Not because it's "too scary" to watch alone in the dark, but simply because watching it with a group of friends will definitely enrich the whole twisted experience that is 'The Devil's Rejects', particularly the gruesome unrated version. This is hard-boiled, hard-edged, vile, gritty, gory and graphic gorefest at its finest.
Hype and occasional missteps aside, I think Rob Zombie has created something quite unique and fun in the genre a sort of clear-eyed but grossly over-the-top white-trash tits 'n' torture freak-show of gore, sex and violence en masse. What is most admirable is that Mr. Zombie actually seems to know what he is doing with the content instead of dishing out gore galore to create headlines. The fact is that the narrative, the characters and the no-nonsense approach all function by remaining clear-cut and down-to-earth while the madness of the story exponentially increases.
So what is the story? It is a modern day Bonnie & Clyde in which the fugitive family Firefly indulge in orgies of gore and killing sprees on a road-trip in the South. All the while the Texas State Police contingent headed by Sheriff John Quincy Wydell (a raspy-voiced William Forsythe) slowly close in on the family capture the offenders at any cost, even if that means enlisting gruesome bounty hunters. In this way the police are neither the pro- nor antagonists in the film and Forsythe aptly brings that delicious moral ambiguity to his Sheriff character.
Conversely, the Firefly family certainly offer no moral safeground. They kill like they mean business a sort of sick, seedy and sadistic business, true, but still business and indeed you hold more disgust than sympathy for the quartet even though you are highly absorbed by them. On that note, Sheri Moon delivers the best performance by a playboy model I have ever seen. Danny Trejo also looks right at home in a sleazy thug character that pops up at one point in 'The Devil's Rejects' and the remaining cast look equally comfortable as hard-edged whitetrash.
What undoubtedly contributes to the perpetual sense of immediate danger in the film is the kinetic, dizzying camera-work that Zombie opts for. It can be a cheap-shot to quicken the pace in films (I'm looking at you, Tony Scott) but in 'The Devil's Rejects' is all fits with the violent action style. But the film is not all action and certainly there is an underlying horror vibe that often bubbles up underneath the bottled lid and gives rise to truly frightening scenarios such as Forsythe chasing after someone with an axe. It ticks off some horror clichés during the way but always with humour and rawness as opposed to the unimaginative run-of-the-mill teen horrors that treat the same scenarios as dutiful inclusions.
Ultimately The Devil's Rejects is mostly flashy and fun and would possibly fall apart at closer analysis. But Mr. Analysist himself Roger Ebert gave the film two thumbs up which should serve as a mark of its high entertainment factor. Its cast and content both tread a fine line between straight and camp and tip over into both categories at several points. Finally, the end scene is one of the strongest I have ever seen, no hyperbole, and it elevates Rejects even further above generic gross-out formula.
7 out of 10
Hype and occasional missteps aside, I think Rob Zombie has created something quite unique and fun in the genre a sort of clear-eyed but grossly over-the-top white-trash tits 'n' torture freak-show of gore, sex and violence en masse. What is most admirable is that Mr. Zombie actually seems to know what he is doing with the content instead of dishing out gore galore to create headlines. The fact is that the narrative, the characters and the no-nonsense approach all function by remaining clear-cut and down-to-earth while the madness of the story exponentially increases.
So what is the story? It is a modern day Bonnie & Clyde in which the fugitive family Firefly indulge in orgies of gore and killing sprees on a road-trip in the South. All the while the Texas State Police contingent headed by Sheriff John Quincy Wydell (a raspy-voiced William Forsythe) slowly close in on the family capture the offenders at any cost, even if that means enlisting gruesome bounty hunters. In this way the police are neither the pro- nor antagonists in the film and Forsythe aptly brings that delicious moral ambiguity to his Sheriff character.
Conversely, the Firefly family certainly offer no moral safeground. They kill like they mean business a sort of sick, seedy and sadistic business, true, but still business and indeed you hold more disgust than sympathy for the quartet even though you are highly absorbed by them. On that note, Sheri Moon delivers the best performance by a playboy model I have ever seen. Danny Trejo also looks right at home in a sleazy thug character that pops up at one point in 'The Devil's Rejects' and the remaining cast look equally comfortable as hard-edged whitetrash.
What undoubtedly contributes to the perpetual sense of immediate danger in the film is the kinetic, dizzying camera-work that Zombie opts for. It can be a cheap-shot to quicken the pace in films (I'm looking at you, Tony Scott) but in 'The Devil's Rejects' is all fits with the violent action style. But the film is not all action and certainly there is an underlying horror vibe that often bubbles up underneath the bottled lid and gives rise to truly frightening scenarios such as Forsythe chasing after someone with an axe. It ticks off some horror clichés during the way but always with humour and rawness as opposed to the unimaginative run-of-the-mill teen horrors that treat the same scenarios as dutiful inclusions.
Ultimately The Devil's Rejects is mostly flashy and fun and would possibly fall apart at closer analysis. But Mr. Analysist himself Roger Ebert gave the film two thumbs up which should serve as a mark of its high entertainment factor. Its cast and content both tread a fine line between straight and camp and tip over into both categories at several points. Finally, the end scene is one of the strongest I have ever seen, no hyperbole, and it elevates Rejects even further above generic gross-out formula.
7 out of 10