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The Devil’s Rejects – Spoiler Free Review

In much the same way that Desperado is a pseudo-sequel to El Mariachi, Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects is a loose sequel to House of a 1,000 Corpses. Like Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects has a harsh and gritty style no longer scene in modern cinema, particularly in this modern era of flashy horror films. I was a little disappointed in Zombie’s first attempt at feature filmmaking. His love for the 1970s style horror film was evident, but House of a 1,000 Corpses felt like Rob had taken all his favorite elements from films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left, and The Hills Have Eyes tossed them in a blender and shot it. While The Devil’s Rejects is far from a perfect horror film, it does reveal that Rob Zombie is growing as a director and writer as he was able to take his simply slasher film characters and make them a bit more believable.

What is good?

Zombie knows his genres well and he uses this knowledge. He seamlessly melded traditional horror film elements with the rarely tapped hyper-violent psycho-killer flicks that came out of the failed counter culture movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Avoiding blatant gore to elicit shrieks from the viewer, Zombie lets the situation itself build tension and dread within the audience. There were many moments where I, a huge horror fan, found myself wanting to turn my head because I was certain something horrorific was about to happen; only to have the tension lessened just enough to let my guard down. A mistake I made multiple times as I jumped and squirmed in my seat. While I will avoid any spoilers, I feel I should warn folks. There is a scene in The Devil’s Rejects that will give you nightmares without a spilling a drop of blood. Zombie is able to draw strong performances in The Devil’s Rejects. The actors are surprisingly solid, particularly for a genre, which lately, has been known for cheesy one-liners and poor dialogue.

What is not so good?

It seems as if Rob Zombie is still trying to find his own personal style. The film will shift from a basic steadicam or dolly shot to a shakycam, NYPD style of shooting. While this change in shooting can be disorienting enough when it happens in between scenes, the effect is downright jarring when it happens within the same scene. In fact, most of my issues I have with Devil’s Rejects are not pure criticisms. Rob Zombie is a growing director and like all living entities, his art is experiencing some growing pains. While I was surprised at how well Zombie was able to walk the line between horror and crime film, I felt he kept his story a little too far on the crime side and people expecting a pure horror film may be disappointed. Those who only have slight knowledge of Rob Zombie and his work may assume the film is filled with gore. It is surprisingly light on the gore side, allowing the viewers own mind to fill in the horrific blanks. However, what gore was used relied heavily (at least to me) on CGI. When used in conjuncture with traditional gore effects, CGI can help augment the scene as evidenced in Land of the Dead. However, in a film that is so grittily filmed, the CGI gore sticks out like a sore thumb.

As I said, it is not perfect, but when Rob Zombie is in his groove, The Devil’s Rejects works and it works well. When he is off, the film falls a bit flat. If you are a fan of gritty horror films and you were sorely let down by the story and characters in High Tension (as I was), then give The Devil's Rejects a viewing. The Devil's Rejects is a good sophomore outing for Rob Zombie. If he continues to grow as a filmmaker then I see him graduating into a master of the horror genre.

I give The Devil's Rejects 3.5 Critical Hits out of 5.