TYTD Reviews

14 years after ‘The Devils Rejects’ graced theatre screens Rob Zombie returned in what was being promised as the ‘Final chapter’ in the newly minted ‘Firefly Trilogy’ and never has the phrase ‘Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted’ been a more apt and fitting description for a piece of cinema.

I dont even really know where to begin on the woes that plagued this film from start to finish, but there were so many incidents, the blurays extra features consist of the movie (standing at damn near 2 hours) and a FOUR PART ‘making of’ series that explains EXACTLY how much this film really didnt want to be willed into existence.

Kicking things off, Sid Hague, a third of ‘The Devils Rejects’ and by FAR the most charismatic ‘heart and soul’ offering of the three, was INCREDIBLY ill, to the point that he could only appear in limited closed set footage, he passed away less than a week after the film came out. meaning the entire script had to be re-edited to hastily make use of what footage they had of him, because the studio made it VERY clear that if Spaulding wasnt in the movie, there was no movie… (essentially they shot a couple of days with him looking VERY frail in a jail cell, and used carefully framed shots of body doubles to fill in the blanks). While redistributing some of his lines to Baby and Otis and then just…making up a completely new long lost relative who takes up the remaining 3/4 of what would have been Sids lines…

At that point, production may as well have halted honestly. Captain Spaulding WAS these movies, and without him, its just not the same. On that note, production problems were aplenty, with production stopping and starting across most of 2018. And post production was equally a nightmare, with Zombie essentially deciding to just…pause doing anything on the movie for 5 months to go tour and support Maralyn Manson. Its a movie the feels like it was forced into the world against any good reason for it to ACTUALLY exist. and it shows.

The film opens with the ending footage from ‘The Devils Rejects’ and a hasty news report fills in the blanks, essentially the ‘Rejects’ were gunned down in their convertable (well…duh?) But all 3 somehow survived and spent a year in intensive care recovering from their injuries. Once they were well enough, Spaulding, Otis and Baby were put on trial for mass, mass, mass, MASS murder. And one by one the 3 were sentenced to life imprisonment. with the death penalty hung over them as some kind of brucie bonus.

As the trial goes on, its revealed that theres a big public following for the ‘3 from hell’ with popular opinion being that ‘THE MAN’ is trying to put down 3 innocent people who’s only crime was ‘STICKING IT TO THEM!’…Shortly after this, to set an example, Spaulding is sentenced to death and is murdered (Not a spoiler, this happens in the first 10 minutes of this 2 hour movie…) Otis and Baby narrowly avoid the death penalty, but both get life, and then the film flashes forwards about 10 years.

Its now 1988/1989, and Otis has had his security lowered and he’s now able to go and work on a chain gang. First day on the job, he’s…somewhat miraculously paired up with Danny Trejo (half of the ‘Unholy two’ from the last film) who has NO memory of meeting Otis, but Otis remembers him. Anyway; long story short, Otis murders the entire chain gang, Trejo included, with the help of his long lost half brother ‘Winslow’ and the pair go into hiding, with the plan to bust ‘Baby’ out of jail.

Baby meanwhile, is in jail…and, has gone totally insane. Not psychopathically insane. Im talking full blown straight jacker, jabbering incoherently, hallucinating, Ripper Roo from ‘Crash Bandicoot 2’ levels of insane. Shes been repeatedly denied parole because, in the 10 years shes been behind bars, she’s committed 158 prison offences and beat up half a dozen guards. The wardens make her life hell, but she gives as good as she gets.

and it’s here really that the film starts proper…and, disspointingly, its basically a rerun of the plot of ‘The Devils Rejects’ just with some slight plot changes. So, the rest of the first hour of the movie is Otis and Wimslow doing a ‘Home invasion’ (again) to try and intimidate and terrify the lead warden of the jail holding baby to let her go (I dont think its spoilers to tell you, they succeed) And then the second hour(ish) of the film is the reformed rejects fleeing to mexico to try and lie low. with the only new element being that One of the sons of the ‘Unholy two’ gets wind that the rejects have crossed the border, and out of vengence for his dad, he gets a team of assassins together to try and put the rejects, in the ground, once and for all.

And every single facet of this film SCREAMS “Ten years too late”. Not ONE element of this production feels like it worked in 2019, and its even worse rewatching it in 2025.

The script is a hodge podge. It feels like Zombie started with ‘The Devils Reject’ script and just took it down to its base elements and then re-wrote the dialogue. because thats basically all this is, a rerun of ‘rejects’ but longer, less fun, with older characters who dont feel quite right, and a third of the heart missing. at an hour and 55 minutes, this is painful to sit through. it isnt even really ‘slow burn’ its padding. padding in an attempt to try once again to make an ‘epic’ out of the 70s exploitation genre. It worked once, you cant re-run it and expect it to work again.

I’ve mentioned it earlier, but there is a HUGE Spaulding shaped hole in this production, and the film just cannot get past that barrier. its a difficult challenge, I think any script that had this difficulty thrown at it would have struggled. But its particularly noticable here.

The script feels like two shorter (45 minute) films stitched together with 20 minutes of loose filler stapling the two plots together. The opening home invasion segment is literally just a rerun of the motel invasion in rejects. but less interesting much slower paced, with less characters, the dialogue isnt nearly as scathing, witty or biting as ‘rejects’ it feels like Rob Zombie is ‘Tribute banding’ his own bloody films at this point. ‘D’ya remember this hit?!’ Yes Rob. Yes I do.

The second half is a little bit more fresh, trading a brothel for a Mexican ghetto. But the one thing I hated about ‘Corpses’ starts creeping back into the film around this point, and thats ‘Rob Zombie: Big brain horror fan™’ As the characters start name dropping old horror movies, clips from ‘Bela Lugosi meets a brooklyn gorilla’ and ‘The Hunchback of notre Dame’ are shown throughout the film. shots are lifted from multiple horror films of the 60s and 70s. entire plotlines and themes are stolen from some of the Corman/Poe films at one point. Its frustrating and unpleasent and reeks of a film maker who had an hours worth of original ideas and nowhere to go from there.

The pacing of this film is terrible, as mentioned it feels like an ‘Act 1’/’Act 2’ situation, and honestly? compartmentalising them into clean cut acts (with act cards) may have actually worked more in this films favour, because trying to seamlessly transition our characters from the scenario they’re in in the first hour, with the scenario they find themselves in in the 2nd, is jarring and clunky. it feels like the film has 6 acts rather than 3 (act 1: part 1, 2 and 3/act 2: part 1,2 and 3) which again, just makes the film feel like it drags on for a month and year. The Devils rejects could have been 15 minutes shorter and been basically perfect. this film could lose an hour and it’d make NO difference to the core story…and thats BAD…REALLY BAD.

The tones a bit all over the place too, if ‘House’ was a 60/40 horror comedy, ‘Devils’ was a straight horror with thriller/action elements and a sprinkling of humour throughout, this is just an A>B clean cut bloody horror/action film…and thats about it. guns and goring…thats all there is…just guns, goring and in the 3rd act some nudity. and it feels WEIRD that its that way, because the dark humour and the thriller elements have been so embedded into this series from the start, it’d be a bit like if they made a Childs play film and Chucky didnt get a single gag in the whole thing. ITS WEIRD.

