The Beast Reviews: The Devil's Rejects

In the world of gore and explicit imagery, the question that goes hand in hand with films of this nature is whether the over-the-top images tell a story that would fall short without them. For most people, they can never see the purpose, and that is understandable.

I will admit, the first hour of The Devil's Rejects had me thinking, "this is just Rob Zombie attempting to disgust as many people as possible." I am a huge fan of his first film, "House of 1000 corpses", granted, it is Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip off. But, it is a good rip off.

However, about 2/3 through the film, a scene happens that turned the movie around for me. The leading police officer on the case, whose mind of revenge over the death of his brother finally takes him to the land of insanity, calls in the local leading movie critic to help the case with an explanation of Groucho Marx films, which helps the officer understand the methodology of the demented family. He came to discover that all the names of the family were taken from Groucho Marx characters. This particular film critic, such a huge fan of Groucho Marx, ends up turning his help with the case into a rant and rave on how the death of Marx was overshadowed by the fact that Elvis died just a few days previous. His passion and obsession with his love shines through in a big way, almost to the point of getting shot by the local, Elvis loving police officers.

It was then that I understood the direction of the film, at least for me. The Devil's Rejects offers the viewer an exploration into the possibility that each of us has our own idea of what needs to be paid more attention to. All the characters examined in the film were radically obsessed with their particular viewpoint on life, which ultimately led to ruin of each character. A revenge driven police officer, a movie critic whose favorite actor doesn't get enough credit, a psychotic family whose quest for the lust of life continues to bring them closer to death.

I suppose the explicit imagery says this to the viewer: Anything taken to excessive limits can turn into a very nasty, dirty, ugly portrait of our own destruction.

Have a nice day.