The Devil's Rejects

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The Devil's Rejects is the sequel to 2003's House of 1000 Corpses. The movie deals with three of the main members of the Firefly family when they are forced to go on the lam. The man who is hunting them is Sheriff Wydell (the brother of a cop who dies in the first movie). So, if you know me, you'll know that I actually enjoyed House of 1000 Corpses despite its obvious problems. For me, The Devil's Rejects is actually the better version of the first movie. I actually like that the Firefly family are the ones we are actually following as the main characters. I also like that Wydell is the main antagonist. It feels like you get this sense that he isn't necessarily an evil man, but he has essentially been pushed down the path of a monster in order to hunt monsters. While the Firefly family are the movie's protagonists, I actually appreciate that Rob Zombie doesn't really try making them more sympathetic. They still do a lot of vile, disgusting things. Without giving too much away, I also have to admit that I like the way the movie ends (even if I didn't necessarily love how the end of the movie was directed). It kind of feels like it's the only way this movie could have possibly ended. Once again, the cast really worked for me in this film. Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, and Sheri Moon Zombie all return to play the Firefly family. Danny Trejo (who is one of my favorite badasses ever) shows up to play a bounty hunter. Props really should also go to actor William Forsythe as Wydell. I've already talked about how I like Wydell as a character in this movie. The thing I think I still meed to talk about is that William Forsythe does a really good job with making you buy all of the aspects of this character. Yeah, even though I would probably say The Devil's Rejects is easily Rob Zombie's best film overall, that doesn't mean it's perfect. I like that some of the directing choices Zombie made for the first film were toned down here, some of those weird directing choices were still there, and they could still be distracting in the long run. To be honest, just knowing this is a Rob Zombie movie, you're already going to know if it's one you'll actually want to watch or not. If you've hated all of his movies, then you're going to want to skip this one. If there's at least one of his movies you've liked, then maybe watch. I don't want to guarantee anything, but it's something of a soft recommendation from me.

8 / 10