Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The consensus seems to be that Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses is a weird, style-heavy piece of shit, and his sequel The Devil's Rejects is not only a stylistic improvement, but better in every other way, too.
I am a genuine fan of both movies, but I fall into the vast minority that loves Corpses, and only really really likes Rejects. Corpses to me is just such a weird, fucked-up, original, wild-hair-up-Rob-Zombie's-ass type of movie... it's like some strange nightmare you might have after watching a marathon of the first two Texas Chainsaw movies and a few episodes of Lost in Space. That's not a perfect analogy, but it somewhere in that realm.
Rejects is still awesome, and I particularly like how skillfully Zombie manages to veer back and forth from dark, disturbing, road-to-nowhere style horror, and broad, ironic humor. A lot of times in other movies, this is attempted and done poorly and it ends up making the movie just kind of offensive (I'm looking at you, Mother's Day). Zombie does it better than just about anyone else.
My favorite stuff is the really dark stuff, the stuff that gives you that kind of hopeless, sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach. Not that I like cynical, sick movies that just want to disgust you, but I do greatly admire a movie that can give you that true feeling of dread. As I mentioned before, I think of these movies as "Road to Nowhere" films, and Rejects has at least one scene that has a place amongst the best ever sequences in the genre.
Otis, one of the killers, marches two hostages down a desert path to retrieve some guns. He talks to them, and there is a lot of inappropriate or weird humor that I think gets a dark laugh. (Especially when he yells "Consider me fucking Willy fucking Wonka. This is my fucking chocolate factory!"). It slowly becomes apparent that he has no intention of letting them live. When they finally break and try to fight back, Otis beats them and gets the upper hand. One of them spits in his face and says "fuck you." Otis laughs, and launches into a little monologue about how everyone he kills says that, and when he explains that "it doesn't scare me, and it won't save you," I think Zombie cuts right to the heart of what is chilling about these films.
What I think keeps it from greatness is a few structural problems. Late in the film, Zombie pulls some subplots to the front and kind of forgets to use the Rejects for a while... I think that loses focus on the real meat of the story. And also, there are just too many fucking slow-motion montages set to country-rock songs, and they drag on too long. He needed to dial that back it bit, it starts getting really tedious.
Still, if you like these kinds of movies, this one is a gem... a sort of roller coaster of oddball humor, and disturbing violence. I'm glad I watched this last night. I'd been in a weird mood the past 2 days. On Monday, I started watching T2 but just couldn't focus and cut it off. Then I tried watching the commentary for Bourne Ultimatum, but it got a little bland maybe halfway in and I stopped. Then Tuesday night I watched half of Killer of Sheep, which I Tivoed and is supposed to be great, but I just couldn't muster the attention to finish it. I was feeling all blah and couldn't decide on a movie to watch... until at around 11 or so when I decided on this one. And it jostled me right out of my weird mood.
8 comments:
when you were talking about the sick, hopeless dread i thought you were gonna bring up the scene right after the one you talked about as well, where the chick is forced to wear her dead husband's face as a mask.
one of my favorite movies. it always cheers me up or puts me in a better mood when i need it. hence the perfection of your t-shirt gift to me.
well, I don't that that scene is as bleak or disheartening because:
1) more or less the same thing happened in House of 1000 Corpses
and
2)it ends with a laugh, sort of
still a good scene
well, taking the movie by itself- the scene does end in a laugh, but not the concept of wearing your dead husband's face. i think we can agree that's a pretty sick/awesome/but sick *thing* to show.
it's disturbing, yes, but doesn't evoke the "road to nowhere" feeling as strongly as the scene I mentioned.
still a good scene. splat!
i gotcha, i gotcha.
blam! (as long as we're making bug-hits-the-windshield noises)
(it says there's a comment left by me that i deleted; that's because it had a spelling mistake in it. and i want the world to continue to believe i'm literate)
Finally got to see this one last week and I have to say I'm glad I gave Zombie a third try. I actually liked this one. It was like a twisted hang-out movie where every scene of being with the characters just emphasizes how twisted these characters are and every new detail just makes them more repugnant. And for a good deal of the film, they get to win, run rampant and have a good time, like it's their "Baby's Day Out".
Loved the ending too, looked cool but it gave me that awful feeling that every spree-killer imagiens themselves going out in slow-motion while their favorite song plays.
I had the same problems with you, and I have to wonder why the "Love Hurts" scene in "Halloween" was such a surprise. It seems like he likes to use old 70's staples in too precious ways. The only time it worked for me was the ending.
I don't plan on seeing his second halloween movie but I might give another director a third chance, maybe Zack Snyder?
If that third movie is "Watchmen," then I say do it. It was shockingly good. Heavily flawed, but containing several prolonged sequences of power and beauty. Definitely worth your time.
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