Okey-dokey. After "Captivity" I feel positive about the whole "torture porn" thing. It was colorful, but no "Creepshow", so bring on the hatchet men, I ain't 'fraid of no ghosts. But check out this tag line to the next bloodletting:"Hell doesn't want them. Hell doesn't need them. Hell doesn't love them. This world rejects them." Should I be worried? I understand before going in that this is, indeed, a sequel, with recurring characters from Zombie's 2003 "House of 1000 Corpses". Can't be too hard to pick up the pieces. Well, depends what the pieces are made of.
Okay. It's Only a Movie. It's Only a Movie.
Torture Porn #2: "The Devil's Rejects," 2005, written & directed by Rob Zombie, with Sid Haig, William Forsythe, Sheri Moon Zombie, released by Lionsgate and Maple Pictures.
00:00 Opening credits.
02:00 Recap of Rejects being busted by Southern-fried cops. Dilapidated house. Hairy Hick Reject family using bad language. Maybe not 1000 corpses in the house, but more than a few. The monsters love each other. That's sweet.
07:00 Already better directing & editing. I could be mistaken. Quick, swooshing edits, but I can follow the action just fine. Zombies Make Movies.
09:00 Why, it's "Iron Man"! The Rejects have homemade armor! *kting!* "Sequel Armor", to insure that you make it into the next movie. One Reject bites it, however.
11:00 Okay use of Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider". How many Rejects are there, anyway? Losing count.
13:00 Cops move in, check out house. Human Heads as decorations everywhere. More in the fridge. More bad language. Suddenly switch to Weird Hick Sex with Captain Spaulding. Bad teeth. The F-word gets a lotta workout here. Spaulding gets out of bed wearing soiled underwear. This is the true meaning of horror. *urp*
17:00 Wait. You mean to tell me...that the Rejects...are named for Groucho Marx characters? "Captain Spaulding"? Look: Cut off as many body parts as you want, let the blood fly, but leave my Marx Brothers alone.
19:00 Hey! Michael Berryman, creepy bald guy from "The Hills Have Eyes" is in this. Pedigree.
23:00 LOTS more F-word. If that's the only word you need in a script to sell a horror movie, I have a new career.
24:00 Tepid Southern types dragged off from the motel, more banal dialogue, more F-word. "Hee-Haw" was scarier than this. Oh, wait. You don't remember "Hee-Haw".
26:00 Pretty (comparatively) Devil Reject hits on hick. Don't you know when a hot blond in Daisy Dukes talks you up it's to steal your truck or kidnap you for later dismemberment? This script is getting iffy & whiffy.
29:00 Southern rock band abducted in motel room. "Banjo & Sullivan". A head shot! The Rejects mean business. It actually took a half-hour in this movie to kill someone. Naked woman in shower taken, too. Sex & violence all in one minute.
30:00 Captain Spaulding becomes Evil Clown, scares kid. Kid really
looks like he wants to laugh his ass off. Blond Reject doing a truly retarded shimmy dance in front of motel hostages. More F-word. Bad guys are kinda goofy to be particularly horrifying.33:00 Hairy Reject puts pistol down woman's panties. Now I don't like him.
35:00 Usually about now in a horror film we get some subtle form of sociological or political allegory, zombies in a mall representing rampant consumerism, all that. All I'm getting here so far is that Hollywood Southerners are inbred and don't brush their teeth. Haven't seen anyone like this in Savannah. Guess they all live in Pig Wallow.
37:00 Extended jail scene where "Mother Firefly" Reject snorts & hollers and gets partially-strangled by cop. Can't understand a damn thing she's saying. Movies are either effective or ineffective. Repeat as necessary to self.
40:00 Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" thrown on soundtrack. My sister has a point: What self-respecting Southern Rock band wants to be associated with this piece-of-, er, this film?
44:00 Hick shot in throat, another one pistol-whipped by Hairy Reject. We're no longer at the motel. Where are we? F-word used in different tempos & volumes. Is this a foreign film? I need subtitles.
46:00 Almost halfway in film and I come to realization. There is no script! Oh dear God! What have I done?
47:00 Oh! I get it. The Devil rejected these poor killers because they're so lame and obviously smell bad. Victims don't look particularly traumatized, either. Why do I get the feeling the worst is yet to come after this movie?
50:00 Female kidnappee in underwear has chance to shoot Sex Reject in the buns. But gun is empty, and so she gets a knife in the heart for her troubles! Action switches to slo-mo for chase scene. Why? To pad out a 109-minute movie is why. Seriously, though, there is no such thing as good movies or bad movies, just...oh, hell. This movie is crap. Am I too old to cry?
54:00 Groucho and Marx Brothers character names brought up to cops. The Rejects are all named for Groucho characters, get it? Sheriff then bad-mouths Groucho, loves Elvis. You got a problem with classic cinema, Zombie? Dumb-ass cop: "Should we round up this Groucho Marx guy?" How many minutes left in this movie?
57:00 Captain Spaulding Meets the Rejects, F-word traded about a lot
more, a mask made of human skin is used to frighten kidnap victim and motel maid. Lots of running in the desert for no purpose except to eventually have kidnappee step out in front of an 18-wheeler. *splat* Gross-out, but I'm awake again.1:00:00 Tommy Lee Jones wannabe enters the scene to question the maid, we're still at the motel, now...you know. It was at much this same time in the last movie that my interest in finishing the movie got really slippery. I'm tryin' hard.
1:03:00 Steely Dan's "Reeling in the Years" used to no good purpose. Rejects eat ice cream, use the F-word, listen to the radio, there is a plot to this unmitigated crapfest, I know there is.
1:07:00 Sheriff knifes Mother Firefly in jail, Rejects in their Mystery Machine van hole up at a whorehouse, two ugly biker types named the "Unholy Two" are hired to track them down, F-word was obviously purchased wholesale for the script. Looking for my Sam's Club Card.
1:10:00 David Essex's "Rock On" played to no good effect. Rejects dance a bad guy dance, and I realize I don't like or dislike the characters. They don't even feel evil. I just want to get away from them. They are the Cat's Rejects!
1:15:00 I give up. Non-essential characters are now joking among themselves about the sounds chickens make during sex. Ostensibly with human beings. I promise to tough it out with a movie to the last credit roll, but there is no movie here.
1:19:00 Switching to Bogie and Bacall in "To Have and Have Not" to get taste out of my mouth of deep fat-fried Bad Ol' Boy F-word Haw Haw Haw humor. Holding a seance. Groucho Marx will have his revenge.
My Two Cents: I swear to you this isn't a movie. Rob Zombie can make a camera spool out film stock, can tell actors to move hither & yon, can splice it all together and slap it in a can. But home movies of Happy Hairy's Hard-on Hick Humor & Horror Hop don't make it. I could have skipped to the blood bath at the end to see the Rejects get their comeuppance, but after chicken sex, you'd have to pay me. Thank the Cinema Gods this is only a blog and not a real movie review column.
Tomorrow's movie has to be better. It has to be. What is it, anyway?
Tomorrow: "Hostel". I've heard of that one! We're on safe ground now. Meanwhile, "To Have and Have Not": "You know how to whistle, don't you Steve? You just put your lips together and...blow." Innuendo! Me happy.
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