In the interim between 2003's admirable but supremely annoying "House of 1000 Corpses" and 2005's continuation, "The Devil's Rejects," Rob Zombie has grown from a gifted music video oriented multimedia conceptual talent into a promising filmmaker of great power and potential. Even if you were not a fan of the high concept suburban shock of artists such as White Zombie and Marilyn Manson (and I was not), it has become reflectively evident that there was rigorous intellect in the faux-transgressive pop landscape of these disciples of Reznor. Manson, whose work was a more obvious and desperate sucker-punch than the relatively subtle horrorsploitation universe created by Zombie, has proven himself on talk shows and documentaries to be one of the more lucid and intelligent personas cluttering the post-80s mediaverse. Similarly, Zombie proves himself in the excellent making-of documentary, "30 Days of Hell," accompanying the lovingly compiled "Rejects" DVD, an immensely sympathetic artist of rare pragmatism and focused intelligence. "30 Days of Hell," while standing out as a marvel in this era of the cynically manufactured DVD extra, is not a classic film in its own right along the lines of "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" or "Burden of Dreams." It is too awestruck and affectionate to be as insightful as those works. Even when the players confess to being uncomfortable with enacting some of the more irredeemable sequences, it is set up to repeat the heartening Zombie maxim/platitude "Art isn't safe."
As for the film itself, "The Devil's Rejects" is better than anybody expected, enthralling, exhilarating, titillating, and icky. Zombie, uninterested in traditional good/bad movie dichotomies, snares the viewer willfully to an uncomfortable level of sympathy for the (rejects of) the devil. Beyond its artful wallow in the seamier side of horror, "Rejects" is as discomforting in its cold moral vacuum as Sam Peckinpah's misanthropic epic "Straw Dogs." Identification never veers from being squarely placed with the soulful(less) psychopathic family of mass murderers on the run. The film never attempts to depict them as anything other than sadistic killers, yet they remain charming and likeable. When they are tortured by the man who acts as the structural bad guy yet the good guy by any traditional movie moral formula, it is difficult not to sympathize with the sociopathic clan rather than relishing in their comeuppance. It is also in this segment where Zombie seals the deal in making a charismatic murderer/rapist/necropheliac a Jesus figure.
Jesuswise, the Rejects do wind up as martyrs in an unforgettable conclusion that pulls of the seemingly impossible task of making a wordless montage set to the entirety of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" not only effective but also definitive and emblematic. Yes, Zombie has managed to filmically own one of the most exhausted musical anthems permeating the American psyche and make it new. "The Devil's Rejects" pulls off a soundtrack of 70s southern rock (which I have a natural averse reaction to usually) and makes it not a gimmick, but an invigorating textural aide. Zombie credited the limited budget of "Rejects," in contrast to his psychedelic motion sickness inducing funhouse roller coaster "House of 1000 Corpses," as accentuating his creativity. Indeed, not only is "Rejects" set in the milieu that thrived on said southern rock, but it is a late 70s period fantasy that is homage to and improvement upon the uncomfortable grindhouse classics such as Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" (directly when hostages are forced to strike each other) and Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (whose murderous cannibal family is retroactively influenced by "Rejects" and whose sequel featured the first major showcase for Reject Bill Mosely).
Beyond Mosely, the casting of "Rejects" is a nostalgic hayride through the faces of a bygone zero-budget horror golden age, when the genre was still dangerous and transgressive in a way only matched these days by Japanese provocateurs such as the incomparable Takashi Miike, while Hollywood cannibalizes the genre for PG-13 remakes. For a minor example, the innocent mother assaulted by a clown is none other than the most fetching and promiscuous victim of the Shape in John Carpenter's original 1978 classic "Halloween," Ms. P.J. Soles. More significantly, an odd couple of Rejects accomplices are played by the lovable monster of Craven's 1977 "The Hills Have Eyes," and Ken Foree, the talented character actor who had the misfortune to be the hero of a masterpiece that he will be forever associated with, George Romero's magnum opus "Dawn of the Dead," from 1978. Zombie channels the style of these 70s landmarks while managing to sidestep the budget derived flaws that, while contributing verisimilitude, confine those films to the dismissed genre ghetto that deprives them of the critical attention that should accompany their importance. While Zombie maintains the rugged realism of those nightmares and extrapolates upon their style, he wields his directorial touch with the authority of Quentin Tarantino, another post-modern aesthete developing the untapped potential of 70s exploitation, perfectly placing everything within western derived tension sequences, freeze frames, kinetic still montages, mercenary pacing, and deadly segues.
The overall effect of "The Devil's Rejects" packs the questionable exhilaration of Best Picture winner and racist wonderland "Rocky," a similarly unjustifiable crowd pleaser. It will be unpalatable to most healthy people, but it is an irresistible concoction to anybody who loves morally skewed, kinetic, cinematically inspired horrorventure. For my pals out there, prepare to fall in love with, root for, and cry for a gaggle of Confederate (yeah, I know, I hate them too), murderous, psychopathic bastards. Too sick for the devil. Delicious to me.
-George Booker
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