Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to a brand new episode of
Speaker 1: Second Take Cinema, coming at you from the Glorious Impala
Speaker 1: Film's headquarters in sunny South End on Sea. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jamie Evans, joined as always by mister Rory Jocelyn.
Speaker 2: Slamming in the back of your dragula, my friend, and
Speaker 2: today we.
Speaker 1: Are going back to a film that was beloved by
Speaker 1: me as a teenager. It is our second trip to
Speaker 1: zombie Town as we review mister Rob Zombies The Devil's Rejects.
Speaker 1: The Devil's Rejects is a two thousand and five American
Speaker 1: black comedy horror film, written, produced, and directed by Rob Zombie.
Speaker 1: It is the sequel to his two thousand and three
Speaker 1: movie House of a Thousand Corpses, and it was made
Speaker 1: for a budget of seven million dollars and it went
Speaker 1: on to gross twenty point nine million dollars at the
Speaker 1: box office. It stars Sid Hague, Bill Moseley, Sherry Moon, Zombie,
Speaker 1: Ken Forrey, Matthew McCrory, and William Forsyth, along with Leslie Easterbrook.
Speaker 1: Over On Rotten Tomorrow's the film has an approval rating
Speaker 1: of fifty four percent. The site's consensus reads Zombie has
Speaker 1: improved as a filmmaker since House of a Thousand Corpses
Speaker 1: and will please fans of the genre, but beware the
Speaker 1: horror is nasty, relentless, and sadistic. Critic Roger Ebert enjoyed
Speaker 1: the film and gave it three out of four stars.
Speaker 1: He wrote, there is actually some good writing and acting
Speaker 1: going on here, if you can step back from the
Speaker 1: violent material enough to see it.
Speaker 3: Later.
Speaker 1: In his two thousand and six review for the horror
Speaker 1: movie The Hills of Eyes, Ebert referenced The Devil's Rejects, writing,
Speaker 1: I received some appalled feedback when I praised Rob Zombies
Speaker 1: the Devil's Rejects, but I admired two things about it
Speaker 1: that were absent from the Hills of Eyes. One it
Speaker 1: desired to entertain and not merely to sicken, and two,
Speaker 1: its depraved killers were individuals with personalities, histories, and motives.
Speaker 1: In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travis gave The
Speaker 1: Devil's Rejects three out of four stars and wrote, let's
Speaker 1: hear it for the Southern Fried soundtrack from Buck Owens
Speaker 1: as Satan's Got to get Along Without Me to Lynard
Speaker 1: Skynard's free Bird, playing over the blood soaked finale, which
Speaker 1: manages to wed the Wild Bunch to Thelma and Louise.
Speaker 1: Richard Roper gave the film a thumbs up for being
Speaker 1: successful at its goal to be the sickest, most twisted,
Speaker 1: and most deranged movie at that point of the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. In her review for The New
Speaker 1: York Times, Dana Stevens wrote that the film is a
Speaker 1: trumploy experiment in deliberately retro filmmaking. It looks sensational, but
Speaker 1: there is a curious emptiness at its core. Entertainment Weekly
Speaker 1: gave the film a C plus rating and wrote, Zombie's
Speaker 1: characters are, to put it, mildly underdeveloped.
Speaker 3: Robert K.
Speaker 1: Elder of the Chicago Tribune disliked the film, writing, despite
Speaker 1: decades of soaking in bloody classics such as the original
Speaker 1: Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I Spit on Your Grave, Zombie
Speaker 1: didn't absorb any of the underlying social tension or heart
Speaker 1: in those films. He's no collage artist of influencers, like
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino, crafting his movies from childhood influencers. Rejects plays
Speaker 1: more like a junkyard of homages. Strewn together and lost
Speaker 1: amongst inept cops, gaping plot holes, and buzzard ready dialogue.
Speaker 2: That is interesting. I'll comment a little bit more on
Speaker 2: that later, but there's a few things that I do
Speaker 2: actually kind of agree with him on with that. Horror.
Speaker 1: Author Stephen King rated The Devil's Rejects the ninth best
Speaker 1: movie of two thousand and five and wrote, no redeeming
Speaker 1: social merit, perfect, seventy Sea Graine picture, cheesy glow. This
Speaker 1: must be what Quentin Tarantino meant when he did those silly.
Speaker 3: Kill Bill pictures.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't like kill Bill either, to be fair, not.
Speaker 2: A big fan of kill Bill, but those were clearly
Speaker 2: more inspired by martial art movies than this was. This
Speaker 2: was not a martial arts extravaganza by any stretch.
Speaker 1: And lastly, James Barrardinelli was very negative, giving The Devil's
Speaker 1: Rejects only half a star out of four and called
Speaker 1: it a vile, reprehensible movie, saying the action was more
Speaker 1: formula than plot. He described the dialogue as a pastiche
Speaker 1: at least I think that's the intention of the kind
Speaker 1: of bloodthirsty, overripe lines found in a genre of films
Speaker 1: from the nineteen seventies about outcasts who defy society.
Speaker 3: By destroying it.
Speaker 1: He was extremely critical of the acting, directing, and the
Speaker 1: production values, with an ending that was a cataclysmic misfire,
Speaker 1: an overall was not engaging cinema. In twenty fifteen, Taste
Speaker 1: of Cinema ranked the film twenty third amongst the thirty
Speaker 1: great psychopath movies that are worth your time. It also
Speaker 1: won several awards, including the following awards at the Fangoria
Speaker 1: chainsaw Awards, which you know, very prestigious. The Angoria chainsaw Awards,
Speaker 1: it won Best Wide Release Film, Scariest Film, Best Screenplay,
Speaker 1: Best Actor for Sid Hague, Best Reporting Actor for William Forsyth,
Speaker 1: Best Supporting Actress for Leslie Easterbrook, Best Score for Tyler Bates,
Speaker 1: Relationship from Hell for Bill Mosley, and Cherry Moon, Zombie,
Speaker 1: and it was nominated for Best One Liner from Bill Moseley.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't tell you what the one liner was.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, that's stupid. They should tell you what the one
Speaker 2: line is.
Speaker 1: It also won a couple of Scream Awards, including Best
Speaker 1: Horror Movie and Most Vile Villain. Won collectively for all
Speaker 1: the members of the Firefly family.
Speaker 2: And that was it for.
Speaker 1: Awards, so I put Devil's Rejects into the list. I
Speaker 1: first saw this movie around the time it came out
Speaker 1: on DVD, about when I was still quite young getting
Speaker 1: into horror movies old.
Speaker 3: I wasn't that young.
Speaker 1: I was a fan of Rob Zombie's music and when
Speaker 1: I heard and I've seen all of these music videos.
Speaker 1: I actually have the deluxe edition of hell Billy Deluxe,
Speaker 1: his first solo album.
Speaker 2: When did you first hear Rob Zombie's music?
Speaker 1: I tell you that story as well. Actually I first
Speaker 1: heard Rob Zombie in the movie Bride of Chucky. The
Speaker 1: opening theme is the song Living Dead Girl. Okay, and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a great fucking thing. And
Speaker 1: he got a credit that you do not see that often,
Speaker 1: like usually music credits right at the end of the credits.
