The Devil’s Rejects
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Rated: R
Website: http://www.thedevilsrejects.com/
Release Date: 2005-07-22
Cast: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Matthew McGrory, William Forsythe
Director: Rob Zombie
Screenwriter: Rob Zombie
Music Score: Tyler Bates
WorkNameSort: Devil’s Rejects, The
Our Rating: 2.00
Like a trash-kitsch Rousseau, Northeastern ghoul-metalist-turned-auteur Rod Zombie lusts for the naturally gritty wild and finds it in a Gothic South of sexed-up mommas and colorfully psychotic, inbred good ol’ boys. That such fauna exist only in grindhouse triple bills didn’t stop Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses from being an oddly charming quote set of his other favorite things: ’50s stripper loops, the Manson family, scary clowns and other ephemera likely to pop up in a Suicide Girl’s profile. But this follow-up unwisely pretends to seriousness. Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), Baby (Sheri Moon) and hayseed psycho Otis (Bill Moseley) are back and meaner than ever, but this time as antiheroes on the lam, making The Devil’s Rejects more a sadistic throwback to ’70s redneck freak-outs like Return to Macon County than a horror film. Zombie’s grown terrifically as a filmmaker, but as with Tarantino (save Jackie Brown), one struggles to find the point of the filmmaker’s compulsive genre Xeroxing.
This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2005.