Not helped either by the concious decision to write the characters a strikingly different to how they were in previous entries. Im not going to comment on Sid Hagues development of Spaulding because…the guy was LITERALLY dying and has 2 minutes of screentime…But Otis has gone from weird ‘charles manson’ esq philosophical sexual cult killer in ‘House’, to a dryer, but still somewhat philosophical and rapey murderer in ‘Rejects’ to…basically just a quippy guy who starts conversations with people to just brickwall them and then stab them…thats no fun.

Baby by contrast went from a sociopathic psycho killer femme fatale who used her body and bambi eyes to lure people into a false sense of safety, then kills them horrendously, to a more muted, but still fairly femme fatale psycho in ‘Rejects’ to just…a dirty…dirty hippie psycho who spends most of the runtime just rambling incoherently and murdering anyone who walks near her.

The degredation of these characters means, I dont really feel like im watching the same people anymore. Some people could argue there was a weird shift in genre,tone and character profile between ‘House’ and ‘Rejects’. But the jump in tone and character profile between ‘Rejects’ and ‘3 from’ is an absolute gulf! its unbelievable. and a major MAJOR downgrade truthfully.

In amongst all of this you also have the addition of Richard Brake as long lost family member Wimslow. I mean no disrespect because Brake plays it about as well as its given. But this character is a placeholder. he has no distinctive charm or style, no unique personality traits. It feels like he’s literally only here because Hague isnt. and you cant call the film ‘3 from hell’ if theres only 2 of them. So he’s filling in the ‘Mike the cool person’ of this movie.

I guess what im trying to say is a good hour of the opening of this film is dry and repetative, the 2nd half does *try* to do something a *bit* new. it has a few peppered moments that were fun, but it absolutely wasnt worth the hour and 40 minutes to get to that point, and the ending, rather than feeling like a finale to a trilogy 18 years in the making, instead feels like a film maker abandoning his script midway through a sentence. its very dissapointing.

On the direction front, im going to keep it short, but bittersweet. This feels like Rob rewatched ‘The Devils Rejects’ and then, while not giving this film his full attention, he just tried to redo what he did there here. And the result is a film that at times feels lower quality visually than an ‘Asylum’ studios attempt at making ‘The Devils Rejects’ shots are lazy, halfway through the film they suddenly decide they want to try and reintroduce neon and vivid colour usage (last seen in ‘House’) which comes out of nowhere and feels VERY shoehorned in after everything that comes before it. the style doesnt quite feel as coherent and consistent as ‘Rejects’ had for a vision. It honestly feels like the director lost his way midway through production, and just…couldnt get his thread back.

Direction of the cast too isnt the greatest, 50% of this movie is just people sat around lethargically ‘shooting the shit’ you could have told me those scenes were just the actors trying to decide what they were going to do for ther weekend, and i’d believe you. 25% of this is…not even hammy, just badly acted aggressive mutilation and threatening scenes. and 25% is semi decent, but not particularly remarkable fight scenes. and again, I cannot stress this enough. IN UNIVERSE, these characters have been in solitary for 10 years. they should be frail and out of shape for the most part. I have NO idea how Otis is able to go toe to toe with so many people, sometimes 30 years his junior and display incredible knife skills…when the guy was literally a backwater hillbilly who kidnapped and screwed cheerleaders for most of the first film…suddenly his fecking RAMBO…Everyone delivers their lines a bit dryly, people seem to go where they want with limited on screen instruction…its messy and not very clean creatively.

The cine isnt great either, they’ve toned back the seizure inducing editing from ‘Rejects’ (for the most part) which im grateful for…But in its place instead are long LONG minimally edited scenes of just backing and forthing dialogue that reads like an Amdrams 3rd year final theater piece featuring ‘old folks trying to find their place in the world’. Composition is overly basic, with only the fight scenes really getting any kind of upgrade on the visuals front, but even thats hamstrung by the return of the violent editing. Its…just…dull. not bad, not great…boring.

Performance wise? honestly? ‘phoned in’ is about as good as it gets. Bill Mosely and Sheri Moon Zombie both feel like they’re along for the ride because ‘its work’ and they get a paid vacation for a few weeks to hang with their friends. their deliveries dont have that manic sincerity they had in previous entires, and they just kind of feel done with the roles…im sure they’d love the opportunity to cameo in another Zombie movie…but im pretty confident this is the last time we’ll see another ‘firefly’ film.

The supporting cast, are probably some of the better aspects of this production. arguably some of the best to come from this trilogy even…with Jeff Daniel Phillips as the Warden getting a good range to work with as his happy homelife is rudely interrupted. Emilio Rivera as the son of the ‘unholy two’ bringing a cold bluntness, and most importantly ENERGY to proceedings which really did help pump up the final act a bit. and Pancho Moler as Sebastian (a handyman working the complex the gang lie low in) getting a REALLY solid turn to explore some emotional ranges not really seen in any of the other movies…Though this is spoiled somewhat if you remember that a similar plotline was explored in ‘Todd Brownings: Freaks’ and then you remember BIG BRAIN ZOMBIE cant keep his silent era feelings in his goddamn pants.

The scores awful. just awful. its another jukebox attempt, but it feels like bargain basement cuts, rather than the prime ones in the previous film. the incidental music is totally unmemorable. it feels thrown together, and non of it really works…It feels..rushed.

Had Zombie jumped on this project in say…2013/2014, with Sid Hague in situe…AND he ACTUALLY focussed on giving us something that felt like a logical extension and development of these characters, rather than some kind of weird repackaging of the old film with different bells and whistles on it. It could have been a fantastic way to close off this story. as it stands it came out about 10 years too late, with a third of the cast missing and it just feels rushed and poorly put together. Like Zombie realised he didnt have that much time left to finish this, but rather than measure twice cut once to actually try and finish this trilogy off with something that sat like a weight in the audiences stomach, he didnt measure at all and just tried to cut once…and, in my opinion, thats what killed it. 3 From Hell is a poor end to the ‘Firefly’ trilogy…I only rewatched it this time because I wasnt on Letterboxd when I last watched it. And it’ll be a long LONG time before I put this one back in my player again. Stick with ‘House’ and ‘Rejects’ they’re a near perfect pairing and ‘Rejects’ ends the story in a way that this film couldnt have begun to match…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/3-from-hell/1/

Somehow less disgusting, less degrading and more comforting than watching the inauguration…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/salo-or-the-120-days-of-sodom/2/

‘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/

I have a lot of mixed feelings towards the works of Rob Zombie, he’s a ‘unique’ director in the sense that his work, when focussed well, can be genuinely phenominal and leave a long lasting impression. When it isnt focussed all that well though and he’s left to ‘free reign’ a project?…well…the results could best be described as ‘Fan Wank’.

Sadly, Rob is impacted by a sickness, a sickness that effects me and anyone else who’s ever willingly participated in horror movie debates or spent more than an hour arguing about the logistics of Michael Myers with a video store clerk…Rob Zombie…is a fanboy.