Speaker 1: In the opening titles of Bride of Chucky, one of
Speaker 1: the you know when it's coming up, like the stars
Speaker 1: and the director, it comes up opening song Living Dead
Speaker 1: Girl by Rob Zombie.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Who he bribed or what to get that credit, but
Speaker 2: Baby gave him to him cheaper so that he could
Speaker 2: get his name out there. Because that would have been
Speaker 2: the ninety Yeah, that would be in the same year
Speaker 2: he went solo, right, So I'm wondering if that's also
Speaker 2: just before his film career.
Speaker 1: Is before that's just before it because he actually shot
Speaker 1: House one thousand Corps says in the late nineties, like
Speaker 1: ninety nine, but it didn't come out until two thousands.
Speaker 2: It might have been a smart move because then he's
Speaker 2: already got a credit, yeah, on a big film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you may have either didn't done it for free
Speaker 2: or given them to cheap and gone just put my
Speaker 2: name in the credit. That's all I want.
Speaker 3: Bride of Chucky shaped a lot of my taste.
Speaker 2: It's a great it's a great film.
Speaker 1: Bride of Chucky's great. It's how I discovered Rob Zombie.
Speaker 1: And it's also how I discovered Alice Cooper because I
Speaker 1: obviously started listening to Rob Zombie and then in almost
Speaker 1: every interview Rob Zombie's ever given, he's like, well, my
Speaker 1: biggest influence is Alice.
Speaker 2: Cooper, Like, who's this Alice Cooper chick? And then you
Speaker 2: look it up and you're like, that's not a chick,
Speaker 2: but he's fucking awesome. Yeah, And that's how I got
Speaker 2: into Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie, and clearly I've never
Speaker 2: matured as an adult because my music taste is still
Speaker 2: what I listened to when I was fourteen years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah but sorry, but that era of metal, new metal,
Speaker 2: et cetera. I still really enjoy it. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of it's cheese, as is Rob Zombie, but it's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it just it just drives, and that's what I like
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: But on my copy of hell Billy Deluxe, there is
Speaker 1: a second there's a DVD that has music videos for
Speaker 1: every song, all directed by Rob Zombie, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: these are weird. And clearly this guy loves horror movies
Speaker 1: because he's all like footage from old black and white
Speaker 1: horror films cut into the videos. Okay, and have you
Speaker 1: ever seen the music video four Living Dead Girl?
Speaker 2: No? I have not.
Speaker 3: Oh you should watch it.
Speaker 1: It's modeled on a nineteen twenties German expressionist movie called
Speaker 1: The Cabinet of Doctor Kaligari, which I have seen. I
Speaker 1: believe it's free to watch on YouTube. That's a German
Speaker 1: expressionist film. So it's one of those films where it
Speaker 1: kind of is rejecting realism. Right, It's a film that
Speaker 1: is like, no, we're not gonna make the shots look realistic.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna make the sets look realistic. Everything's gonna
Speaker 1: be weird angles. And I imagine I don't know this
Speaker 1: for a fact, but I would be willing to bet
Speaker 1: money that Cabinet of Dr Calgary was one of Tim
Speaker 1: Burton's biggest influencers, right, because a lot of that traditional
Speaker 1: Burton look really does come.
Speaker 3: From Cabinet of Doctor Kaligari.
Speaker 1: Interesting anyway, I heard he'd gone into making films and
Speaker 1: The Devil's Rejects came out and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is rob Zombie and that's a great title. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna buy this film and see what it is. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was expecting. It was definitely,
Speaker 1: at the time, the most extreme movie I'd ever seen.
Speaker 1: And I remember watching it and I watched it with
Speaker 1: my dad and that was a bit of a delightful experience.
Speaker 3: And then I.
Speaker 1: Got a little low key obsessed with this movie for
Speaker 1: a few months and watched it again and again and again.
Speaker 1: Because I watching it back as an adult, I can
Speaker 1: see that it's not as clever as I thought it
Speaker 1: was at the time, but when I was fourteen, the
Speaker 1: fact that the villains start off as these heinous, horrible, utter,
Speaker 1: fucking psychopath killers and by the end of the film,
Speaker 1: I was crying because they die spoiler alert, Oh.
Speaker 2: Well they don't because there's a sequel.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there wasn't the time and this shouldn't be
Speaker 1: and to pretend it doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: I was like, how has he done that?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How has he made me care about these monsters? And
Speaker 1: I just watched it over and over again.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting, because I'll be honest, I never came
Speaker 2: to care about them. There were certainly Sid Hagues's character,
Speaker 2: Captain Spaulding, I came to enjoy, but I never I
Speaker 2: never gave a singular shit about Otis. I thought he
Speaker 2: was scummy and Sherry Moan Zombie's baby was an interesting
Speaker 2: different type of killer. I thought that was interesting, a
Speaker 2: little undercooked, maybe simply because it was sharing so much
Speaker 2: screen time with other serial killers. But yeah, Otis never
Speaker 2: really seemed to be enjoying himself, and I know that's
Speaker 2: that's probably just like, well, that's the way he kills
Speaker 2: is different, you know, Whereas Captain Spaulding clearly enjoys the
Speaker 2: way he kills or just screws over society for his
Speaker 2: own humor. But the I never came to really like them.
Speaker 2: But what I really did like in this film. We'll
Speaker 2: cover this later because it's I think for me, I
Speaker 2: think it's the most interesting part of the film is
Speaker 2: the downfall of Sheriff Wydell william Ford Syth's. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: is incredible in terms of the essentially it's breaking bad
Speaker 2: before breaking bad, but within a scope of a film
Speaker 2: and a cop because he starts off he's got to
Speaker 2: get these guys for murdering his brother, and then by
Speaker 2: the end he is one of them. Realistically, he may
Speaker 2: be getting revenge on them, but he is no better
Speaker 2: and one brother. Yeah, and I really liked that, and
Speaker 2: that was a social commentary I enjoyed, and I thought
Speaker 2: was again somewhat undercooked because it was the film was
Speaker 2: trying to do I think too much and was a
Speaker 2: little unfocused. Will come to that more over time. I
Speaker 2: am going to give a counterpoint to how I discovered
Speaker 2: Rob Zombie, because Jamie has given his account. He was
Speaker 2: watching horror films and he was listening to really grotty
Speaker 2: metal Rory first picked up on Rob Zombie. I probably
Speaker 2: heard him in a film first, but I didn't recognize
Speaker 2: it until later. The Matrix, Yeah, but I didn't recognize
Speaker 2: it till later. That's not where I picked up Rob Zombie.
Speaker 2: Where I picked up Rob Zombie was on the Dreamcast
Speaker 2: game jet Set Radio for fuck Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is your jet Set Radio?
Speaker 2: He's only in the American version the final battle in
Speaker 2: that in that game where you've got to tag the
Speaker 2: DJ artists about bald head Uh. In the Japanese and
Speaker 2: the European versions, you get a song by Hideki Naganuma
Speaker 2: which has kind of got this villainous turn to it.
