. Zombie here has instead decided to just cut out the middle man and has largely just HIRED these actors from these 60s and 70s horror movies to just BE in his movie. with Sid Hague obviously making his return, alongside Ken Foree, Michael Berryman and Bill Mosely.

He’s paired back on the ‘direct lifts’ and is instead going more for an attempt at matching the style and pacing of a 70s grindhouse film, rather than just referencing them. But with the twist of that gory, over the top violence coming in to try to show and do, what those in the 70s could not.

And I think it largely succeeds with that, the references and tones in the script for this one are MUCH more paired back and subtle. Theres a much greater emphasis tonally on giallo and euro horror than slashers. And I think doing that has really helped lift this film. Its still quite referential, but they’re better hidden and not as intense. and I like it for that.

So, the script itself is pretty okay. I like that the plot has a bit more variety over the last film. the ‘motel invasion’ storyline was compelling and interesting, the subplot with the sheriff hunting the gang down was enaging and at times had me on the edge of my seat, and I think its nice to see these characters who were comfortabley in their domain in the first film, get thrust into uncertainty at multiple points, and even find themselves on the back foot a few times.

This film feels much less like a conventional horror and much more like a set of character pieces that just so happen to have horror wrapped around it. and I feel like that suits Zombies tone much better. Its clear he likes the Captian, Baby and Otis. So being able to just solely give them 110 minutes to really bed in, build personalities beyond their psychotic fronts and have ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ not only helps better define these characters, but helps the audience better engage with them and take them on boad, they’re certainly not anti heros. But in doing this, they do somewhat soften the characters, it shows that, despite their circumstances, they are a close knit family unit who would literally die for each other.

While this film IS much more focussed however on what it wants to show and tell, I do rather feel a sacrifice of that is the wider universe. ‘House’ went out of its way to show the limitations of communications back in the 70s, but used it as a worldbuilding element connecting our teens to their parents and by proxy, the police. Here? the world feels a lot more closed off, essentially the majority of the plot follows the gang, or the cops and that lack of outside worldbuilding is a shame, as it feels like the films somewhat more closed down as a result. With only the occasional media and news report offering any kind of idea as to whats actually going on out there.

On the whole though? this is a pretty solid script, I feel it maybe overstays its welcome by about 15 minutes, but Zombie wanted a ‘Grindhouse’ exploitation epic and by GOD that IS what this IS. The act structuring is fairly tight with nice transitions between the plot threads, the second act once again does seem to droop a little, but not to the extend of ‘House’ and the end result is a somewhat pacy, if not incoherent at times piece that manages to keep the audience constantly second guessing whats going to happen next, right up to the final act. Which was another thing I appreciated, because with ‘House’ you could basically predict the full plot rundown after watching for 5 minutes and probably be pretty much bob on. This, is a little more original in places.

The pacing runs at a clip (saggy 2nd act aside) and it ends about as solidly as it could possibly have ended…Though, they do some soundwork which I feel is a little TOO heavy handed and on the nose. they basically do overkill to remove ambiguity…and i’d have preferred a more stripped back approach.

Probably my favourite shift for this film over the last one is we’ve now swung WAY WAY into the realms of ‘Horror’ from the ‘Horror comedy’ of the last film. This one now is really more a ‘Horror exploitation’ piece, that just so happens to have one or two dark comedy moments in place. Rather than comedy being a prominant part. I think it not only massively benefits the film to pivot in that direction, but in doing so it really helps feed the 70s aesthetic attempt, creating something that, at times feels more like an ACTUAL 70s exploitation flick than anything Tarantino has managed in his career.

Speaking of, The direction is a bit of a mixed bag. While I think they largely nail the 70s aesthetic and produce something that definitely has the soul of 70s exploitation at its core, AND I have to say im incredibly grateful they’ve toned down the ‘music video’ influences here (no more negative film shots and VHS shot footage has been massively toned down to now only the ‘news broadcast’ segements. with some scenes even getting the 8mm treatment to help sell the 70s style even more) It is a bit of a dogs dinner of an assembly at points, particularly moments in the motel raid sequence. it felt like they didnt really know how to show the fear, rush and terror of the gang storming the place, so they just shot it from every conceivable angle and then, using ultra quick cuts, just shoved as much of it on screen as possible. This ‘quick cut’ style was common for the time, but rather than give me the sense of panic and fear, it just makes me feel a bit nauseus and confused as to what im actually looking at. Moments like that are quite prominent throughout…which is a shame.