And theres no shame in that, horror fans can be some of the most insightful and eloquent people in terms of being able to justify why films like ‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ or ‘I spit on your grave’ are far from the murder/rape torture porn that the ‘moral panic’ crowd make them out to be…But the problem with ‘Fan boys’ is, if they arnt moderated in a creative capacity by someone who ISNT fully immersed in the ‘fandom’. They run the risk of letting their fandom overrule the creative vision. The idea that, because someones SO bedded into the rules of the system, they either become slaves to wanting to insert the ‘cool’ bits of their favourite fandoms into their work (see: Tarantino) OR, they subconciously limit themselves within a creative work because ‘Thats just not how its done in the genre’…Zombie can (and has) been known to fall afowl of both of these, And ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ is kind of the blueprint for everything I love, and hate, about Zombie as a film maker.

The film is set in the late 1970s and follows a group of kids (2 couples) travelling across the highways and byways of rural America documenting sideshow attractions and the strange sights they see on their way. While stopped off for gas at ‘Captain Spaulding’s Museum of Monsters and Madmen’ a simultaineous gas station/chicken shack/museum showcasing the murderers and terrorisors of days gone by. The captain himself offers the teens an all access tour of the museum.

While on a ‘ghost ride’ through the killers of then, and now, Spaulding aludes to one ‘Dr. Satan’ an infamous local legend. The Doctor worked in an asylum and, behind the scenes, mutilated and operated on hundreds of asylum patients, as he believed that these specific kinds of people held the secret to creating an army of super soldiers. Satan was discovered and hung in the woods for his crimes…But the day after the hanging, his body mysteriously dissapeared without a trace.

Thoroughly curious, as the hanging spot is now apparently another local roadside attraction, the gents query Spaulding about the woods location, they get some very wishy-washy directions, but head out non the less. Its here, that the gang meet ‘Baby’ a mysterious good looking hitchiker who’s…just…weird…for lack of a better descriptive. She tells the gang that she knows where the hanging spot is, and that its not *too* far away from where she needs to go, so she leads them to her old family house, where their tyres are shot out, forcing the group to spend the night at the family home…a decision they’ll come to regret…

I think the biggest problem that ‘House’ has, is just simply that its a little bit of a dogs dinner of a production. Theres just so much going on, and non of it particularly original. What we essentially have here is some kind of unholy mash up of homages, call backs, references and even direct lifts of horror cinema 1930-1980, random cutaways to footage VERY heavily influenced by the styalisation of Rob Zombies music videos, and a strange kind of…kentucky fried ‘eurosleaze’ vibe that just kind of…hard to explain.

It essentially feels like Robs just sort of, made a melting pot of everything he’s loved about horror in the last 40-50 years and reformed all these random grabs into some kind of…bloodied meat obelisk. with an extra helping of blood, guts and gore for good measure.

References range far and wide, with nudges to ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘The Phantom Creeps’, ‘Friday the 13th’. But even deeper cuts like ‘Inferno’, ‘Cemetary man’, ‘The Wicker Man’, ‘Forbidden Zone’ and ‘White Zombie’ are present. and…while its cool to see all these little influences get smudged together into one film. It does kind of open Robs feature length directing and writing career with the question ‘Well…What IS his voice?’

The script is reletively solid, its really trying hard to combine the slasher/hostage vibes of ‘Last house on dead end street’ with the tone of ‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ a kind of 70s stalker horror meets the more bloodied 80s stuff. I can dig it for what it is, at just shy of 90 minutes it does a ‘reverse home invasion’ narrative quite well, and a thing I personally did appreciate about this film is that anyone whos ‘into’ horror as a genre will NOT be surprised by ANYTHING in this movie, but the film almost acknowledges that to a point. There are several moments in fact where the tone seems to shift to a sly nudge and a wink to the audience where it says ‘We know that YOU know whats coming up…So YOU enjoy the gore, and for the folks who arnt into horror…enjoy their reactions too.’

While I kind of admire that level of swaggering confidence the film has in that regard, the problem with that gambit is, if your audience dont vibe with films making it painfully clear to you that IT KNOWS what your expecting. Its going to go down about as well as sand in an ice cream.

I, for the most part get on with this production, but I did struggle with just how much Zombie wants us to go watch something else. the pacing for sub 90 minutes is decent, but even at sub 90, the film still has padding, still doesnt really give us answers to some of the questions it itself raises, and while the tone is pretty consistent throughout (snarky, loud aggressive comedy underpinning graphic gory horror and psychological horror elements) I did find some moments to be a bit tonal whiplashy, particularly when there wasnt much of a transition piece between the two contrasting elements.

The act structuring is largely fine, I feel like the 2nd act does droop a little bit as the film gets bogged down trying to establish that the crazy family are indeed. ‘Crazy’. I personally always forget just how little Captain Spaulding is actually IN this film, I really enjoyed his scenes here and felt the film was at its best when he was just doing his thing…Making the fact he’s such a prominent character in the next movie, all the more fascinating honestly.

The characters feel a little undercooked, with most of the family getting a handful of lines only, and then being relegated to the background…Only Otis and Baby really getting ANY kind of development beyond their initial introduction, our teens quite literally DONT get ANY development and seem almost purposfully under developed…I assume becasue Zombie just thinks ‘Well, who cares about these guys, they’re probably all gonna die anyway’ which…I cant fault his honesty…But in order for me to care about them…there has to be more present than them just being avatars that spit exposition every so often.

Theres a subplot involving one of the teens fathers trying to locate them that dips in and out of the film, feels WAY undercooked and doesnt really ultimately add anything other than a gross out sequence in the middle of the 2nd act. I really wish they’d expanded on that, or at the very least let it burn out in the 3rd act, rather than being abruptly ended in the middle of the 2nd.

Direction is probably my favourite aspect of this production as we jump about between a VERY colourful, border german expressionist style for the ‘present’ scenes, that intercuts with strange experimental ‘roughed up’ negative footage (an homage to Zombies music video works) and ‘Video tape’ footage shot by the family during their various ‘altercations’ by some mysterious figure, which reminded me very much of the ‘home invasion’ scene from ‘Henry: Portrait of a serial killer’.

This hodge podge of styles, formats and colour creates a movie that feels more like someones ‘mood board’ than an actual coherent film. and had the script been even an iota more grounded, I feel like this would have massively impacted the films ability to storytell effectively. However, given that this films tone is largely jet black self aware horror mixed with grindhouse exploitation and excessive gore. It gives the film a distinct feeling that I havent really seen before from a mainstream production up to this point. I ultimately feel that it hinders the film more than helping it. Its very pretty to look at in places, but I feel like, because the visual styles change so frequently in this, it almost feels like its ‘stop/starting’ the film and story repeatedly…Just because Zombie thinks it looks cool. Its distracting at worst and putting style over substance at best.

Direction of the cast is fine enough, though it does feel like Zombie had clear favourites on the characters he wrote, and it feels like a lot of his energy here went into making sure that Bill, Sherry and Sid NAILED every single mannerism, delivery and physicality given to them…While the rest of the cast were kind of given minimum direction and just told to play it simple. As a result, our baddies, as characters, are tremendous…everyone else though? kind of bland.

The cine, like the direction is a little inconsistent. for the most part its fairly basic sequence structures, but those homages to 40s and 70s horror just will not go away and we get crash zooms, dolly zooms, atmospheric slow pans and not a whole lot of shallow depth of field shots. Its a shame really because the rigidity with which he’s stuck to scene structure here at times makes it feel a bit *too* sharp of a contrast when things suddenly all go a bit crazy, we go from pedestrian, by the numbers conversational scenes, to crazy ‘negative’ processed crash zoom sexy time…the tonal whiplash continues.