Speaker 2: In the American only Dreamcast release, and this isn't on
Speaker 2: any of the digital releases that you can get. Now,
Speaker 2: that battle is played to Rob's Zombie, and it kind
Speaker 2: of stands out, I think, because I'm fairly certain you
Speaker 2: play that song plays on that bit, because it stands
Speaker 2: out because the rest of the game is mostly sort
Speaker 2: of breakbea kind of techno dance, and then you get
Speaker 2: to this bit and he's meant to be playing the
Speaker 2: Demonic Record, so and then all of a sudden you've
Speaker 2: got dragular play. It's dragular, right, and you're just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this this counts yeah, because everyone else you're playing like
Speaker 2: dancy hip hop. Then you get to the Demon album
Speaker 2: and it's dragular, You're like yes, yes. So that's where
Speaker 2: I first picked up on him. Got the album from there.
Speaker 2: Obviously he's been his music's been and other stuff. But
Speaker 2: I really got in because I was into heavy metal
Speaker 2: and new metal at the time as well. I wasn't
Speaker 2: just a nerd. I was a nerd with metal. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's how I first got into Rob Zombie because for
Speaker 2: some reason, a lot of how I get into stuff
Speaker 2: is through games, and I don't really get why.
Speaker 3: But it happens.
Speaker 1: I remember being appointed as I got older, because, like
Speaker 1: I said, I really liked this film at fourteen, and
Speaker 1: I remember being like, Rob Zombie is going to be
Speaker 1: like the next great horror filmmaking Spielberk of horror.
Speaker 2: Yeah, robs up.
Speaker 1: And I went back and watched House of one Thousand Corpses,
Speaker 1: which is good.
Speaker 3: It's not as good as Devil's Rejects, the first one.
Speaker 3: That's the first one. It's the first film we ever made.
Speaker 1: It's very unfocused in my opinion, and there's not nearly
Speaker 1: enough plot to make it interesting, but it very much
Speaker 1: is his version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which also has
Speaker 1: very little plot. Controversial opinion that will probably get me
Speaker 1: murdered by the film audience. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is one of those rare films where the remake is better.
Speaker 3: Than the original.
Speaker 1: There's not too much in it, except the remake feels
Speaker 1: like it has actual protagonists and.
Speaker 2: An actual plot as thin as the plot is. Plus,
Speaker 2: it's got Ermi in it. Who Ermi?
Speaker 1: He's dead now, but for a little while, anytime you
Speaker 1: had an angry sergeant in a military film, it was him.
Speaker 1: He's most famous for Full Metal Jacket.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He's the guy's like you are worthless?
Speaker 2: You are? Yeah, I don't know the line. I think
Speaker 2: he was an actual military guy. That's why he got
Speaker 2: the role, because he won't scream for longer than anything
Speaker 2: they could find.
Speaker 3: He is leather Facer's dad in the.
Speaker 2: Remake, right, Okay, And he's really he's really good.
Speaker 1: He's really intimidating and sadistic. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Speaker 1: as much ground as it broke. It's just people running
Speaker 1: around screaming right for like ninety straight minutes.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean.
Speaker 3: There was.
Speaker 2: I'll probably keep on using the same references, but there
Speaker 2: was a first city has to say, Yeah, see JB does.
Speaker 2: Is that what I'm saying?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: A Japanese sort of cyberpunk horror movie which has good elements,
Speaker 2: but there's there's at least one of those storylines where
Speaker 2: it's just someone screaming and eventually you just get there
Speaker 2: and go shut up, just shut up.
Speaker 1: You end up muting the TV and just watching the images, which,
Speaker 1: to be fair, I was always told when I was
Speaker 1: at UNI learning filmmaking. I was always told, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a good film. What you should aim for when
Speaker 1: you're trying to make a good film is that someone
Speaker 1: could watch it with no sound and still fully understand
Speaker 1: what's happening. Sure, and I was like, oh, that's an
Speaker 1: interesting way of thinking about that. Anyway, as Rob Zombie's
Speaker 1: career went on, it's safe to say he was not
Speaker 1: the greatest horror filmmaker.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think he redeemed himself with the Monsters.
Speaker 3: No, he did not.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that either. I'm just joking. His career
Speaker 2: has really taking a nose dive, isn't it.
Speaker 1: He did an animated film called The Haunted World of
Speaker 1: l Superbisto, which I do like. It's definitely not to
Speaker 1: everyone's taste. It's very back Ali Grotty. It's all just
Speaker 1: gore jokes and sex jokes and.
Speaker 2: Stuff that does seem to be even from this, that
Speaker 2: does seem to be his level of humor. Yes, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff in this I didn't like that
Speaker 2: was clearly meant to be played as you know, isn't
Speaker 2: this kind of funny?
Speaker 1: And I'm just like then, he did a few of
Speaker 1: the films that I basically fell off watching his films
Speaker 1: because the Halloween films really tanked him. For me, they're
Speaker 1: not good. And obviously, as you've eluded Tomakno through his
Speaker 1: whole filmography, his latest film is The Monsters, which I
Speaker 1: think it's fairly well documented on the internet how that went.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I haven't seen that one, but I've seen
Speaker 2: the documentation of how that went. It's not a not
Speaker 2: a revered film, let's put it that way. No, So
Speaker 2: let's talk about the Devil's Rejects. Yeah, let's talk about
Speaker 2: because I think the storyline is going to be the
Speaker 2: most interesting part. So let's start on some of the
Speaker 2: bits that I think will be that I'd like to
Speaker 2: get out the way visual look, it's not a good
Speaker 2: looking film, but that fits the tone. I think it
Speaker 2: looks great for what it is. It has that seventies
Speaker 2: kind of what am I thinking of grind Grindhouse. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's got that, and you know what he slams into
Speaker 2: that really well, there's a couple of points and I
Speaker 2: wish it was a little more consistent, actually, but I
Speaker 2: can understand that maybe it was just little bits where
Speaker 2: it was lampooning, where he does weird edits and like.
Speaker 2: So for the most part, it will be edited and
Speaker 2: scenes will cut together in a very linear, normal fashion,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden he does a scene
Speaker 2: where suddenly like a box will slam down and then
Speaker 2: like almost be driven off the screen by another box
Speaker 2: for the next scene to come in. So it's more
Speaker 2: like an animated crossover between two scenes, which again kind
Speaker 2: of matches in with Grindhouse, where you had a lot
Speaker 2: of these edgy directors going yeah, let's just do this
Speaker 2: because it will look more.
Speaker 1: Fun, or literally damaged bits of film where they'd had
Speaker 1: to just Yeah, there used to be a scene in
Speaker 1: there and it's not there anymore, so they've just stitched
Speaker 1: two bits together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it doesn't actually flow properly.
Speaker 2: No, but you know what, it works in this film.
Speaker 2: And actually I think I would have liked to have
Speaker 2: seen a little bit more of it, just so it's
Speaker 2: a bit more consistent. But I'm glad they didn't overuse
Speaker 2: it as well. At the same time, just a few
Speaker 2: extra times of it happening would have been enough, like
Speaker 2: two or three. But yeah, I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2: So I think esthetically, you're not looking at a gorgeous film.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be something you show off. But it
Speaker 2: suits its tone perfectly and so on that. You know,
Speaker 2: big congrats I think on that, because that is a
Speaker 2: very positive thing I think on this film. Musicality is great.
