Considering his apparent cinematic preoccupation with killers and bloody mayhem, as well as that his last name and that of his former musical group are a nickname for the undead, you'd think that Rob Zombie of the White Zombies would make a movie about, well, zombies.
Until he does, I suppose we'll have to take the next "best" thing, which means 2003's "House of 1,000 Corpses" and now "The Devil's Rejects." While not exactly a sequel per se, Zombie's latest film - which he also penned - does contain some of the same performers and characters (a few named from the same in the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup") from the earlier effort.
A more polished and technically adept film, "Rejects" pretty much stays in the same vein as its predecessor. And that's namely opening plenty of a different sort of other veins in its "true" style tale of a familial band of sadistic murderers and the lawman who's determined to bring them to one form or another of justice.
Shot, edited and scored to appear like one of those gritty and grisly killer flicks from the '70s, the film is an eclectic mixture of the likes of "Last House on the Left," some of the works by Sam Peckinpah and even some Quentin Tarantino thrown in for "good" measure.
As long as you can stomach the visuals, the film - from a stylistic standpoint - isn't half bad. Obviously influenced by and trying to emulate the look of the above films and filmmakers, Zombie and cinematographer Phil Parmet have staged and shot some impressive looking footage that, if anything, perfectly captures the appropriate look and feel of the genre.
Accordingly, it looks better than Zombie's previous theatrical release, but it suffers from some of the same problems. One is character development or lack thereof. The three groups in play here are the killers, the would-be victims, and the lawmen after them. All are stereotypical in nature and never develop much, if at all, once their defining characteristics are noted. Simply put, the killers murder in sadistic glee and don't appear to have any motive behind that other than seemingly enjoying the act.
The victims - including Priscilla Barnes (formerly of TV's "Three's Company" fame) - cower, bleed and die, but - as usual for the genre - are simply present as fodder for the movie meat machine. Meanwhile, the lawman pursues the baddies without hesitation, but at least he has some back-story motivation as the killers previously dispatched his brother.
The interesting if not exactly novel twist is that he becomes just as sadistic as the killers in his pursuit of getting personal revenge on them, thus posing an interesting dilemma for the viewer. By design, we're presumably supposed to be forced to examine and maybe even change our notion about who the real victims now are when the maniacs get a taste of their own medicine.
Unfortunately, that doesn't pan out for two reasons. For one, the killers have nary a redeeming quality and thus the switch won't like occur for anyone outside those who are already going to root for the bad guys from the get go. Then there's the fact that Zombie isn't skilled enough as a director to create a true such quandary for the viewer.
Some of that stems from the lack of character depth and development, but also because the dialogue - as was the case in "1,000 Corpses" - is downright banal when not laughably bad. Whether penned that way by Zombie, ad-libbed by the cast or a combination thereof, it's the film's weakest link. While the likes of Tarantino can make non-stop profanity nearly lyrical in design and execution, all of the rampant cussing here simply feels like nothing more than secondhand filler.
Then there's all of the bloody mayhem that's presumably the big attraction for fans of films of this ilk. While it's undeniably gory and repulsive, such material not only becomes redundant, but it also ends up having a numbing effect on the viewer.
After the umpteenth viewing of a bloody beating, murder or body part, the desired effect is severely lessened. And since none of this is otherwise truly scary or suspenseful, that leaves the film with a gaping hole of its own that bleeds out any sort of potential interest in the proceedings.
While they play convincing sadistic killers, the likes of Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sheri Moon Zombie - the latter being the director's real-life wife - can't do much of anything else with their parts. The same holds true for those playing the potential victims, while William Forsythe overacts and then some as the determined lawman.
While I never thought I'd say this, his performance actually made me long for the overused "every farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse" bit from Tommy Lee Jones in "The Fugitive." Zombie's point, of course, is that we're supposed to see that the law can be just as mean and sadistic as its criminal counterpart, but that's driven home like an ice pick through one's noggin.
And once we realize everyone's bad, the film, its mayhem and nonstop cussing only get that much more redundant. While it has its moments of directorial flourishes, "The Devil's Rejects'" various problems, not to mention its subject matter, means it must spend an eternity in the bad movie section. The film rates as a 3 out of 10.
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