For the most part? I kind of like the vibe put across in the cine and direction, the edit isnt the tightest in the world, but it works 90% of the time…so thats good enough for me…It just feels at times like this is a film maker who isnt entirely sure how to craft a story…But noones guiding him or telling him no.

Performance wise, Sid Hague CLEARLY steals the show as Captain Spaulding, a role pretty much built for him. He nails every scene he’s in, is genuinely unsettling at times and again, im AMAZED at how underplayed he is here. he essentially IS a whole star on this review just by himself. One of the few times where I genuinely couldnt see anyone else playing this role.

Sheri Moon is fine enough as ‘Baby’ (whether thats an homage to ‘The Baby’ I…I really dont know at this point, but it wouldnt surprise me) I am firmly in the camp that wishes Zombie would make a movie WITHOUT his wife once in a while. But here, and more broadly as ‘Baby’ I think she really nails the brief. Shes got a fantastic ability to play ditzy and innocent, but to twist it into something truely horrendous on a dime. I think she was born to play that kind of character, and she plays it very well!

As for Bill? As Otis, his role is hardly a stretch, the guy played ‘Chop Top’ in texas chainsaw 2, and this is basically just asking him for an encore honestly. while he does have a little more ‘Manson family’ in his performance this time around over his Texas 2 appearence. I dont really feel he brings anything new to the role here. Dont get me wrong, im more than happy to watch Mr. Mosely just do the thing he does well…again…But I feel like the best of the character really comes out in the sequels…here? he’s just treading water really.

As for the supporting cast, as mentioned our main teens are MASSIVELY underwritten, and thats a real shame because it makes their performances kind of underwhelming. they’re basically just stereotypical late 70s, early 80s slasher kids…and I get that thats kind of the point…but Zombies dedication to the ‘Fandom’ really dilutes what could have been a good idea to take those 70s/80s teen archytypes and subvert the expectations on them…rather than just rigidly sticking to the usual formula. given this film came out at the end of the ‘subvert the expected’ era of 90s horror film making. I feel like ‘subverting the subversion’ just…doesnt really work.

Tying this film together is a fantastic soundtrack a mixture of older tracks, Zombies own music and some amazing incidental work, all perfectly well timed to punctuate the film at key moments, and a score i’d love to try and grab on vinyl at some point.

As a first stab at a feature? I kind of feel bad hitting this film as hard as I have here, Its absolutely a fun film, filled with plenty of great moments, it looks good for the most part and if the brief was ‘do a 70s/80s slasher/home invasion horror…but introduce modern horror sensibilities’ I think Zombie nailed that brief.

But the issue for me is simply how little of Zombies actual voice is present here. Like…having watched this film, It looks cool…But I have no idea really what Zombie as a film maker, as an artist to that end…really has to say other than ‘hey, old movies are pretty rad!’ While I feel we get a bit more out of him in later films. Its an issue that I feel does plague him, even to this day. and its ultimately what stops me rating ‘House’ higher than I have.

I’d say its definitely worth checking out if your a fan of 70s horror. Its not an essential watch, it wont really change your life. But its a fun 88 minute horror slasher that’ll give you what you need if your looking for blood, guts, gore and a dark laugh.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/house-of-1000-corpses/

Finishing off my little Rudy Ray Moore Binge (well…until someone properly re-releases ‘Shaoulin Dolemite’ and ‘The Dolemite Explosion’ I thought i’d revisit ‘Dolemite is my Name’ A dramatization retelling of Rudy’s early career covering his early days as an assistant manager of a record store, through to his work shaping up ‘Dolemite’ as a character, right the way through to the world premiere of the ‘Dolemite’ movie. With all the crazy and strange happenings that occured along the way.

It is, in essence like the Tim Burton movie ‘Ed Wood’, but instead of it being an aspiring film maker trying to make it big in the 50s, its a comedian trying to make it big in the 70s using records and the movies (neither of which he was particularly creatively refined for at the time)

And I think this ones going to be pretty short but sweet, I really quite enjoyed this one. The script is decently plotted out, with a clear 3 act structure with seamless transitions between the acts. The acts themselves are all nicely weighted, with no one act hogging TOO much of the limelight.

If I was nitpicking, i’d say the film does overrun a little bit (by about 15 minutes) and a lot of that sag is found in the 2nd act, the film kind of gets bogged down a little bit with trying to simultaineously cram in the logistics of how the events unfolded, explaining how some of the weirdness ended up happening, while also trying to portray Rudy as a well intentioned, somewhat timid character who pulls himself out of his shell when faced with adversity. Its essentially trying to juggle all this things AND maintain a healthy balance between comedy and pathos. Not an easy task…And while I Think it does a phenominal job of juggling all of those elements at the same time. it does start to get a little sloppy in the middle when it doesnt really know how to approach some of the subjects that are raised.

Other than some 2nd act pacing and consistency issues though, this is pretty rock solid, the opening takes its time to set up the table for whats about to go down, but once it gets rolling its got an unstoppable and VERY likeable momentum that carries it right the way up to the end.

I think tonally its pretty well tuned, much better than some other biopics of this ilk (im looking at you ‘The Disaster Artist’) and you get the feeling that a lot of research was put into trying to really nail the mannerisms of the characters, their history and motivations, it feels authentic and comes across as genuine, warm and sincere, which I think this movie really needed honestly.

Direction and cine are both rock solid, they recreate several scenes from both ‘Dolemite’ and ‘The Human Tornado’ (which…in itself is another minor nitpick. I love the ‘Dolemite’ recreations, but im the kind of anally retentive person who just cant let go that they showed scenes from ‘The Human Tornado’ during the ‘in film’ ‘Dolemite’ screenings…I’ll live…but im not happy) They do these recreations near enough 1:1, which is incredibly impressive, its a studio picture, so I didnt really have any concerns about this film on a technical level. It doesnt dissapoint really, draping the film in 70s chic, its got great colour choices, solid and creative cinematography, remarkable editing (seriously, I loved the edit on this) and the cast direction is next level. I really cant fault this film, it looks and feels great and has clearly had a lot of love and polish put to it.

as for the performances? Eddie Murphy I feel nails Rudy Ray Moore the person expertly, its a phenominal performance that really captures the more mild mannered aspects of Rudys personality…However; I do feel like Murphy struggles with the ‘Dolemite’ side of the performance, particularly the more anger driven sequences. he just…cant seem to help but slip into a bit more of a ‘comedic angry’ delivery on those scenes…when Rudy did basically just straight anger (which was why it was funny, and why it worked so well in ‘dolemite’) Its only a minor quibble because we spend WAY more of the movie with Rudy (the man) over Rudy (the performer) but it was noticeable enough to raise here.

As for the supporting cast? PERFECT. I honestly dont think i’ve seen a better cast movie than this in a LONG time. With Keegan Michael Key playing Jerry (A writing collaborator to Rudy) with conviction, he’s a great foil to Rudys more short term approach to doing things, and the two bounce off each other wonderfully. The same can absolutely be said of Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Lady Reed, Rudy’s long time partner in crime. they too have tremendous chemistry and her arc through this story is played with conviction thats both satisfying and emotional. Wesley Snipes as D’urville (the director of Dolemite) is near enough perfect, working a solid balance between someone who CLEARLY thinks they’re above the production, but real enough to acknowledge everyone has to start somewhere, he plays pompus, with a vulnerable streak…and he does it very well.