Speaker 1: I love the soundtrack. The soundtrack to this film is golden.
Speaker 1: It's all like American country rock. From One More Silver
Speaker 1: Dollar by the Alman Brothers band. You've got that one
Speaker 1: where it's like I falled around and fell in love.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. Rocky Mountain Way by I think
Speaker 1: Joe Walsh, that's by and obviously it ends with free Bird,
Speaker 1: which I do still think is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: uses of music in a film. Is that the fact
Speaker 1: that nearly the entire song plays because he just takes
Speaker 1: that moment, which is not something you would usually say
Speaker 1: about robs On because he's usually a bit more of
Speaker 1: a kinetic director. Yeah, he just goes, no, fuck it,
Speaker 1: this bit's going to be slow as fuck. The film
Speaker 1: is literally like they're all moving in sort of half speed.
Speaker 3: And then it wished.
Speaker 2: He'd gotten slow speed film for that, because it's it
Speaker 2: does that thing when you have normal film and slow
Speaker 2: it down, it gets a bit jerky, And yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't like that so much, right, but again, it probably
Speaker 2: fits the era that he was going for, making it
Speaker 2: more seventies grindhouse, where getting different speeds of camera film
Speaker 2: wasn't the norm and the budget.
Speaker 3: Was not that high.
Speaker 1: I know they had to film this in only thirty days. Wow,
Speaker 1: And right down to the fact that the moment the
Speaker 1: cart speeds up lines up perfectly the bit where the
Speaker 1: song does.
Speaker 3: Their do do do you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is one of the best uses
Speaker 1: of that song ever. And I remember really liking this
Speaker 1: ending when I was.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, the ending works because, yeah, it having
Speaker 2: a sequel to it kind of ruins it because it
Speaker 2: feels like them going out on their own terms. Then
Speaker 2: surviving it destroys that ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because I read an interview where Rob Zombie
Speaker 1: said his basic ethos with this film was when he
Speaker 1: did have one thousand corpses, he was essentially yes, doing
Speaker 1: a Texas chainsaw film.
Speaker 3: With this one.
Speaker 1: He basically said, I don't want to do as over
Speaker 1: to horror as I did there.
Speaker 3: I want to do.
Speaker 1: A grind house western of a bad sheriff who's gone
Speaker 1: to the dark side, chasing even worse outlaws. Well it
Speaker 1: fits that. It fits that they absolutely had to die
Speaker 1: at the end. Yes, there is no way. I don't
Speaker 1: think you could have ended this whither and then the
Speaker 1: cowboy rides off into the sun, because that works when
Speaker 1: the cowboy is good, like in Shane or something like that, or.
Speaker 2: At least ambiguous, like Clint Eastwood in something like The Good,
Speaker 2: The Band The Ugly. Yeah, he's not really good, but
Speaker 2: he's good.
Speaker 1: But we've literally seen these three people rape and murder
Speaker 1: countless people. They can't survive the movie. It would just
Speaker 1: be the most depressing ending.
Speaker 2: Ever, Yeah, so okay, so so okay, let's talk about
Speaker 2: the actual story, because we've both said it feels a
Speaker 2: bit unfocused, and there's things that we like and there's
Speaker 2: things we don't like. So the first thing I want
Speaker 2: to mention for anyone who's not aware the main was
Speaker 2: that they flywheels.
Speaker 3: They were called firefly.
Speaker 2: Fireflies, the Firefly family. Each of them are named after
Speaker 2: a different Groucho Marks character. That becomes a plot point
Speaker 2: in this while they're trying to hunt them down, realizing
Speaker 2: that Captain Spaulding is Groucho Marks from Animal Crackers Babies.
Speaker 2: Baby is not the name of a Groucho Marks character,
Speaker 2: but they use the rest of her name kind of
Speaker 2: connects to it. Is it baby firefly they just called
Speaker 2: or something? So it's only the firefly bit that really connounts.
Speaker 2: And otis is otis be Drift.
Speaker 1: Otis speed Drift is rufus firefly who dies right at
Speaker 1: the beginning, Yes, mother Firefly, be rufus t firefly, mother
Speaker 1: fire mother firefly who was the one who he stabbed
Speaker 1: to death in the prison.
Speaker 2: He was never called mother.
Speaker 1: No, there was a scene. It's actually when your pizza
Speaker 1: arrived so you missed it. There's a bit where he
Speaker 1: reads out all the aliases she's ever gone under right.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing one of them would have been a Marx
Speaker 1: Brothers character, probably not a Groucho character, because obviously they're
Speaker 1: all women's name.
Speaker 2: I don't know because yeah, yeah, maybe, but.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what they were.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the problem I have with that because I thought
Speaker 2: it was a great idea, I think it is horrendously
Speaker 2: underutilized because they raised the idea. Obviously they're all named
Speaker 2: after Groucho Marks in some way. They raise it in
Speaker 2: the film. The investigators like, well, why they're named after
Speaker 2: grautcha Mars characters? What's the connection here? And then it's
Speaker 2: just you're like, hang on a minute, like, so something
Speaker 2: we you said to me during the film which did
Speaker 2: connect with Groucho Marks in a kind of a sick
Speaker 2: way is sid Haiges's character Captain Spaulding. He doesn't really
Speaker 2: enjoy the torture or any of the sexual stuff. He
Speaker 2: even though he is a killer and he is a sick,
Speaker 2: twisted bastard, he doesn't enjoy the sicker stuff. His main
Speaker 2: thing is he likes to screw people over and upset
Speaker 2: them in a similar way that Groucho Marx's characters always were.
Speaker 2: And I love I love the Marx Brothers, so I'm
Speaker 2: kind of a big nerd on that.
Speaker 3: Bigger nerd as the film critic they bring in in
Speaker 3: this film.
Speaker 2: Nearly I understood. I remembered most of what he said.
Speaker 3: Are you angry about Elvis Presley?
Speaker 2: No, my mum will be though, because she loves Elvis. Yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 2: I've even got a big DVD box set of behind
Speaker 2: the scenes and deleted footage and stuff from old radio
Speaker 2: shows and stuff about the Marks. I love the Marx Brothers,
Speaker 2: so a massive nerd on that. Anyway. The point is
Speaker 2: is Marx Brothers gratual Mark's character, and all the Marx
Speaker 2: Brother's characters, really their roles were defined as they would
Speaker 2: go into high society and really ruin it for all
Speaker 2: the people who had the money. They never screw over
Speaker 2: the poor, they never screw over immigrants, they never screw
Speaker 2: over anyone else. It's always the rich, the powerful, the wealthy,
Speaker 2: and that you know, they attack the hoy Paloy. Captain
Speaker 2: Sporting in this has that same vibe in that he
Speaker 2: doesn't ruin the Hoy ploy he does go for anyone, children, parents, anyone.
Speaker 2: But the differences is it he's getting the enjoyment of
Speaker 2: ruining something in society rather than just doing it for
Speaker 2: doing its sake. So he seems to really get off
Speaker 2: on breaking social protocol, which does fit with groucho marks.
