I finally watched the rest of "The Devil's Rejects," which I thought was just terrible. Zombie tries to humanize the monster characters he created at the front end, showing them among their freako kin, and shows the hard-assed Lawman getting obsessive in his desire to bring them to justice. And, of course, instead of simply wasting the trio of nasties, the guy tortures them graphically, ensuring that they all ultimately get away, despite suffering some injuries along the way. But it's impossible to feel an iota of sympathy or empathy for the characters, given the horrors the unleashed on the front end. Zombie's editorial and directorial sympathies appear to be with the title trio of freaks, but they couldn't die soon enough, and an overlong ending with "Free Bird" playing is just too much to bear.
Looking at some of the reviews for this trash, I saw, to my incredulity, that Roger Ebert gave it like three out of four stars, but I just don't see it. It's competently shot, but it's just a pile of junk thematically. Bad dialogues, wafer-thin characters, a dreadful morality -- all of it.
Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass.
It's weird to compare this movie with one that clearly inspired it, like the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." In that one, despite the whole freak carnival of it, Tobe Hooper clearly identified with the hapless victims who end up on the wrong end of Leatherface's chainsaw. But Zombie so clearly identifies with the monsters in "...Rejects" that it's galling.
He could've written a more complex movie around Captain Spaulding, if he'd only had the writerly chops to pull that off, but that character was, by and large, only there for comic relief (what little there was of it). Anyway, blech. You feel like you need a shower and some brain bleach after watching this movie.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
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