The rest of the supporting cast are equally superb. I dont really think theres a bad one in this entire production. its just a rock solid, entertaining and at times spookily accurate group of performances.

And the soundtrack…DAMN it sounds incredible. we have reworked tracks from ‘Dolemite’ given a bit of 2010s production polish, jukebox motown and funk tracks and a nice incidental suite that really bring the production to life and open the whole thing up to a new level.

I had an absolute blast with ‘Dolemite is my Name’ I enjoyed it the first time around, and I enjoyed it even more on the rewatch. HIGHLY recommended, particularly if you like these ‘lightning in a bottle’ type biopics about eccentric film makers (Like ‘Ed Wood’ or ‘The Disaster Artist’) or want a better idea of Rudy Ray Moore as a person and performer…I dont think you could go far wrong with checking this one out…It looks good, it feels great and it has fantastic story telling told by crazy and creative characters…definitely not one to sleep on.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dolemite-is-my-name/1/

As the 70’s drew to a close and the era of flared trousers, crushed velvet and funk was slowly echoed out of the room, Rudy Ray Moore would have one final big roll of the cinematic dice…and like Icarus, I fear he may have flown too close to the sun with this one.

‘Disco Godfather’ is in essence an extended PSA film about the dangers of Cocaine (euphamistically referred to throughout this film as ‘Angel Dust’) Moore plays ‘Tucker Williams’ one of the best DJ’s in town and headline act (and owner) of the ‘Blueberry hill’ the most happeningist nightclub in town! But theres a problem, pushers on the streets are getting kids scagged up on the devils marching powder, and when a near death experience happens RIGHT on the Blueberry hills doorstep, Tucker has to reconnect with his ex-cop roots to learn more about the deadly narcota, who’s supplying it, and to ultimatley put an end to the pushers, before the pushers put an end to him!

And…you’d think on paper ‘Rudy Ray Moore does an extended PSA against drug use’ Featuring crazy hallucination sequences, poor kung-fu and disco bopping hits would be a perfect combination for me…But honestly? I really just didnt gel with it.

For a starters the script takes all the WORST excesses from the first couple of dolemite films and drags them to the forefront of this production kicking and screaming. Its essentially just endless nightclub scenes, intercut with VERY serious dramatic numbers and the thinnest THINNEST skim of comedy i’ve seen in a long time.

As such, we’re RIGHT back into the tonal issues that plagued the first two Dolemite pictures as a result…With the production trying to both be INCREDIBLY serious and dower about a very serious issue LITERALLY killing people in real life…but not wanting to be SO dark that they kill, what is ultimately a comedians vibe vehical. It just cant balance the two tones for me, and winds up being weirdly lumpy and simultaineously too depressing to be entertaining and too unfunny to really keep me hanging on. The endless nightclub scenes only worsen things for me, and after seeing ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ I honestly cant believe we’re back to quality like this after it felt like so much progress had been made.

The act structuring is to the wall, we have a VERY brief first act which then just…basically gives way to sludge. the vast VAST majority of the runtime is stuck in the 2nd act with Tucker basically going site to site, doing a bit of awkward kung-fu…which…we’re 4 films in now, it was funny in the first film, titter worthy in the second and kind of ‘Done’ by the 3rd…here its positively grating. which is then followed up by either PSA style drama scenes showing Angel dust victims…or jive-esq nightclub scenes that did nothing for me.

The characters are all back to being one notw, with only Tucker getting any kind of further complexities…but those complexities dont ACTUALLY get picked up on until 10 minutes off the end…Oh! and thats also conveniently where the 3rd act just about starts.

The pacings SO slow, with only a half garbled finale offering anything in the way of ACTUAL interesting content. But the film ends pretty open ended and abruptly…which was a dissapointment and ultimately I just really struggled with the writing ont his one, the dialogues less memorable, the deliveries arnt great. theres a couple of solid hallucination sequences…but thats about it.

The vast majority of my rating here is going into technical ability on the part of the direction and cine. This looks like a relatively solid small studio picture. and is a nice further upgrade from ‘Petey’ and a whole different planet from ‘Dolemite’ we have creative direction utilising solid and creative lighting choices, track and dolly shots for the first time, creative composition, actual planned for the camera choreography on the nightclub scenes (not just filming an act that happened to be performing that night) the cast direction is equally solid offering decent use of the set space, character markers and solid prop usage.

I do feel b-roll is a little lacking in this one, but to compensate we get some interesting coloured lighting usage and, a bit of a first some basic attempts at rotoscoping and practical post production effects. Which definitely only enhances the viewing experience. Compositions alright, but a little uninspiring for sequence construction. I dont feel like the edit itself is as strong as ‘Petey’ either…But on the whole I’d say its probably the most cinematic looking Rudy Ray Moore film, and certainly the one that showcases the strongest technical proficiency.

Unfortunately its downhill again from there, the performances from all cast members (Moore included) feel forced, flat and fairly lifeless. This for me is really the first time where its felt like Rudy wanted in on an idea until it was actually time to do it, because he looks so tired and uninterested for most of this films runtime. The supporting cast are doing their best ‘Am-Dram’ presentations, but its just not enough, the whole thing feels like an exercise and a chore, rather than something im actively supposed to be enjoying.

Add to that a fairly mediocre soundtrack that really doesnt lift the film at all AND the obvious fact that, by 1979; Disco *was technically* still going, but was creatively basically dying. and you have a film that feels ill timed, unwanted and largely is pretty uninspiring.

I didnt really have a great time with ‘Disco Godfather’ I just kind of found it a bit boring and repetative, playing on the worst tropes of Rudys other movies and offering very little ‘new’ material from what had come before it. Its a bit of a whimper to end this 4 film/4 year journey unfortunately…If this was your first exposure to Rudy Ray Moores work, i’d heartily recommend ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ and ‘The Human Tornado’ as two examples of some of his greater works…As for this? It’ll be a while before im back to this one again…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/disco-godfather/1/

Well, it took two movies for Rudy Ray Moore and his team to go from ‘Never held a camera before’ to producing not only what I consider to be the best film these guys ever made, but arguably a STRONG contender for one of the best ‘weird’ movies ever made. and given just HOW strange that list is. That’s saying something!

This film marks the start of Rudy experimenting with new characters on film. After two outings with Dolemite, despite how popular the character was…I do feel like Rudy had kind of mined the character to death by this point. And so, the world is introduced to ‘Petey’ who is essentially just ‘Dolemite’ again, but much MUCH less visibly angry and leaning much more into humour and comedy scares.

‘Petey’ is an oddity. Born during a storm, he arrives as a full size 10 year old boy and just…keeps growing from there, as a kid he gets bullied for his strange circumstances, until he meets a strange old man who, over several years, teaches him fluent kung-fu.

Petey grows up to become an entertainer, and a VERY successful one at that. TOO successful quite honestly…Because; when news that Petey is planning to return to his local city to play the clubs. He catches the attention of Leroy & Skillet. a couple of bumbling night club owners who are in MASSIVE debt to a financier, and were banking on a quiet weekend in the city to hold a huge launch party for their new nightclub, in order to pay off their debts.

