The Dudes Devils Rejects Review

It's gonna be hard to keep my profanity in check with this one. So be warned ladies and gents, but I'll try. Perhaps there'll be two versions: a deep theoretical analysis culling years of experience of film criticism, and the obscenity strewn review that was my knee jerk reaction to seeing the film. To hell with it.

The Devil's Rejects is fucking awesome. There, I said it. I don't care who knows. I sat in the theater, not quite sure what to expect. I liked the trailers, I'd read mixed things about the film, and I really did not enjoy House of 1000 Corpses at all. But this one seemed to be a different kind of movie altogether, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Little did I know that I'd have my face rocked off.

This movie is brutal, relentless, unforgiving, and a hell of a good ride. There really are no sympathetic characters, at least none that survive the first hour of the flick. It is not a typical sequel, nor is it a horror film or an action film. It's a revenge movie, where the man who wants revenge is just as ruthless as those he seeks vengeance against.

The premise is simple, the family of psychotic mass murderers wakes up one morning to find the police surrounding their house of horrors. A massive shoot out erupts, and Otis(Bill Mosely) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) manage to escape. The movie follows their blood soaked trail as they hide out at a sleazy motel, torturing a country western band, and await their father, the evil clown looking guy Captain Spaulding (the fantastic Sid Haig, who's teeth alone should win an award). Meanwhile, Sheriff Wydell, brother of a police officer killed by the family in the first one, seeks revenge for his brother's murder.

But it's full of rich characters, all with fun scenes that allow them to be more than just one dimensional cardboard cutouts with knives and guns. Take the scene when William Forsythe (as Wydell) realizes that the Firefly family takes all their aliases from Groucho Marx films. So he does the next obvious thing, and brings in the local film critic to help them gain some insight. It's a silly little scene, but it works.

Or the somewhat "humanizing" scene between Captain Spaulding and his old friend(Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree), who runs the pleasure town where the family is hiding out. Done very simply, but it establishes a real history between the two characters. It almost makes you forget the man's a mass murderer who punched out a woman and threatened her child to come up with a reason to be scared of clowns, or he'll come back and kill the kid's entire family.

The scene with buying the chicken was priceless.

And the line Otis says to one of his captives: "Boy, the next thing out of your mouth better be some brilliant Mark Twain shit, because it's gonna be etched on your tombstone." I laughed so hard, I frightened the woman sitting in front of me. Seriously, I frightened her away. She moved seats to the front of the theater.

And let's just throw out there right now that this film has THE BEST use of the song Freebird ever put to celluloid.

Then there's the violence. This is not a PG-13 horror movie. Or action movie for that matter. This film has some massive cojones. It shows lots of blood and torture. it shows a lot of things I wouldn't have ever thought of. The roadkill scene, for example. This movie is a lot more brutal than 1000 corpses. It's also not nearly as ridiculous as in the previous film. Zombie even said himself, it the first film became more "fantasy" when you're under ground in the caverns. But this film is firmly set in the real world, and the only monsters are these killers with no remorse. (All the killers with no remorse).

Zombie clearly has more confidence in himself this time around. He's also eliminated the annoying MTV editing style from the first one, and made a down and dirty southern fried vengeance picture. (That was one of the reasons that turned me off from 1000 corpses. I liked the idea, but hated the need to resort to modern techniques that took away from the suspense). But in this, not a frame felt out of place. Every performance was dead on. Looked great, and every music choice was perfect.

(And I gotta wonder about one thing. His wife is in the movie, playing Baby. Baby is extremely attractive, and Zombie is a lucky man. But she plays crazy WAY too well. And you gotta wonder what it's like to direct your wife in a scene where she's getting the crap kicked out of her, after she's had pictures stapled to her chest, and right before she starts to be choked. how do you say that to your wife? Oh, and there are a lot of shots of her bum. Maybe she freaked out more about that. Just a thought.)

This is clearly not a movie for everyone. But it's what Zombie wanted to achieve, and I think it's great. Full of dark, twisted humor (really twisted), great characters (and great actors, actors you never would have thought of and nary a WB star in sight), great music, and great gore and special FX. I had a blast. I know I praise a lot of movies lately, but I've been fortunate to see a lot of good ones this summer, amidst all the regular summer blockbusters that last a week. And this is another good film. It's not gonna win any awards, but that's not why it was made. It's a film made by a guy who obviously loves these movies, and to a degree loves his characters. At the very least, he loves his audience, and knows to treat them respect and make things dumb for the sake of commerce.

I've rambled a lot, but I think I made my point. See the flick, if you can stomach it. I'm sure there's a Hilary Duff movie playing if you can't. For the rest of you, those who have balls (metaphoric or actual) see this movie. You're not likely to find something as dark, frightening, and fun all at the same time. until Rob Zombie makes another one.