Speaker 2: But then when you look at Baby, and certainly when
Speaker 2: you look at Otis, there is nothing groucho marks in
Speaker 2: those characters. There is no attempt at just trying to
Speaker 2: break a bit of you know, the social morese or
Speaker 2: the things you're supposed to do. Instead, like Otis in particular,
Speaker 2: there's bits where he essentially sexually assaults a woman and
Speaker 2: while he's doing that, he's he may or may not
Speaker 2: be enjoying it. He's kind of getting off on the
Speaker 2: fact that she's not liking it. Yeah, Otis's characters is
Speaker 2: just a psycho and the fact he's called Otis for
Speaker 2: Otis b Driftwood is meaningless and it never comes up
Speaker 2: as a story point. So I'm really disappointed that they
Speaker 2: came up with a brilliant thing that references something awesome
Speaker 2: in film history, and it's it's mentioned and never paid off.
Speaker 1: To be fair, I don't think it was ever meant
Speaker 1: to be as deep as that. It's nice that you've
Speaker 1: made that connection. I think it literally is just robs
Speaker 1: Onbi's a film nerd, and he was like, what can
Speaker 1: be the clue that clues in the sheriff on what
Speaker 1: to look for? Fuck it, I'm going to basically in
Speaker 1: House of a thousand corpses. He'd already given them all
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers names, just to reference the Marx Brothers because
Speaker 1: he likes the Marx Brothers, and then I think he
Speaker 1: just kind of went, oh cool, yeah, if he picks
Speaker 1: up on the Marx connection.
Speaker 2: But I thought it would definitely would have been more
Speaker 2: interesting had they instead of all of them being named
Speaker 2: after Grout show. If you're going to do a bastardization
Speaker 2: of the Marx Brothers, fine, like a psychotic Marx Brothers,
Speaker 2: give them all. So sid Hay definitely sits with Captain Spording.
Speaker 3: You keep him there.
Speaker 2: You give Otis the surname Russell, the name of Rusty,
Speaker 2: which is the name of a Harpo Marx character, and
Speaker 2: you give him not necessarily the mute thing, but you
Speaker 2: give him the more physical elements that Harpo brought because
Speaker 2: Harpa was the physicality, clown. So you give him more
Speaker 2: of those elements, and he kind of has a little
Speaker 2: of that in this but it's not enough to mirror
Speaker 2: what you would expect from Harpo. You make him quieter,
Speaker 2: you make him more expressive, you make him a bit
Speaker 2: more of a pratfaller who manages to win by luck
Speaker 2: as much as anything else. With Baby, you make her Chico,
Speaker 2: you know, call her Aravelli or something like that, and
Speaker 2: I am a Manuela Revelli. You give her one of
Speaker 2: those names, and then you make her the one who's ditsy,
Speaker 2: who's a bit dumb. But because she's so ditsy and dumb,
Speaker 2: she complains a lot in this film, so she kind
Speaker 2: of matches that a little bit. But she's able to
Speaker 2: basically outthink or out maneuver Otis and Captain Spalding just
Speaker 2: by the fact that she's so dumb they can't actually
Speaker 2: outthink her. And you give them those similar traits, and
Speaker 2: then you watch how that bastardization of the Marx brothers
Speaker 2: would be unleashed on a society where instead of doing
Speaker 2: quote unquote the right wrong thing where they're annoying the HOYPELOI,
Speaker 2: instead they're attacking society at its core. I think if
Speaker 2: you've given them that, it would have been way more interesting,
Speaker 2: and not just for me. I think even if you
Speaker 2: didn't know the Marx brothers, it would have made those
Speaker 2: characters a little bit more satisfying. It certainly would have
Speaker 2: helped a lot more when you get to the point
Speaker 2: and towards the end where the cop has turned and
Speaker 2: has become one of them, you could give him a
Speaker 2: name like Zeppo, one of Zeppo's characters, because he's like
Speaker 2: the shun deer Marx brother who's come back almost and
Speaker 2: he mrks that he's trying to mrk them, and you
Speaker 2: could you could really do a good allegory with that.
Speaker 2: And it feels so undercooked.
Speaker 1: Yeah see, I really like because I this film feels
Speaker 1: and I never noticed this when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1: I feel like this film is two films stuck together now,
Speaker 1: which I never really did when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1: But it really feels like you don't really need any
Speaker 1: of the stuff at the motel.
Speaker 2: The hotel was really stupid and egregious, and it slows
Speaker 2: the whole film down, and those characters don't come into
Speaker 2: themselves until they all get together obviously, because the hotel
Speaker 2: section ends with Captain Spaulding meeting up with Otis and baby,
Speaker 2: and it's like twenty twenty five minutes long, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's only when all three of them are
Speaker 1: together that I think any of their redeeming qualities start
Speaker 1: to come out, where you start to see they actually
Speaker 1: are this kind of weird plan together family. You get
Speaker 1: the scene where their baby and Captain Spoulden want to
Speaker 1: stop for ice cream and notices like, there's no fucking
Speaker 1: ice cream in your fucking future, and then.
Speaker 3: It immediately cuts to the meeting.
Speaker 2: That was a cut. That was a brilliant cut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I like the dynamic they built in of
Speaker 1: the impression I get from Captain Spolding is he he
Speaker 1: is someone who doesn't mind being a criminal. He's basically
Speaker 1: someone who his goals will always come first and he
Speaker 1: will do whatever it takes to get those goals. But
Speaker 1: he doesn't enjoy killing for killing sake.
Speaker 2: No, because he doesn't kill the mom. He does brainer
Speaker 2: a bit, yeah, and he doesn't kill the kid, No,
Speaker 2: he absolutely could do.
Speaker 3: He looks disgusted when Otis.
Speaker 2: Is he gets offended by people don't like clouds as well.
Speaker 2: I love the scene where he's like, aren't we fucking funny?
Speaker 2: If you don't have a good reason why you hate clowns,
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back here and kill your whole
Speaker 2: fucking family. But he's disgusted when Otis is literally like
Speaker 2: peeled that guy a banjo's face off and he's tormenting
Speaker 2: his girlfriend with it, He's just like, get it over
Speaker 2: with killer, and actually, obtusly you won't know this, but
Speaker 2: in the first House one thousand corpses, the only characters,
Speaker 2: if I'm remembering right, it's been a while since i've
Speaker 2: seen it, the only characters Captain Spaulding kills.
Speaker 3: Are a group of robbers who try to rob his store, right,
Speaker 3: and he kills them because they're trying to rob him.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's someone who enjoys the killing the
Speaker 2: way Baby and Otis do. No. In fact, it seems
Speaker 2: to be Otis is the one who really enjoys the
Speaker 2: killing because baby Baby likes playing mind games and she
Speaker 2: The only person I think she actually kills is the
Speaker 2: mum who kidnap throws the knife. Technically you could consider
Speaker 2: that self defense. Now, don't get me wrong, it's only
Speaker 2: self defense in a scenario she created by you know,
Speaker 2: holding them up, keeping him in the room, and thing
Speaker 2: to murder.