With Petey back on the scene, and more importantly, with Petey NOT playing their club on their opening night. Leroy and Skillet are feeling the squeeze and staring down the barrel of potential legal action…So they start to plan on how they could get Petey out of the picture, even if its just for the one night. After several attempts to delay/shut down Peteys shows. The pair essentially hit the ‘nuclear’ option, and ask their door staff to intimidate some Peteys friends to try and get him to stop.

This backfires MASSIVELY however when the first person they go to intimidate DOESNT back down and in fact tries to attack the doorstaff, resulting in the kid brother of one of Peteys gang getting gunned down. This action seemingly lifts some kind of taboo, because a few days later at the kids funeral, the doormen turn up again and waste the entire congregation of mourners, including the priest and Petey.

and its here really that the film ACTUALLY starts. as, while dead, Petey is visited cosmically by the Devil (here going by the name Lou Cifer) who offers Petey a proposition. He will ressurect all the mourners (including Petey) and rewind time back to just before the doormen killed everyone, ensure that the doormen arnt there AND give Petey a magical pimp caine with unrelenting power to do whatever Petey wishes…But in exchange, Petey has to marry Lou’s daughter and give her a son.

Petey was hesitent…then he sees a picture of her and its a flat no because she’s absolutely hideous. But the opportunity to try and restore some justice to the situation is just too much for Petey to resist, so he reluctantly accepts, and the rest of the film is just a playground, with Petey simultaineously getting justice for the killings while also slowly trying to figure out how he can double cross Lou to not end up married to an ugly bugly…thats…literally this whole movie.

And here? we really do have the best of all worlds. We have the vibe and tone of the more ‘off the cuff’ moments of ‘Dolemite’ combined with an even further improved technical level from ‘The Human Tornado’ AND they manage to tone down or finally nail the elements that i felt didnt work from those last two movies.

The films an hours and 39 minutes long, but it really doesnt feel it. The script isnt particularly doing anything new broadly speaking, but its all the smaller details that seem to have had a massive overhaul. the shift from blacksploitation action comedy to blacksploitation horror comedy I think works incredibly well. the pacing feels like its finally been nailed, with each act getting *about* 30 minutes to do its thing, and non of it ever really feels like it drags because everyone here is just so animate and always up to something strange. Do I wish Petey got the magic pimp caine 20 minutes earlier than he does? absolutely. But I also appreciate that the build up to that moment is what only makes the back half of the film all the more surreal and enjoyable.

They seem to have finally managed to nail the tone of the production, ‘Dolemite’ seemed a bit all over the place, ‘The Human Tornado’ picked a lane (comedy) but was still a bit inconsistent. This films clearly an out and out comedy horror, and it absolutely KNOWS its identity, and more importantly, it isnt trying to be something its not capable of duel weilding.

The moment I knew this film was onto a good thing was probably when I realised that they were going to redo the ‘Nightclub’ scenario from the last two movies again…But rather than it just being awkwardly crammed into a film with NO business doing that…here it was specifically woven into the story, with an actual reason to be there, and MOST importantly, its significantly toned down, we arnt made to sit and watch a 10 minute bad comedy routine in order to see Dolemite smash a guy with a chair…Here the routines are kept to a minimum, and the actual PLOT of the film IS centered around the running of the nightclub, rather than the acts involved in it.

The characters all have a LOT more depth and complexity compared to the last two films, they basically actually HAVE range to work with here, rather than just having one drive and 3 moods. most importantly, the script gives all the characters at least 2-3 genuinely fun moments. So it doesnt feel like Rudy Ray is carrying the entire production.

I suppose for me, the thing that really ultimately won me over is this seems to balance the sincerity of a film maker wanting to make a solid end product with the charm of seeing a slightly ramshackled production ACTUALLY trying to be the best it can be AND the comedy IS actually funny…CONSISTENTLY.

There are HUGE leaps in the quality of the direction and cine. scenes seem considerably better planned out, theres more B-roll being filmed, they play around with special effects and sound effects here. Cliff Roquemore seems to have had a strong eye for visuals and has taken this strange vision and manifested something truely distinct. his work with the cast as well is next level, really bringing the best out of all involved.

Yes, some of the make up effects are a bit hokey, yes, some of the practical set effects are a bit naff…But again, the sincerity of this production, the genuine unflinching drive to ensure that this is a movie people can go to to have a good time WHILST ALSO being able to just enjoy the film for being fairly competent. totally neutralises anything bad I could really say about them.

The shots are all decently composed with only a few minor wobbles along the way, the film isnt afraid to experiment with shot composition, editing styles and probably the most significant jump in quality for me, they really seem to have nailed the lighting kits, as several scenes have really nice moody lighting, and the use of coloured lighting gels only adds to the surreal and strange environment.

The edit isnt the *tightest* in the world, but they seem to have got most of the continuity errors under control. they have an effective use of consistent colour choices throughout which helps create a bit of a uniform end product

Performance wise, Rudy here is joined by ‘Wildman’ Steve, and honestly its a perfect match, they play a straight man/foil pairing perfectly and the fact that theres a surface level screwball comedy performance masking a deep dark bubbling malevolence on BOTH sides, only further enhances the viewing experience. they’re both amazing her and by the end, I think I honestly preferred the exploits of ‘Petey & Leroy’ over any of Rudys previous solo efforts.

The soundtracks kickass too! a definite improvement over ‘Human Tornado’ for me, this one has a slightly choral element to it, but is true funk combined with just a smidge of the motown/disco scene. its on a par with the ‘Dolemite’ score for me as being really quite memorable, with the title track posing a definite earworm.

After 3-4 years of developing skills, Petey Wheatstraw to me feels a bit like a lightning in a bottle moment. a film where all involved are aware enough to what to make a quality end product, but still limited enough IN their ability to realise it fully. The result is a slightly ramshackled, but very charming end product that has genuine laughs, a solid soundtrack, dedication (for better or worse) on the direction and cine front, BIZARRE performances and a script that starts strange and keeps getting stranger. not the ‘deepest cut’ in the world, but i’d definitely say its a hidden gem, if you havent seen ‘Petey Wheatstraw’, your missing out!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/petey-wheatstraw/1/

Hot on the heels of ‘Dolemite’ Rudy Ray Moore had developed a taste for cinema, and by GOD he wanted more. Taking his now ‘screen’ famous character ‘Dolemite’ back out on the road for a sequel that clearly shows growth and development from the budding film maker…But also a little more work to go.

The plot follows Dolemite getting caught up in a heap of trouble, a young white womans paying him to do stuff to her and Dolemites just the kind of cool cat who’ll do that sort of thing AND attend a happening party…or charity fundraiser…or…something?…its not clear. What IS clear shortly thereafter though is that the gathering is in danger.

When two local bumpkin racists flag to the equally racist townie cops that a load of black people are having a party up in the hills, they grab their guns and head up there looking to have the WORST kind of fun. and what does the sheriff find? his wife, in bed, with DOLEMITE. Naturally the Sheriff kills his wife…

Well, as you can imagine it all hits the fan quite quickly and Dolemite and his posse are forced to flee to California to try and lie low while the heats up. But on arriving in Cali and reuniting with the old gang, its revealed that one of Dolemites nightclubs has been taken over by a rival gang and that 2 of his ‘girls’ have been kidnapped and are being tortured ‘bloodsucking freaks’ style in someones ‘fungeon’.

