Hey folks, Harry here with a treat. I just sent the Alamo Drafthouse's Senior Genre Goddess - Kier-La Janisse to Las Vegas to give us her in-sight on the films of worth at CineVegas - the world's most decadent sin filled festival in the world - unless you count the Minneapolis row at BNAT. Kier-La is one of the world's foremost programmers of cool cinema. She'll mention films in idle conversation that will leave even the most seasoned pros reaching for IMDB in vain. As much as she likes DEVIL'S REJECTS she disliked HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES - and given I completely agreed with her take on HOUSE - this is an incredibly great sign for that film. Here ya go..
I was not a fan of Rob Zombie's first film, so I'm not coming from the standpoint of an indiscriminate fan - but THE DEVIL'S REJECTS was practically flawless in my eyes. In HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, Zombie's myriad influences converged into a mess of incoherence, and the acting often veered into caricature. As an avid fan of 70s exploitation I knew what he was going for, but felt he missed the mark. Still, I knew his heart was in the right place, that he knew his shit about exploitation films, and that on the second try he was very likely to prove himself a talent to be reckoned with.
With THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, the misjudgements of HOUSE have been tempered by Zombie's increasing abilities as a director and a broader range of influences that make the film substantially more unique and personal. As with HOUSE, its thematic influence is the inverted family-drama of TX CHAINSAW MASSACRE, but I also saw shades of SOUTHERN COMFORT, POOR PRETTY EDDIE and THE NORTHVILLE CEMETERY MASSACRE. And if Mama Firefly's performance wasn't modelled on Susan Tyrell, I don't know what is.
Because the characters had been introduced in the first film, there was no need to make them maniacally over-the-top to illustrate their psychopathic tendencies. The performances were allowed a subtlety that - while just as tongue-in-cheek - were far more sympathetic on all fronts. While in HOUSE the Firefly family is portrayed as the 21st century kin to TX Chainsaw's Sawyers, in THE DEVIL'S REJECTS they're more a defiantly close-knit band of outlaws who just don't fit in with the world they're sometimes forced to live in.
The film was surprisingly sentimental, but that doesn't mean it was any less heavy on the red stuff than HOUSE - including a spectacular roadkill sequence and the creepiest use of a human-skin mask since TX Chainsaw 2. DR takes the best of its grindhouse precedents and tops them all, and in addition to being a succession of perfect moments and a soon-to-be cult quotability, all of these elements coalesce into a rather perfect whole.
The film's only weaknesses all surround the scenes with William Forsythe as the crusading Southern sheriff with God on his side and the Devil in his fist. Forsythe, being the only major character not carried over from the first film, suffers the dilemma of the characters in HOUSE - how to get across his deeply ambiguous insanity in such a finite amount of time without overacting. I'm a big fan of Forsythe (especially in the CHiPS punk rock episode), so I was understandably disappointed.
The Sheriff's enlisting of an obnoxious movie critic comes out of nowhere, with the two bickering over the various aliases employed by the Firefly gang, which are all incidentally derived from Groucho Marx films. But the amount of screentime devoted to Groucho Marx references (even SKIDOO is mentioned superfluously!) may have been Zombie's attempt to show the range of his own influences by illustrating to the film's largely horror-centric fanbase that the name "Captain Spaulding" has a genesis that predates THE EXORCIST.
Still, these are minor complaints. Zombie more than made up for it with the deliberate pacing and the whip-smart dialogue, which allows for some of the best roles his chosen character actors have had in decades. From the leads Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sherri Moon Zombie, to cult favorites Ken Foree, PJ Soles, Michael Berryman and Mary Woronov, the film was rife with great performances and familiar faces. And the casting of two STREETS OF FIRE alumni (Deborah Van Valkenberg and the vastly underrated 80s staple E.G. Daily) didn't hurt.
I thought FREEBIRD's days as potential soundtrack material were long gone since Forrest Gump and three decades of bad wedding-band renditions had stripped it of whatever street-cred it might have had originally. But one thing about Rob Zombie - he knows music - and he knows when to use it, how to use it, and what music to use. From Terry Reid to Elvin Bishop, the film uses its music -- much like its cinematic influences - with a revitalizing furor that (like Tarantino's films) will do much to facilitate a reappraisal of lowbrow 70s pop culture.
So ultimately, if you love movies, think you love movies, or pretend you love movies, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to overlook THE DEVIL'S REJECTS. I'm halfway through the year and it's the best thing I've seen so far.
Kier-La Janisse