Speaker 3: I don't think it. But interesting legal points.
Speaker 1: She knows that the gun isn't loaded, so I don't
Speaker 1: think it counts as self defense. No, if you know
Speaker 1: the gun isn't loaded, then you're not defending yourself from anything.
Speaker 2: No. True. But then she knows that the mum is
Speaker 2: willing to kill her because the mum does pull the trigger.
Speaker 2: Oh no, she doesn't. Does she know that it's the
Speaker 2: daughter grabs the gun and then pulls the trigger.
Speaker 3: She pulls the trigger off. Yeah, but I guess.
Speaker 2: It's But then and how would.
Speaker 1: You prove in a court of law if someone knew
Speaker 1: whether a gun was loaded or not. But no, And
Speaker 1: I like that dynamic you get off and it kind
Speaker 1: of in the first one, so Otis is not actually
Speaker 1: blood related to the family.
Speaker 3: He's like a drifter that they took.
Speaker 2: In baby related to captain's.
Speaker 1: That's really funny because you don't know that in the
Speaker 1: first one, right, In the first one, you don't know
Speaker 1: she's his daughter.
Speaker 2: Right, and she don't look anything.
Speaker 1: Like No, And I think that was added in this
Speaker 1: one to be fair, to give them a bit of
Speaker 1: sympathy maybe, but he must have had sex with Mother
Speaker 1: Firefly at some point, because she is baby's mum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I must admit having noticed now how much the two films,
Speaker 1: the two halves of the film don't quite line up.
Speaker 1: A little part of me does wish you actually just
Speaker 1: either scrap the motel a bit completely or really shorten
Speaker 1: it down so it's like ten minutes yeah, and then
Speaker 1: spend more time on the slow descent of the sheriff
Speaker 1: into madness yeah, rather than it or being crammed into
Speaker 1: the back end.
Speaker 2: While we're focused on the motel. We don't get much
Speaker 2: of anything from the Sheriff. We get a couple of scenes,
Speaker 2: but they're very short, and they're mostly just like aha
Speaker 2: moment and then done. There's nothing that really moves the
Speaker 2: story along that couldn't have been done better as part
Speaker 2: of the chase. And also, yeah, you're right, I think
Speaker 2: having it more of it because he gets to a
Speaker 2: point where they're still at the motel, no one fuck
Speaker 2: knows they're there. They're murdering people, but no one knows
Speaker 2: that's even happening. And he gets the point where he
Speaker 2: murders mother in the cell, and you're like, it would
Speaker 2: have been better if he was getting so frustrated that
Speaker 2: a chase not working. He keeps on chasing, they keep
Speaker 2: getting away. He keeps on chasing, they keep getting away,
Speaker 2: and again, using the Marx Brothers would have been genius
Speaker 2: for that, because the Marx Brothers managed to get out
Speaker 2: of everything in their films. You give them that luck
Speaker 2: almost element of being able to escape anything like a
Speaker 2: fucking cartoon, and he just goes so ballistic. They're nice
Speaker 2: to get back at them.
Speaker 1: Only in the film, as is, the only thing that
Speaker 1: really sends him over the edge is he has a
Speaker 1: nightmare about.
Speaker 3: His dead brother. Yeah, where he's dead. Brother's like, oh
Speaker 3: cost they killed.
Speaker 1: Me here my ghost is haunting their house forever. The
Speaker 1: other thing that's a bit like that's a bit of
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, it's his second ever film. I
Speaker 1: think it's damn good for a second ever film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is one of those things where you're a
Speaker 1: bit like, I kind of wish we had less of
Speaker 1: just people sitting in a hotel room screaming, someone shoving
Speaker 1: a gun down a woman's pants.
Speaker 2: I didn't need that much And that was just shock
Speaker 2: value as well, because he's the thing liked with things
Speaker 2: like that if they have an impact on the story
Speaker 2: and it brings something back later. I don't like it,
Speaker 2: but fine. The problem with this film is that all
Speaker 2: the people that they torture, kill, et cetera in the motel,
Speaker 2: their only bit is the motel, and it feels like
Speaker 2: a very short intro to another film that we never
Speaker 2: end up getting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do wonder if some of the inclusion is
Speaker 1: maybe just a byproduct of the time the film was made,
Speaker 1: because it's the height of the torture porn aesthetic, so
Speaker 1: this is around the time you were getting sow Hostile.
Speaker 2: It just comes to this idea though didn't where. It
Speaker 2: feels unfocused where and it also feels like he had
Speaker 2: a good idea, but he didn't think enough of it
Speaker 2: through at the script level. So instead he's just like, well,
Speaker 2: I like the idea of this torture porn thing because
Speaker 2: it fits in with what's happening now, and I like
Speaker 2: the idea of this deeper story about you know, a
Speaker 2: sheriff turning into madness and becoming the people he's trying
Speaker 2: to kill. I'll stick them together. But there's no reason
Speaker 2: for these two hold. The other problem I have with
Speaker 2: it as well is that not so much Baby and
Speaker 2: definitely not so much Captain Spaulding, but Otis does so
Speaker 2: much in this Like even if he I know this
Speaker 2: is gonna sound weird and maybe it's a bit sexist,
Speaker 2: but if he only murdered the two guys I would
Speaker 2: have felt more sympathy for them overall at the end.
Speaker 2: But the tortuary, the stuff he does to the mum
Speaker 2: with the gun and the pants, and I'm like, I'm sorry, Well,
Speaker 2: I'm not sorry. I don't feel for you when like
Speaker 2: I felt for Captain Spaorling and Baby a little bit.
Speaker 2: They're both psychos. They both need to die, but at
Speaker 2: least they seem to be having fun in some way,
Speaker 2: or it's not the same. Once you cross that.
Speaker 1: Line, it almost feels like they're just malajusted people, or
Speaker 1: if they got proper mental health, they might be okay.
Speaker 1: Whereas Oltis, I mean, he literally calls himself the devil.
Speaker 3: At one point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's what I mean. If it was just that,
Speaker 2: he would have been just as okay with the others.
Speaker 2: There is a line that was crossed that made that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that character isn't fun or in any way salvageable
Speaker 2: throughout the rest of the movie. So why as I'm
Speaker 2: watching everyone else going, oh, like, that's he's the thing
Speaker 2: that ruins the ending, the fact he's in the car,
Speaker 2: because the fact that he survives after having done all that,
Speaker 2: and it's like he gets to go out the way
Speaker 2: he chooses, and I know, fucked that guy. That guy
Speaker 2: should have been murdered by the cop and then the
Speaker 2: other to escape and get to go out the way
Speaker 2: they will.
Speaker 1: Have Otis and the cop take each other out, and
Speaker 1: then you haven't got the diosx tiny ending, Yeah, tiny,
Speaker 1: who's in the first film? You see him for thirty
Speaker 1: seconds of the Star They make a mention that he's
Speaker 1: gone out, which is why he's not there drawing the
Speaker 1: shoot out where Mother Firefly gets arrested and Rufus gets killed,
Speaker 1: and then he just turns up again at the ending
Speaker 1: to save baby.
Speaker 2: I think the fucking tracker on it.
