The Devil's Rejects
Now this is a good fucking movie. And how often does it actually happen that you can say this about a sequel when you really didn't like the original?
Rob Zombie is certainly a talented director. He managed to take the characters he created for House of 1000 Corpses, remove everything that was too obnoxious and too over the top about them (toned those women way, way down, I didn't hate them this time), bring them down to a much more realistic level and made one hell of a good movie out of it. I hope he's got a few more planned, I might actually start watching English language films again.
I have over the last few years developed a real appreciation for horror films that are more reality based than supernatural. Human depravity is a lot more interesting, and a hell of a lot more frightening, than ghosts and vampires and werewolves and all sorts of other shit that never existed and never will. Its much scarier when its something that could actually happen. And yeah, this family might be a bit extreme, a massive graveyard of bodies, cages in the basement filled with people they've been torturing, etc. But hell, read some true crime sometime, trust me they're not that far out, things like that have happened. Rob Zombie seems to have a fairly good knowledge of serial killers, House of 1000 Corpses offered a brief biography of Ed Gein and Albert Fish, I thought I was about the only person who actually knew who they were (although how Ed Gein's name got lost from popular consciousness I don't even understand; not only was he an exceptionally twisted freak with some very bizarre home decorating ideas, he was the inspiration behind a number of very famous fictional killers like Norman Bates, Leatherface and The Silence of the Lambs killer Buffalo Bill) and likely he took inspiration from a lot of real people to create his twisted family.
Although, once more I am sad to report, talk of this movie's exceptionally violent nature are far overblown and not really deserved. I will concede the overall film has a very brutal tone to it, that just about everyone in it is a hardened killer, without conscience and without mercy, who would blow you away without a second's hesitation and not hint of remorse. A movie's tone can definitely have an effect on how you perceive things. But looking at actual content here, there's not much; not too graphic and certainly nothing we haven't seen before.
The days of extremely graphically violent films were in the eighties and early nineties, and it ended at about 1995. Or at least that was the last time I saw anything very bad. Since then, its all been off camera, in the shadows, just out of your view. Of all the movies made in recent years where critics and viewers went on and on about how violent it was, I have yet to see even one that was actually worth all that talk, and I've seen many of them (I may be willing to believe that both Hostel and The Passion of the Christ actually were that violent, but I've seen neither movie and have no plans to ever do so, so I can't testify to it).
Either way I'm satisfied, and have something new to add to the Christmas list. :-)
Rob Zombie is certainly a talented director. He managed to take the characters he created for House of 1000 Corpses, remove everything that was too obnoxious and too over the top about them (toned those women way, way down, I didn't hate them this time), bring them down to a much more realistic level and made one hell of a good movie out of it. I hope he's got a few more planned, I might actually start watching English language films again.
I have over the last few years developed a real appreciation for horror films that are more reality based than supernatural. Human depravity is a lot more interesting, and a hell of a lot more frightening, than ghosts and vampires and werewolves and all sorts of other shit that never existed and never will. Its much scarier when its something that could actually happen. And yeah, this family might be a bit extreme, a massive graveyard of bodies, cages in the basement filled with people they've been torturing, etc. But hell, read some true crime sometime, trust me they're not that far out, things like that have happened. Rob Zombie seems to have a fairly good knowledge of serial killers, House of 1000 Corpses offered a brief biography of Ed Gein and Albert Fish, I thought I was about the only person who actually knew who they were (although how Ed Gein's name got lost from popular consciousness I don't even understand; not only was he an exceptionally twisted freak with some very bizarre home decorating ideas, he was the inspiration behind a number of very famous fictional killers like Norman Bates, Leatherface and The Silence of the Lambs killer Buffalo Bill) and likely he took inspiration from a lot of real people to create his twisted family.
Although, once more I am sad to report, talk of this movie's exceptionally violent nature are far overblown and not really deserved. I will concede the overall film has a very brutal tone to it, that just about everyone in it is a hardened killer, without conscience and without mercy, who would blow you away without a second's hesitation and not hint of remorse. A movie's tone can definitely have an effect on how you perceive things. But looking at actual content here, there's not much; not too graphic and certainly nothing we haven't seen before.
The days of extremely graphically violent films were in the eighties and early nineties, and it ended at about 1995. Or at least that was the last time I saw anything very bad. Since then, its all been off camera, in the shadows, just out of your view. Of all the movies made in recent years where critics and viewers went on and on about how violent it was, I have yet to see even one that was actually worth all that talk, and I've seen many of them (I may be willing to believe that both Hostel and The Passion of the Christ actually were that violent, but I've seen neither movie and have no plans to ever do so, so I can't testify to it).
Either way I'm satisfied, and have something new to add to the Christmas list. :-)