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| Grade- B |
Zombie's first film hinted at his promise as a filmmaker while giving us something that felt new and different. I'll be the first to say that this movie is a bit too quirky at times, and felt more than choppy overall, but we can't help loving it all the same.
It was so dark and nasty, and had such a 70's throwback feel to it, that not even the random images popping up all the time could stop of from loving this movie. It also helped that it was packed with a bunch of great actors playing some interesting parts. For a first film, this one was pretty fun, and it's become one of our "cult favorites" if you will.
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| Grade- A |
This is, and may well always be, Rob Zombie's career highlight. A pure road revenge movie, Rejects shocked and reviled us, and yet made us fall in love with it at the same time. The cast truly elevates the material here, making the characters their own, and shining in the process. Bill Moseley was perfect as Otis, and Sid Haig was equally as brilliant as Captain Spaulding.
Zombie drastically improved on his 1000 Corpses architecture and made an almost normal and straight forward movie with Rejects, foregoing most of the kitschy randomness that plagued his debut film. This movie was better off for it.
Dirty, nasty, and yet still somehow fun, The Devil's Rejects is one of the best genre flicks of the 2000's, without question.
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| Grade- B+ |
The very idea of this movie infuriated us back when it was announced, but it ended up being pretty well done fro what it was. Zombie humanized (for better or worse) Micheal Myers for us, by showing him as a kid growing up in an abusive white trash home, which lead to his eventual break from sanity.
This remake is no way even close to what the 1978 original was, not in any way... that being said, this is also an effective, if not flawed, remake that packs a nice punch and delivers the goods. This is a brutal, skanky, visceral vision of Halloween, filled with sex, foul language, and the "colorful" characters that are staples in Zombie's movies. Where the original was more subtle, atmospheric and terrifying, this version is more violent, chaotic and evensort of depressing in a way.
Despite its flaws, this remake is far better than we ever thought it would be.
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| Grade- DO NOT WANT |
We'll let our synopsis of the movie serve as testament of how it made us feel.
"H2 picks up where the first one left off, with Laurie having shot Michael at point blank range in the face with a Magnum (I think it was a Magnum), Loomis having his eyes gouged out, and Annie near death... except that Michael is alive, Loomis' eyes are fine, and Annie survives. Alright, fine. It's a horror flick, and I guess I sorta have to be good with just accepting certain things that give reason for and facilitate a sequel.
After a "ha, got ya!" dream sequence which negates the best part of the movie, we come to find that our sweet little Laurie has turned into a skanky looking, dirty pseudo-dread haired riot grrrl, who hangs with other skanky chicks calling each other "dick licker", "dude", and just acting annoyingly lame. I guess that's because of what she "went through?" Does everyone who writes young girl characters these days have to make them sound like total annoying assholes? Yes Diablo Cody, I am talking to you!
She's living with Annie and her Sheriff Father now, out in the deep country of Haddonfield, which offers a unique "family structure": Laurie is a retard, Annie is bitter and scarred, and the Sheriff is about the only person that doesn't make you instantly wish Michael had finished both girls off to begin with.
Meanwhile, Michael is a wandering hobo - honestly- who roams around fields all day looking like Grizzly Adams' mongoloid son. He also grunts and moans when he's killing people now. Plus, I think he has a psychic homing beacon with which he can track Laurie/Boo/Angel.
Laurie and Hobo-Mike alsoshare the same "dreams" involving their mom and a young version of Michael, who visit both of them with horses, talking about "It's time to come home" and "It's time to finish this." It's all very surreal and pointless. We get that Michael is nuts. We get that Laurie went nuts. How about letting the actors show us that by emoting and using their craft rather than using some shoddy dream sequence shit every five minutes.
Loomis completely does a 180 in this one too, going from concerned shrink to absolutely unconcerned author celebretard without missing a step. He's a douchebag with a capital D for the entire movie, and then in the last 5 minutes he gets bored in his hotel room and rushes to the scene of Michael holding Laurie hostage to "help."
This movie was an anger-inducing mess.
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| Grade- DO NOT WANT |
It looks great, and the voice actors have nothing to be ashamed of, but it's such a vulgar and random mess of lame crap, that the rest doesn't matter... and I like vulgar. I LOVE VULGAR. I really think though, that Rob Zombie uses vulgarity so much because he just doesn't know how to do anything else. For instance, the main character is playing an Italian guy in a porn movie, and he's about to have sex with two girls and says "How do youa likea my cannoli now, heh?" Funny line! Right?
Enough with the nods to the old school horror of way, way back Rob, it's not clever anymore. We get that you like old and weird shit, but not many other people do, hence why it's not around anymore.
The 15yr old Adult Swim generation might like this movie, but it's lost on me, and not because I don't get it. Random and endless curse words, cartoon sluts, cartoon boobs, cartoon porn, jokes that aren't funny, annoyingly kitschy sound effects... this one is for the brain-dead only.
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| You can read out thoughts on this one in the review below... |
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