Speaker 1: I think the implication because the sheriff has taken them
Speaker 1: back to their house that last that house at the
Speaker 1: end is the same house stay raid at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't get that, Okay, yeah, No, quite a
Speaker 1: journey to keep him unconscious for though, is it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the implication is meant to be that Tiny
Speaker 1: has just been hanging around the house basically. Even that
Speaker 1: you're a bit like you're pushing it stretch. You're like
Speaker 1: William Forsknyve's torturing him for a good Like it's got
Speaker 1: to be like an hour at least that he's torturing them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're telling me Tiny didn't turn up at that point.
Speaker 3: He waits until the anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's It's one of those things where I'm like,
Speaker 2: Otis needed to die sooner. He did not deserve to
Speaker 2: go out on his own.
Speaker 1: It does make me a terrible person. I think that
Speaker 1: I actually do. I didn't this time. Now I'm an adult,
Speaker 1: but as a teenager I used to cry at the
Speaker 1: ending of this film, and I actually still not be
Speaker 1: doing that. Whenever I hear the song three Bird, I
Speaker 1: tear up. Oh wow, Not necessarily because of this film.
Speaker 1: I just think three Birds are really sad song.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, what I was gonna say kind of before you
Speaker 1: said that was yet it get Even though I think
Speaker 1: this is the best film Rob Zombies made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 1: Do like a lot of the lines in this film.
Speaker 1: I think it's got a lot of lines that for
Speaker 1: me are iconic, Like don't you like clowns? Aren't we
Speaker 1: fucking funny? Are you accusing me of chicken?
Speaker 3: Motherfucker?
Speaker 2: That scene was great. I needed more of that, establishing
Speaker 2: the other characters. That scene did not need to be
Speaker 2: in the film. Never, I didn't mind it. Never was funny,
Speaker 2: never in sort Elvis Aaron Presley in front of me.
Speaker 2: Elvis was in Hollywood that film, first film, Love Me Tender. Yeah.
Speaker 2: What I love about that scene as well, sorry, is
Speaker 2: just when they bring in the film critic and he's
Speaker 2: going off and on about Grouch show, just carrying.
Speaker 3: A random bottle of wine.
Speaker 2: Did you know Yeah, I just drinking that like a whyo.
Speaker 2: The It was very clear to me that Rob Zon
Speaker 2: we didn't know how to end the scene, and he
Speaker 2: was just like, well, the Sheriff's got to throw him
Speaker 2: out for some reason. What's the reason for that? Fuck it,
Speaker 2: it's Elvis. He has like a pop at Elvis and
Speaker 2: that he piss off the sheriff. And I'm like, that's
Speaker 2: the best ending you could have fallen to. That.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Brilliant ending to the scene. I think it's a really
Speaker 1: nice little character trait for the sheriff. Yeah, that humanizes
Speaker 1: him a lot, where you're like, oh, he's got this
Speaker 1: one thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the line he woke across of all
Speaker 2: the shit he does.
Speaker 1: Even though I like a lot of these lines, I
Speaker 1: still find myself coming to the same criticism that anytime
Speaker 1: we talk about a Rob Zombie film, I'll end up
Speaker 1: saying this because anytime I'm pretty sure I said it
Speaker 1: when we did his Halloween movies. I think Rob Zombie
Speaker 1: is a not a great but a good film. Directors focus,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to style and what he wants
Speaker 1: to stylistically, he picks good angles. He's got some really
Speaker 1: good cuts. His soundtracks are always really like top tier.
Speaker 1: He needs to stop writing his own films. He needs
Speaker 1: to hire someone and be like, Hey, here's my idea,
Speaker 1: can you write this for me? And I really approved
Speaker 1: one thing that you know you could admire about Rob Zombie,
Speaker 1: and it's the thing that's kind of tanked his career
Speaker 1: a little bit is he does things his way. He
Speaker 1: has got that rebellious spirit where he won't have That's
Speaker 1: why the monsters has a nothing budget, even though it's
Speaker 1: technically a studio moving because Universal the rights to the monsters.
Speaker 1: He basically turned around and said, I'm doing this my way,
Speaker 1: and they went, Okay, we're going to cut the budget
Speaker 1: down to like I mean, I read an interview where
Speaker 1: someone tried to claim the budget was three hundred thousand
Speaker 1: I think, and Rob Zombie replied to them on Twitter saying,
Speaker 1: I wish what he wishes they cut it down or no, no,
Speaker 1: he wishes it was that high. Oh right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently it was made for next to nothing. According to him,
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is completely wrong with what it says the budget
Speaker 1: is really Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: I doesn't even have it on IMDb.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I know it was.
Speaker 1: There was a big point of contention about how much
Speaker 1: the Monsters cost because there was loads of figures getting
Speaker 1: thrown around by fans and Robsonby just kept.
Speaker 3: Coming out and going.
Speaker 1: But according to him, and to be fair, maybe we
Speaker 1: should stop reading it out on STC. But I've heard
Speaker 1: several filmmakers say the budget information you see on STC
Speaker 1: is sorry, on Wikipedia is never accurate. Fair Apparently, it's
Speaker 1: never accurate.
Speaker 2: It's always either too lar or it's artificially inflated anyway,
Speaker 2: so that's not what they had. That may include like
Speaker 2: marketing budgets and stuff like that, but anyway.
Speaker 3: My point was because the thing is.
Speaker 1: A if you'd have had a different writer for this one,
Speaker 1: with a bit more experience, you probably wouldn't have ended
Speaker 1: up with that feeling of.
Speaker 3: Two films stitch together.
Speaker 1: And although in this the hell billy esthetic works because
Speaker 1: they're all low class, it's all set in Alabama, even
Speaker 1: though everyone has a Texas license plate. But the problem
Speaker 1: is when you then transpose that rob zombie dialogue style
Speaker 1: to a film like Halloween that is set in suburban
Speaker 1: Illinois with middle class people and they're all talking like this,
Speaker 1: it just it immediately breaks the immersion for you.
Speaker 2: Well, the reason that the First Halloween surprised a lot
Speaker 2: of Americans at the time, obviously it's now a very
Speaker 2: old film, was because it was a middle class, well
Speaker 2: to do family boy who who was Michael Myers who
Speaker 2: committed the first murder, And that was part of it.
Speaker 2: It was like, why would such an innocent boy from
Speaker 2: a good family and a good neighborhood ever with a
Speaker 2: white picket fence around the house and everything, how could
Speaker 2: a boy like that possibly ever commit? And then it
Speaker 2: puts into the normal American mind. If he could do it,
Speaker 2: anyone could do it. You know, I'm not safe just
Speaker 2: because I live in a decent area. And by doing
Speaker 2: the Halloween remake the way he did and making them
Speaker 2: all kind of hillbilly in a way, you eliminated that
Speaker 2: and you brought it back down so well, you know,
Speaker 2: the poor will kill each other, but if you live
Speaker 2: in a decent place, you'll be fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He makes it like a really broken home, doesn't it,
Speaker 1: And then it does become this sort of well of
Speaker 1: course Michael Myers turned out fucked up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're like, oh see, you've took it away
Speaker 2: as classism.