Complicating matters further, the sheriff from the opening wont let it lie that his wife slept with a black man, and he and his deputies make it their personal mission to try and put Dolemite in the ground one way or another.

And, this reviews going to be a LOT more straightforward than my review of ‘Dolemite’. Because the big change here between that film and this, is that competency and coherency have had a VAST improvement…and thats ultimately good and bad for the movie in about equal measures.

For a starters, the script is much more coherent, structured and organised. Theres less random sequences of hamburger pimps and random cuts to Dolemite performing on the street, and the main emphasis is back predominantly on the main storyline. Which is good! its essentially a bit of a rehash of elements of the first movie, but I dont mind that so much as long as its made compelling enough for me to want to stick with the damn thing.

The first act opens strong with some solid fight scenes, a decent set up and its clear they’ve finally managed to nail the tone that they wanted to go for with this one. ‘Dolemite’ was all over the place being silly, aggressive, serious, sad, depressing, and erotic all in spikes and troughs.

‘The Human Tornado’ is a clean cut comedy. they have one or two serious moments, but nothings taken too heavy handedly, everythings nice and light and a bit manic. Which is good! im glad the films picked a lane and is working to its strengths. They even better intigrate the ‘lounge act’ sequences, which unfortunately do return for this film, but they all take place in a club dolemite owns, and a lot of the plot centers around the club, so when it starts to lean more into that kind of stuff through the second act, it doesnt feel as jarring or out of place.

In fact, its only the 3rd act really where it starts to come unstuck a bit. they have all these nice plot elements bubbling along across the runtime, and the finale is essentially supposed to be a free for all raid on the bad guys mansion with cops, dolemite and his gang, and the baddies all jostling to come out on top. The problem is, thats a lot of plates to keep spinning and even a more seasoned director would struggle to keep all of that afloat. and, as such, the last 15 minutes is minor chaos, random sped up fight sequences, torture, chase scenes,total incoherency on the screen, I imagine the last 3 pages of the script for this thing was essentially written like a novel rather than a script.

That being said it is, overall, improvements all around, with characters getting a bit more screen time, and with the tone being firmly picked it means that the complexities dont have to be quite so deep given its an outright comedy now, they give us ‘enough’ from each of the key characters here to make it feel like I know them relatively well. And even though Dolemites character has changed a bit here…he’s gone from shouting and angry in literally every scene, and kung-fu’ing in every other scene to now actually having a bit of a joke and a laugh in some scenes, and only letting the anger out every so often. He’s still overall some of the best parts of this movie and very enjoyable.

Same goes for the direction really, this feels much more technically proficient, scenes feel much more crafted, theres consideration for camera placement, prop usage, set design. They actually bother to try and utilize creative coloured lighting for scenes throughout the movie and it really makes a difference. The characters markers are more considered, there arnt nearly as many ‘booms’ in shot or random characters blocking the camera. this, for the most part looks like an ‘up market’ blacksploitation picture. Which is a pretty impressive feat honestly.

Same goes for the cine, composition is *mostly* better (there are still a lot of shots framed randomly or with a weird cropping put in place) sequences flow a lot smoother, the edit feels tighter, the whole thing feels like it builds on ‘Dolemite’ and you really get the sense that both the cast and crew have ACTUALLY started believing in this as a viable franchise production.

But! for the good, theres also the bad…and its a weird thing to mark a film down for, but a lot of the charm from ‘Dolemite’ came from the ‘thrown together’ nature of the picture, it came from Rudy randomly deciding to insert randome Dolemite improve scenes into the film, random line deliveries that just came across as weird, the rough nature of the fight choreography and Rudy basically just throwing crap at the screen and seeing what stuck. By polishing this production up, I cant deny that its overall a much more pleasent and better viewing experience, but losing that rough edge means losing some of the moments that genuinely made me bust a gut laughing in the last film. As such, It feels at times like its trying *too* hard to try and make people laugh, and while there ARE some unbelievable moments in this one. nothing quite hits as hard as ‘Dolemite’ for that weird and funny feeling.

Performance wise, its a similar problem, I wished characters had a bit more to go on in ‘Dolemite’, but here? they give those characters a bit more to go on, but its at the cost of losing their eccentricities. I miss the likes of ‘Hamburger pimp’ and ‘Willie Green’, the baddies in this are just kind of generic and other than some blatent homophobia here and there, NON of the characters really stand out. Even Dolemites been toned back a bit and doesnt seem to get as many BIG moments…well…barring the opening act where, thanks to freeze frame technology you can see Rudys Stunt mans ‘BIG moment’…

The performances are fine, but I dont think they reach the surreal and dizzying highs of ‘Dolemite’.

The soundtracks equally as funky as ‘Dolemite’, but lacks those big hitter tracks, the ones that’ll have you humming them out the door of your theater…which is a shame, but again the trade up is bigger, higher quality full sounding compositions, that are well edited and suit the film, even if they wont suit my CD player.

‘The Human Tornado’ is technically a HUGE step forward for the works of Rudy Ray Moore. its got a tighter, better composed script, decent direction and cine, consistent performances and a high quality original soundtrack. But the trade off is it loses a little bit of its heart and soul that really makes ‘Dolemite’ the over the top exploitation piece it is.

This film? I think i’d prefer to watch it over ‘Dolemite’ *JUST*…like, by a hairs Breadth. But ‘The Human Tornado’ does manage to just lose a little bit of that edge in the process of tidying itself up. And thats a bit of a shame. Non the less, if you’ve watched ‘Dolemite’ I compel you to watch the sequel. Its a good time and a solid follow up.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-human-tornado/

When it comes to blacksploitation films, I feel no list of ‘key’ titles is complete without a Rudy Ray Moore film in there somewhere, Whether its the power packed punches of ‘Dolemite’ and ‘The Human Tornado’, the surreal horror of ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ or the downright campy funkadelica of ‘Disco Godfather’ Rudy worked a wide breadth of styles across his movies while maintaining a consistent badassery.

Honestly I have only the highest of respects towards the guy, he was a somewhat quiet, but to the point gent who decided to put himself out there, creating a larger than life standup persoanlity called ‘Dolemite’ who was basically the broad opposite of Rudy in real life. small gigs led to larger gigs, larger gigs led to a comedy record deal, which led to multi album deals and in 1975, Rudy took Dolemite to the next level in his own power punching, lady loving, gun toting movie. and man…its a trip and a half to be sure.

The film opens with ‘Dolemite’ in jail serving 20 years after getting framed up by cops for trafficking illegal furs and half a million dollars of narcotics. we’re 2 years into his sentence when the jail owner summons Dolemite to his office. There, he’s reunited with his ‘eyes on the street’ and business partner ‘Queen Bee’ who’s been speaking to the warden and has managed to convince him that Dolemite WAS framed, and that the bad mother behind it is non other than the notorious ‘Willie Green’ the baddest gangster the streets have EVER seen…well, unless you count DOLEMITE.

