The Devil's Rejects

The cast is full of cool cult actors past and present, and the movie is great at what it does. It's also brutal as hell, and not everyone will have the stomach for it.

Zombie fills The Devil's Rejects with thrilling setpieces, pays homage to his inspirations without outright ripping them off (most of the time), brings back some cult-movie icons (hello, Mary Woronov and E.G. Daily), and works in some profanely clever dialogue.

If you're not in the mood for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" meets "Last House on the Left," stay very far away. Horror fans will find what they're looking for, though.

Zombie doesn't pretend to be on the side of the victims. He makes no bones about his identification with the sexy outlaw serial killers.

A little of this will go a long way.

While this may all sound seductively warped to those who enjoy movies featuring sexually deviant confinement and torture, blasphemous rants and rampaging rednecks, The Devil's Rejects does not live up to its sick, twisted and campy intentions. "Straw Dogs" meets "Smokey And The Bandit" for the new millennium it ain't.

Evil isn't this boring.

Ίσως η πληρέστερη δουλειά του Rob Zombie μέχρι σήμερα. Το ότι κατάφερε να γίνει σύγχρονο cult σίγουρα λέει πολλά παρότι πιστεύουμε ότι έχει υπερεκτιμηθεί από πολλούς φίλους του Rob Zombie κυρίως...

While I feel like this film failed to live up to the intensity and disturbing cinematography that House Of 1000 Corpses seemed to achieve so effortlessly, it was still a decent flick, although a very different all together vibe than the first film. I thought the ending was well done. Visually, not quite as impressive as the first one.

This is kind of a disappointing sequel to House of 1000 Corpses. Following a violent confrontation with the police the surviving members of the "Firefly" family go on the run. There's not much of a plot beyond that. The whole thing just revolves around watching them torment anyone unlucky enough to be in their path and putting up with Rob Zombie's patented vulgarity, which I guess was intended to be amusing, but just ended up being annoying more often than not. I was never really bothered by any of this until things started to get ****. So the real problem is that none of the violence or filth feels like anything we haven't seen before. Plus, what helped make this movie's predecessor so enjoyable were its twisted sights and visual flair. Here things are a lot more aesthetically flat. Environments were certainly grimy enough to make me feel like I needed a tetanus shot after watching, but where's the color or the industrial horror monsters that made for some of the first film's most memorable moments? Rejects' only really creative aspect outside of the wild soundtrack is that these psychopaths are being chased by a sheriff who's just as unhinged and sadistic as they are. This leads to a nice role reversal that sees the people who are usually the predators becoming the prey and getting a taste of the same type of cruelty they have dished out in the past. However, this too exposes a fundamental problem with the movie. When the bad guys are also the protagonists, who am I supposed to root for? Am I supposed to feel something when they get beaten and bloodied or are riding out in a blaze of deranged, bullet-laden glory despite their deplorable actions? I simply can't do that, and without characters to invest in I'm left with only the violence and stylistic choices to latch onto. Both of which fell short for me.

"The Devil's Rejects" is brutal. It celebrates it excessiveness in every scene. It starts off brutal and ends the same way, never really letting off the throttle to give its audience time to breath. The violence, nudity, profanity, or sadistic atmosphere of the film are constant. However, that is kind of the point of this movie. This is a sequel of sorts to "House of 1,000 Corpses" and I will say that where "House" is a "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" wannabe or homage, "The Devil's Rejects" is more self-identifying. The story revolves around the Firefly family, a family of murderers that are evading the law while still keeping up their murderous ways. There is a lot of nauseating sequences and some moments that will make you feel disconnecting from humanity. I think Rob Zombie is really trying to showcase how far humans can get from their humanity, and I really hope that we don't get this disjointed from our morals and values. There are no real heroes in this movie. We follow the murder group around and they are pursued by a cop that is willing to cross the line to have revenge, so he is not really a hero either. There is a real loss of a moral compass here that might have enhanced the movie a bit. It is so deprived of humanity that it makes it difficult to watch. However, a lot of the problems that plagued "House" are not nearly as prominent here, The acting and writing is a lot better and more convincing. Zombie shows that he does have directing chops as well, whereas "House" felt more like a Zombie music showcase at moments rather than a movie. There is some campiness to this movie and some very dark humor, which eases it a tad. Although this movie is better than its predecessor, it is still not a great movie. If you are a fan of this type of movie, go for it. If you are squeamish, easily disturbed, or not a gore fan, pass on this. It is definitely glutinous in its vulgarity, but for what this movie is aiming to be, it largely hits the mark and is a decent gore horror movie. Overall, I give this movie a 5.5/10.

First off, this isn't remotely a horror movie. Rob Zombie doesn't make horror movies. He makes poorly written exploitation movies. He's kind of like Quentin Tarantino, it QT had no talent. At times it tries so hard that it feels like parody. You wish it was, because it's embarrassing that it's not. Any way, it's a movie with no likable characters. Everyone is a villain, There are some victims early, and they're **** - and somehow you're supposed to care about their killers at the end. It's really stupid.