Horror movies have always been very popular, especially amongst teenagers. It's because they are a tool of cognitive development as much as they are objects of entertainment. Everybody wants to know their limit, understand what they can and can't experience. The exercise helps shape a set of values. One person can love slasher movies for example and be too terrified to watch haunted house films *. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is a grindhouse movie. It was made more or less before it became cool to make throwback grindhouse-appreciation nostalgia flicks. That makes it a genuine attempt at making modern, artistic-minded grindhouse cinema and it has that Rob Zombie signature enthusiasm that is characterized by his throw-everything-at-the-reader-and-see-what-sticks philosophy. It's a horror movie that assumes its identity and assumes the fact that you might not like it.
THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is the sequel to Rob Zombie's directorial debut HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. The murderous backwoods family is chased out of their house by the police and unleashed upon society. Otis (Bill Moseley), Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) and Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) are suffering the wrath of the vengeful and extremely religious Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe), forcing them to lay low. Only problem is that they cannot tame their savage nature and destroy whatever people are on their way to freedom. By destroying I mean humiliating, torturing, desecrating and murdering bystanders in the worst possible way. Some people are just not meant to dwell with civilized beings. Sometimes, smoking the monster out of its hole is the wrong idea to have.
It feels weird to think THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is almost ten years old. It's an underappreciated movie, yet when Rob Zombie's filmmaking career is mentioned, it's the first movie people talk about. It's a sneaky ideological movie. By ideological, I mean Satanic. It's not outwardly Satanic. There is no demon worshipping or black masses, but there is the confrontation of Sheriff Wydell, who lives by The Good Book and the lovely and demented Otis **, who lives according to the principles of the Church of Satan's principle that men are their own Gods and dictate their own path. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is about a clash of ideas that lead to violent confrontation over violent confrontation. Nobody is guided by voices or by supernatural forces in this movie. It's about men doing violence to other men and that existential freedom THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is priding itself in is bound to scare and anger a lot of people.
The beauty of it is that THE DEVIL'S REJECTS hasn't been made to only piss you off, although it clearly enjoys antagonizing the well-thinking. There also is a thorough aesthetic reflexion made, especially in the use of the naturalistic backdrop. Wherever Otis, Captain Spaulding and Baby go, it's never nice because it's a reflexion of their inner universe. Everywhere they go, the world is deserted, broken and left to rot, like they were tainting it. It's not ''nice'' per se, but it has a downtrodden beauty about it. A strong visual identity that is meant to haunt you in the worst possible way. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS doesn't look like any other movie despite having the grindhouse filthy signature to its image, because no other grindhouse movie ever took the liberty of being naturalistic.
THE DEVIL'S REJECTS is deceitfully philosophical. I'm not even sure Rob Zombie meant it to be, but his beliefs strongly transpire through his writing/filmmaking and through the character of Otis, who I believe is kind of his loose-cannon alter ego. It's a movie that doesn't indulge in any form of gimmicky approach unlike its predecessor HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and that is more than enough to create a moral conflict in most viewers. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS have been antagonizing people for almost ten years now and the faithful horror movie community sure is going to fuel another 10 years of fear and confusion. If you're looking for a horror movie to test yourself, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS doesn't have the most graphic blood shed to offer, but it's a rare occurrence of a film with a sense of purpose that's meant to question Judeo-Christian values and the way you were raised. It does have a couple buckets of blood to offer, too. Who said ideas had to be boring?
* That person would be afraid of dying and her enjoyment of horror movies would be her ability to control that fear.