It turns out, since Dolemites been away, things have gotten much MUCH worse. Willie has taken over Dolemites old club, he’s kicked Dolemites ladies onto the streets, and he’s pushing drugs and guns into schools harder and faster than ever before. The wardens offer is simple. If Dolemite can stop the pushers, and find evidence that ties it to Willie, he’ll be a free man.

So! Dolemite accepts, he’s let out of jail and the next hour and 15 minutes could AT BEST be described as a thrown together comedy action romp. Seriously, this things all over tha place. with Dolemite kung fu fighting gang members, doing extended comedy sets in clubs and making 50 shades of love to every fine woman with a pulse. ‘Dolemite’ is blacksploitation taken to its silliest and most extreme conclusions this side of ‘Black Dynamite’.

I have a real love/hate relationship with this movie. Its ‘highs’ are largely unrivalled, there are moments in ‘Dolemite’ that will leave your jaw on the floor and keep your eyes firmly locked to the screen. But the ‘Lows’ for me are many and frequent. Which is a real shame, because had it had just a *bit* more consistency, this could have easily become one of my favourite blacksploitation movies of all time.

I think the thing that trips it up, is also the thing that kind of saves it, and thats the thrown together nature of it all. It feels like a script was written, and then Rudy just kept adding bits to the film, whether it made sense or not, whether it ACTUALLY would fit into the movie or not. If Rudy wanted it in there, you better damn well believe it went in there. For better or worse.

It means you’ll have sequences like Dolemite getting out of prison, mouthing off to the guards at the gate while half a dozen of his ‘ladies’ come to greet him with fresh clothes, he strips off AT the gates into his civvies, only to get into a limo and taken them all off again so he can make love to 2-3 women in the back of the cab.

You’ll get sequences like him walking into his old club, while the new gang keep cussing him out (but not doing anything) while he casually rips a hole in the floor and pulls out huge rolls of money, but rather than mention it, or start fighting him, the rival gang just continue walking/talking at him until Dolemite decides he’s had enough and destroys 4-6 gang members in one fluid motion…Moore was 47/48 years OLD when this film was SHOT. he’s wearing a gurdle through most of this for gods sake.

And…all that stuffs magnificent, its the character manifest, and its funny, bizarre, original and entertaining in equal measures. Which makes it unfortunate that the thing that hits this film like a train hitting a cow at a crossroads…is Rudys ACTUAL live standup material.

Yes, the film periodically stops and cuts to Rudy doing a live show in the character of ‘Dolemite’ each one is just him doing a comedic monologue, usually scewed on black stereotypes. and they are SO so slow going, not helped by the fact the camera movements are all so stripped back, over basic, fixed or pivoting camera shots with next to no b-roll. and it hits this film HARD, it slows everything to a halt for 3-5 minutes and THEN the film has the uphill battle of trying to reignite itself when…it’s DOLEMITE. How the hell do you reignite the enjoyment of a film where Rudy takes out 3 gangsters while wearing a full arm sling, when the previous scene was a 5 minute unbroken not particularly funny monologue?! Well, somehow Rudy just about manages it…but its a strain.

The script itself is scattershot, as mentioned the pacings all over the place in the best and worst ways, but the tone is kind of messy too. I know its *trying* to be funny. But the issue is HOW funny is it trying to be. It gets pretty serious in places and touches on issues facing black people at the time and to this day. Indeed the film has several moments where it gets unusually serious, before snapping back into Dolemite making a someone dance by shooting a machine gun at their feet.

And the problem with that, is that it makes it hard for me to know when they’re playing on a stereotypical issue for fun…and when they’re ACTUALLY saying ‘this is a problem.’

Add to that that the act structuring is basically non existent, the first act establishes itself pretty well, but then we get to about 20 minutes in, and the film kind of locks itself into a loop of Dolemite dishing out the pain, right up to the last 20 minutes when they haphazardly throw together a resolution while CONTINUING to have Dolemite dish out the pain. Its an unusual approach that I dont know if it fully works for me. But I cant say I was particularly won over by it.

The characters are all one note parodies. Dolemite himself probably gets the lions share of emotional range and complexity, but its never elaborated on. They just have scenes where Dolemite will get angry, or sad, or horny…and once he’s done the ‘Sad’ scene or the ‘Horny’ scene, its just…done. Never revisited, not used for character building. One and done, on to the next one. and thats your lot. The supporting cast LITERALLY only exist to give dolemite exposition. which is hilarious in its own right…Its like when Homer Simpson tries to advise the makers of Itchy and Scatchy how they could improve his character (Poochie) by suggesting that when Poochie isnt around, everyone should be asking ‘Wheres Poochie?’. Only in this instance, its ‘Wheres Dolemite?’

The direction is a shambles, boom mics, crew members, Cast members who arnt even SUPPOSED to be in the scene, somehow make it onto the camera, the direciton of the cast is even poorer with people literally ALWAYS starting a scene by walking into a room. floor markers are in full effect and noone DARES move off them in case they ruin the shot, items jump around the room regularly, because noones keeping tabs on continuity…and DESPITE the inconsistencies, this film produces at least 2-5 of THE defining cinematic images of the Blacksploitation movement. Which…is BLOODY impressive.

The cine fares the same as the direciton, you have folks who’ve barely if ever made a movie, learning in real time how its done, its ‘Ed Wood’ level bad in terms of framing, compositional choices and the aforementioned continuity/bad directional choices. It hangs together loosely with little to no B-roll, but…and I cannot stress this enough, its FUN. Everyone seems to be confused, or HAVING fun. and that manic energy of a load of people making their first film and feeling that the worlds about to open up to them and their world is frankly palpable.

As for the casting…does it really matter? the two to watch out for are Rudy Ray and D’Urville Martin as Willie Green. Moore is a stone powerhouse frankly. The man cannot act. he has one emotion. ‘Still.’ and thats. it. he locks himself down to the spot, unless its pivotal to the scene, and delivers cold, stoney lines with all the aggression of a wasp in a turbine. He IS this movie. and everytime he’s on screen is a moment you wonder ‘Where the hell is this going?!’ with a GENUINE concern for the safety of people on set.

Martin by contrast plays over the top, nervous and aggressive wonderfully and acts a strong contrast to Moore. But given the film sets him up as Moores nemesis. He’s barely even in the film. Which I feel is a shame, as i’d have loved to have seen him grow more into the role.

And what powerhouse flick would be complete without one of THE funkiest scores around. And arguably of the best parts of this film! The scores perfect tonally for the production, and edited in place incredibly well. With the titular ‘Dolemite’ theme being a personal favourite.

‘Dolemite’ Was Rudys first proper foray into film making, and…its kind of obvious honestly, this is a fun, but VERY flawed production that, even after my 4th watch now, I STILL cant say I know exactly how I feel about it. on the one hand the unintentional comedy, Rudy himself and the surreal moments he put into this film make me really love it. But on the other hand, the chronic technical faults, the ‘Live standup’ segments and the total lumpiness of the script, tone and lack of depth to the cast really puts me off this one…

His next film ‘The Human Tornado’ irons out a LOT of issues I have with this film. But as it stands? I’d absolutely say its worth checking out. But your milage may vary by the time the credits roll, In either case, i’d stay stick with Rudy, because his best films are yet to come…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dolemite/1/