Tweet
Released by: Umbrella Entertainment
Released on: October 5th, 2017.
Director: Rob Zombie
Cast: Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Sheri Mooon, William Forsythe, Leslie Easterbrook, Ken Foree
Year: 2005
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Rob Zombie's second film picks up shortly after the events that finished up his debut, House Of 1,000 Corpses. The Firefly clan is holed up in a farmhouse, surrounded by cops and wanted for murdering seventy-five people. Needless to say, the police are pretty hot to get their hands on the clan, but they're not going down without a fight. Soon enough, a bloody shoot out goes down. Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon) make it out of the house before the law closes in, but Mother Firefly (Leslie Easterbrook picking up where Karen Black left off) isn't so lucky and the cops are only too happy to bring her into custody.
Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), as luck would have it, was out of the house when the shootout occurred - getting it on at a hotel (with Ginger Lynn!) - so he too manages to avoid the police and it doesn't take him long to find out what's happened. Once he does, he figures he should head on out and look for Baby and Otis. Where are they? They've been hiding out in a remote hotel where they've been holding a country and western band (made up of Priscilla Barnes, Geoffrey Lewis, Kate Norby and Lew Temple) hostage. One thing leads to another and soon Baby and Otis, after making waste of the band, head out to meet up with Spaulding at a whorehouse run by Spaulding's 'brother from another mother,' Charlie Altamont (Ken Foree).
While the family is on the lam, Sheriff Wydell (William Forsyth) is becoming more and more obsessed with getting revenge on them for the murder of his brother in the first film. He rounds up a band of hired guns to help him out and heads into the desert to find the three Fireflies and give them what for.
Rob Zombie has crafted one mean little movie this time out. While a lot of the black humor that made the first movie as fun as it was is still here, there's a much stronger mean streak in The Devil's Rejects that gives it a certain air of uneasiness. Otis and Spaulding are sicker, more depraved and more psychotic here than in the last film (if that's possible) but the story allows us to get to know them better this time out, which makes for an interesting paradox. These are definitely not heroes or even antiheroes that we're following in this film, they're despicable human beings. But their story is interesting. While we don't necessarily root for them, the movie sucks us in enough that we do want to find out how it all ends.
In addition to some brilliant casting choices, Zombie has also done an excellent job of recreating the dirty, sweaty atmosphere of so many of the seventies drive in horror and exploitation films that so obviously inspired him to make this movie. The film will leave you in need of a shower, it's been baked in the sun a little too long and as such it's got a strange funk to it that just makes an already fairly seedy movie even seedier.
With supporting roles from Michael Berryman, Rosario Dawson (well, in a deleted scene), P. J. Soles, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Ginger Lynn Allen, Mary Woronov, and more, the film also makes for a fun game of 'spot the b-movie celebrity' you're your friends. We also see the late Matthew McGrory, Danny Trejo and Diamond Dallas Page cast as the Sheriff's mercenary pals.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Umbrella Entertainment presents The Devil's Rejects in a very nice 1.78.1 widescreen transfer in AVC encoded 1080p high definition on a 25GB disc with the feature taking up just over 18GBs of space. You'll notice as you watch the film that certain scenes are supposed to look dirtier and grittier than others and this disc does a good job of replicating that without taking it too far. The footage that isn't intentionally degraded looks nearly pristine aside from a light coating of film grain in a few spots that is entirely appropriate and this transfer is very clear and very detailed. The black levels are strong. There are, however, some very mild compression artifacts noticeable here and there - but they're minor, and infrequent. Color reproduction is top notch, with the reds really standing out against the dry and arid hues of the film. Both foreground and background detail is really strong and this is, for the most part, a very impressive and very film-like transfer that does a great job of replicating the visuals that the film makes such excellent use of.
Audio chores are handled by an English language 24-bit DTS-HD 6.1 Master Audio track. In terms of quality, the mix sounds excellent. The dialogue is crystal clear, the sound effects are powerful but not so much so that they drown anything out, and the music swells up behind the action just perfectly. The mix makes great use of the rear channels to build plenty of atmosphere and there are all manner of fun directional effects thrown at your from various parts of the soundstage throughout the feature. The bass response is tight and powerful and the rear channels flesh things out nicely.
Extras start off with two commercials - the Mary The Monkey Girl spot and the Captain Spaulding Christmas commercial. These are just what they sound like, a pair of Spaulding hosted commercials with the character in full on sales mode, and like the Morris Green bit, they're amusing enough.
The nastiest of the supplements comes in the form of Cheerleader Missing - The Otis Home Movie. This is, essentially, a segment in which Otis takes his time torturing, raping, and killing the cheerleader that he kidnaps. Made to look like a home movie, this is pretty nasty stuff
Umbrella has also included a few deleted scenes on this disc, including the often talked about Dr. Satan scene. The first scene is called Swamp Escape and it's essentially just some footage of Otis and Baby coming out of the sewer and into the swamp, it's roughly forty-six seconds in length. Family Argument is a brief argument between Baby and Otis in the truck, and it runs all of twenty-four seconds. Keep Your Cool is a twenty three second clip of dialogue between two of the cops. Dr. Satan Attacks is a bit longer, at one minute and fifty seconds, and I'm not going to spoil this one for you - it's cool enough that you'll want to check it out on your own. Snake Bite is thirty-one seconds of more dialogue between cops, while French Tickler is a forty-second clip in which Michael Berryman explains a few things for us. Pork Rind is forty five seconds of Ken Foree hamming it up at the whorehouse. Marshmallow Ass is a sequence where the Fireflies come up on Berryman and want entrance to the brothel, it lasts a minute and thirty four seconds. Keep Your Mouth Shut is forty six seconds of dialogue between Berryman and Foree, while Otis And Candy Make Funky Music is three minutes and forty seconds of Otis trying to decide what position he'd like to bang Candy in off of the supplied menu. Personal Escort Into Hell is a minute and forty five seconds of dialogue between the Sheriff and the Fireflies who are locked in the back of his police truck.
The Morris Green Show - Ruggsville's #1 Talk Show is a half hour 'full broadcast' of the talk show that is briefly seen in the background of one of the scenes in the film. The premise is that the topic of the day for Morris' show is the three lead characters of the film, and so he's going to give the viewing public his take on them. It's a pretty amusing and darkly funny bit that works well with the feature.
Rounding out the extra features are some make up tests (provided for pretty much all of the main characters in the feature - thirteen minutes and eight seconds worth of material), a nice tribute to the late Matthew McGrory, a two minute 'Bloody Stand-Up' gag bit, a video for Buck Owens' Satan's Got To Get Along Without Me, and a five minute long blooper reel. Animated menus and chapter selection are also included - it would be unjust not to point out, however, that the two commentary tracks and 30 Days In Hell: The Making Of The Devil's Rejects two hour making of documentary that were included on the Lionsgate release are not found on this disc.
The Final Word:
A lot of Rob Zombie's films are terrible - The Devil's Rejects is not, it's actually well-made and quite effective. Umbrella's Blu-ray release isn't as features packed as the Lionsgate one but it's hardly barebones and it does look and sound quite good.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