However! the tasteful use of mixed media and formats to increase impact, and a clear sharp focussed vision on what he wanted to get out of the story and the characters journies absolutely helps lift this produciton above and beyond ‘House’ in my opinion. It may not be as varied or stylish. But it KNOWS what it wants to be and makes NO mistakes about finding its identity. Which I have a lot of respect for.

Same goes for direction of the cast. It feels like Zombie worked VERY closely with the core cast here to help them understand the characters, and once they were on board, he allowed them to experiment and shape them into what made it on screen. its wonderful seeing these characters, who we only had fleeting encounters with in the first film, slowly become fully fleshed out beings across the runtime and by the end of the film, to see that complexity hit the audience back in a quite memorable finale, was a great feeling.

The cines much the same as the direction honestly, while MASSIVELY toned down on the colour and visual front from ‘House’, ‘Rejects’ manages to carve its own identity into the cine with mixed to positive results. when it hits, its iconic and representative of the decade. when it misses, its a largely incoherent mess. Shots do seem to have thought put into them across the sequence building. But there are moments where it really feels like Zombie just frustratingly dumped all the shots on the timeline, shoved them together and called it a day.

Im not entirely smitten with the colour choices here, this was the era where horror basically went the colour of ‘Mud & Blood’ I was a fan of houses dedication to effective colour use, so to me this does feel like a bit of a backslide. But then, because of the tonal shitft, I dont feel like excessive neon colour usage would have helped this production, and may have in fact felt out of place. I guess what im saying is, im not a fan of this eras colour grading, and im not a huge fan of it in this film…But at the same time, It is one of the few examples of the era where it actually DOES kind of suit what the films trying to do and say.

Which leads me into the edit, which isnt as tight as ‘House’ either, but again, much like the cine, when it hits. it’s PERFECT. absolutely nailing not just the 70s aesthetic brief. But giving us some cuts that a nothing short of cinematically astounding. Its just a shame that so much of this film feels thrown together at times, as with just a little more patience to unpick that frenzy, we could have had the horror of the decade on our hands here.

As for the performances? Much like ‘House’ this is really more of a character piece film for Shery Moon, Bill Mosely and Sid Hague, and each and every one of them deserved every award going that year. ASTOUNDING is too small a word honestly. they FULLY embrace the characters and create some of the greatest performances of the decade in horror. Every moment they’re on screen, they’re tornados. and seeing their manic and totally unpredictable energy leave devestation in their wakes, only to be followed up with some genuinely heartening and touching moments. is just crazy to see honestly. they’re incredible. And I think this film may well be the performances of all their respective careers.

As for the score? Its a jukebox soundtrack for the most part, 70s hits ranging from ‘Lynard Skynard’ to ‘Boz Skaggs’ and every hit in between. I love 70s music generally, so I really had a bop to this one…By this point in time, while the ‘jukebox soundtrack’ wasnt ENTIRELY new…It was still a somewhat fresh concept, and I think its handled especially well here. with the final scene in particular being incredibly well handled and leaving a lasting impression on me.

While ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ was trying to go grand pulling from here, there and everywhere to create a messed up semi psychadelic fever dream of a picture. ‘The Devils Rejects’ feels like the kind of movie thats trying to do a set number of things as close to ‘perfect’ as possible, rather than trying to spin EVERY plate. and I honestly think in that regard, it largely succeeds. If the worst thing I can say about this film is that its a bit overlong and in places still doesnt feel *entirely* original…then in my opinion, we’re on to a good thing.

I’d say you do need to see ‘House of 1000 corpses’ to really embrace this production. But if you have seen it, then this absolutely should be your next port of call. Just be aware that this IS a much less comedic, much less surreal, much more grounded horror film with one or two dark comedy moments sprinkled in, and I think you’ll have a hell of a time. A genuinely impressive work. I really need to revisit this one more often…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-devils-rejects/