‘I bet you’d stick your head in a fire if I told you you could see Hell…’
Rob Zombie. Is he a talented musician? Is he a successful director? It’s difficult to say. I loved his reimagining of Michael Myers and the Halloween franchise, but plenty of people hated it. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Firefly trilogy, but Zombie himself has disavowed the first film in that franchise and critics were similarly nonplussed. Let’s start with that one and try to untangle this whole damn mess:
House of 1000 Corpses
House of 1000 Corpses is feisty, provocative and unashamedly gory. Zombie combines the grim horror of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the campy sensibilities of the B movies that he grew up watching to birth something truly trashy and grotesque. Whilst he was criticised for the arty cutaway sequences, they only add to the disorientating sense that the four ‘teenagers’ at the heart of the story (including a young Rainn Wilson) have somehow stumbled into the mouth of hell.
Whilst there are moments here that are perhaps a little too camp, the committed performances (shout out to Sid Haig) ensure that House of 1000 Corpses sits nicely alongside the movies that it is trying to emulate rather than cowering in their shadow. A flawed but pleasingly madcap debut feature from a burgeoning horror legend.
The Devil’s Rejects
Ostensibly, The Devil’s Rejects takes everything that was good about House of 1000 Corpses and magnifies it to the nth degree. That means no badly filmed cutaways, no subplot about a maniacal surgeon in the basement, and not quite as much Captain Spaulding yukking along with clueless tourists in a clown costume. There is still plenty of chaos and destruction but it’s more focussed, less aimless. And while this makes for a thoroughly enjoyable traipse through Bonnie and Clyde via The Hills Have Eyes, I can’t help but feel that some of the grimy charm of the original is lost here.
Having said that, the Firefly family, condensed to their three most diabolical parts in Spaulding (Sid Haig), Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) are as compelling as ever, with three genuinely great performances at the heart of the movie. Zombie doesn’t hold back on the nihilistic violence and the bloody conclusion serves as a fitting end for an unforgettable band of outlaws… or does it.
The inclusion of horror legend Ken Foree is also a welcome addition.
3 From Hell
The Devil’s Rejects saw the three most abominable members of the Firefly family gunned down in a blaze of glory. And honestly, that’s probably where they should have stayed. The third and final entry in the franchise sees Baby, Otis and Captain Spaulding (the latter only featuring briefly due to Sid Haig’s failing health) return from the grave to embark on yet another killing spree. As Spaulding is executed in the prologue, his place in the three from hell is taken by Richard Brake as Otis’ brother Winslow. That this late inclusion is handled clumsily is indicative of the fact that this whole endeavour feels a little sloppy.
While Zombie has lost none of his visual ingenuity, and the cast do the very best with the material they have been given, the derivative plot and the push away from horror and into the crime genre irrevocably harm 3 From Hell. There is some pleasure in seeing the old band back together for one last ride, but there is also a nagging feeling that they probably should have remained in hell after Devil’s Rejects.
And so, at the end of those three movies, I’m still none the wiser. Zombie is a credible horror director but perhaps nothing more than that…