Tutti fucken frutti

The Devil's Rejects is an entertaining flick that despite its pretentions only bears a superficial resemblance to the 70's classics, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. Those flicks were products of their time, horror for sure, but contained socio-political themes. There's no way this film would achieve that level. And I don't think that was director Rob Zombie's intention. I just think some critics (nee fans) probably think it's better than it even wants to be.

If you can stand the sickness of the modern horror movie you'll probably be entertained. Sure there are some individually distressing scenes (the motel room with the gun and the panties is probably the worst) and some extreme gore, but overall, it's no where near as distressing as I imagined it to be. It's glossy looking, and the second you have that, you lose points with me auto. Chainsaw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes, the first Elm Street, these were films made on low, low budgets. And it showed. But that played to the advantage of a really grimy, dirty look, that automatically puts you on the edge of your seat. Ewww. Better be extra cautious stepping around this alleyway. I never felt that with this flick (having said that, I don't know whether Zombie intended that or not - I can only assume he didn't).

I haven't seen House Of 10,000 Corpses, Zombie's first flick, but as I understand it, this is a huge improvement. And uses montage and the camera well, despite over doing it on the split screen transitions.

Zombie also puts together a great selection of songs. This is overdone in modern movies, but I can't remember another recent horror movie with a soundtrack as canny as this. Some selections have been used many times (such as Steely Dan or David Essex) but they are all used to great effect - especially Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird during the Thelma & Louise/Bonnie & Clyde style finale.

Zombie has put together a great cast. I don't think Bill Forsythe as ever been better (and he often comes out with some full on performances to give you an indication of how terrifying he is here). His highlight is a twist on the old Taxi Driver 'You talkin to me?' scene. It's a case of where by the end of the flick you actually start to emphatise more with the purported baddies, rather than Forsythe's supposed hero cop. He's a sick, twised, demented motherfucker. Everyone in this movie is portrayed as weak, victims. It's all in the level of humanity these people (?!) have.


You can (almost) empathise with the Firefly clan, as played by Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, Leslie Easterbrook (Callahan from the Police Academy series, what a change!) and Matthew McGrory. McGrory, who passed away just after completion of the film, plays Tiny, who's character is very important to the structure of the movie, but I can't give that away here. Other genre vets include: Ken Foree, Geoffrey Lewis (where has he been?), Priscilla Barnes, Danny Trejo, EG Daily (where has she been?), Tom Towles, P.J. Soles (ditto), Michael Berryman and Mary Woronov. There's also an uncredited Steve Railsback and porn star Ginger Lynn plays in a dream sequence of Captain Spaulding (Haig).

I'm sounding like a mother fucking broken record but this is yet another case where we have been screwed by local distributors (Hoyts? Are you listening?) Where's the Rob Zombie commentary? Where's the cast commentary? Where's the !@#$% 2 hr documentary? Why is there only a surround track? I want my 5.1. I want my goddamn 5.1!! Like so many others, we'll probably get this 2 disc edition in a year's time. What we do get is fairly uninteresting - the usual trailers and fake bits the only items of interest are the considerable deleted scenes (12m worth including one with Rosario Dawson! IMDB where are you? See below) and the decent 5m of bloopers. Shame, Hoyts, shame.