Speaker 1: But I honestly do think rob'sonby if he chose to
Speaker 1: focus on directing over writing. Yeah, his films will do
Speaker 1: a lot better in my opinion. Yeah, I had no
Speaker 1: quote with the direction in this film. I thought there
Speaker 1: were some incredible choices as well in terms of direction.
Speaker 1: The script lets it down, But I will be honest,
Speaker 1: unlike the Halloween movies, which were just trash, there was
Speaker 1: nothing of value in those In my mind, this does
Speaker 1: have a story and story elements that are really interesting
Speaker 1: and worth following. I think they're just horrendously undercooked.
Speaker 2: And there was the bad choice of the motel being
Speaker 2: added to pad out runtime when instead the whole film
Speaker 2: should have been a chase. Yeah, I think that would
Speaker 2: have made for a much better movie, a more kinetic film.
Speaker 2: We could have had Otis killed two guys in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere, peel One's face off for his own
Speaker 2: sport whatever, none of the stuff with the women in
Speaker 2: the way that it was done in the motel room
Speaker 2: in this film. Instead, that makes Otis somewhat redeemable in
Speaker 2: terms of being a fun character. Maybe they're some of that.
Speaker 2: To steal their car, well you know, well you see
Speaker 2: them steal a.
Speaker 3: Car in the opening credits. To kill an old woman,
Speaker 3: steal a car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could still have him kidnapped the band and
Speaker 1: take them to go dig up the guns. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: fine with that because that makes sense that these people
Speaker 1: would have had a stash buried somewhere. I just don't
Speaker 1: need the bit where he's assaulting her that way and
Speaker 1: it's that came from nowhere, and it doesn't add that sing.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't act.
Speaker 1: And I always get funny with this, because on the
Speaker 1: one hand, I think you should be able to put
Speaker 1: whatever you want in your movie, because you know, think
Speaker 1: these things do happen, they should be represented in film.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I'm like, it just feels skeevy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't add anything. I already know. I'm not learning
Speaker 1: anything new because I already know oltis as an asshole,
Speaker 1: even if I've not seen House one thousand Corps says.
Speaker 1: The film starts with him waking up in bed with
Speaker 1: a dead body, and I've seen him stab the old
Speaker 1: woman to steal the car and take him out and
Speaker 1: have him kill them to get the guns. Still have
Speaker 1: him kill Brian Passaying. Where Brian Pasay comes in.
Speaker 3: He's like Roy healthy used immediately blows his brains out.
Speaker 3: I get it. He's a bad mbre.
Speaker 2: I think as well, with with sexual assault and things
Speaker 2: of that nature, if you're going to bring that into
Speaker 2: a film, And this might be my sensibilities, but I
Speaker 2: genuinely think that this is kind of standard for a
Speaker 2: lot of people. If you're gonna bring those elements into
Speaker 2: your movie, they need to be a focus, and there
Speaker 2: needs to be a reason, a payoff, something worth saying
Speaker 2: with it just bringing it in because it's, you know, well,
Speaker 2: either because it's fun or because it's got some sort
Speaker 2: of sick value for your film. I don't think people
Speaker 2: get that like some people do that there's always that
Speaker 2: minority that likes Gore for Gore's sake, ye, or six
Speaker 2: Stuff for six Stuff's sake. But I think for the
Speaker 2: most part, it just comes across, as you say, very skivie,
Speaker 2: because there's never a point where there's a revenge for
Speaker 2: that or where that comes back to bite him. Like
Speaker 2: if he ended up getting sexually assaulted later on by
Speaker 2: the sheriff or something, it's I still wouldn't have liked it,
Speaker 2: but at least you have been like, right, there is
Speaker 2: a closure for that story arc in some way he
Speaker 2: gets back what he gave karmic retribution. Yeah, but none
Speaker 2: of that ever happens. So it's just there for the
Speaker 2: sake of being sick, and like, oh, isn't this guy
Speaker 2: I get enough of this, As you say, there's enough
Speaker 2: for Otis to make him sick without adding that in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you've got that particular topic is so charged you
Speaker 2: can't just just going to be in a bit of
Speaker 2: sexual assault in this scene, but we won't come back
Speaker 2: to it. It's not the type of topic you can
Speaker 2: do that with no one.
Speaker 3: Little character moment.
Speaker 1: I think in DEAs I should have mentioned this earlier
Speaker 1: when we talking about Captain Spaulding seems to not really.
Speaker 2: I like Captain Spaulding and he's the best character. I
Speaker 2: do think Captain Spaulding is the best character in the film.
Speaker 2: I think I could watch I could.
Speaker 1: Watch a film of just Captain Spaulding. Ak Sid Hague
Speaker 1: is probably the best actor in the film. I think
Speaker 1: William Forsythe does a really good job as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the character William Forsythe is playing is very similar
Speaker 1: to characters he plays in other films. Yes, also like
Speaker 1: Kevin ken Fory. He's not a huge part, but he's
Speaker 1: really good when he's in there. And I do it's
Speaker 1: childish and immature, but I love the scene where they
Speaker 1: go to buy the chickens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, are you accusing me of fucking a chicken?
Speaker 2: Motherfucker?
Speaker 3: I ain't accusing you of chicken fucking?
Speaker 1: But that boy over there looks sexually frustrated, and then
Speaker 1: Michael Barreman loses his ship. Yeah, I do think in
Speaker 1: terms of versatility. Sid Hague is the best guy in this.
Speaker 1: You get to see him in clown mode, like at
Speaker 1: the start when he's you watch his little TV commercially
Speaker 1: he's made, don't you You see him being a skeevy,
Speaker 1: scummy guy with his partner.
Speaker 3: I don't know if she's his wife or not. She's not.
Speaker 2: In the first film, you get to see him being
Speaker 2: I love the flip, you know when he first goes
Speaker 2: up to PJ. Souls and he goes, I got I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to I've got some super secret clown business
Speaker 2: that supersedes.
Speaker 3: Any need you have for this. Here a vehicle?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: She goes, what is that about?
Speaker 1: Clambers and he just drops and goes, did I stud
Speaker 1: a bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And it's so quick.
Speaker 1: But the character way I wanted to pinpoint where we
Speaker 1: were saying, it's almost like one thing I think definitely
Speaker 1: endears you to him, and it's right near the end
Speaker 1: is when William Forsyth has caught them and he's going
Speaker 1: to him and he's like, right, which one of you
Speaker 1: killed this person? And he staples it to Otis's chest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he pulls out another one and it's one Baby's killed
Speaker 1: and she goes, I did it, and straight away Captain Spolding.
Speaker 3: Goes, no, No, she didn't. I did that one.
Speaker 2: I did it. It was me, come on, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: it was baby.
Speaker 3: It just you know, he cares about her and he's weird.
Speaker 2: Twisted in six serial kill Away, And I think that
Speaker 2: endears you to him a little bit. It indears you
Speaker 2: to him because when is doing the sexual stuff, he's
Speaker 2: not enjoying it. Like Captain Spaulding's not in that scene,
Speaker 2: is he not? Oh? Is that with the face? Yeah,
Speaker 2: because there's a bit disgusted. I think that's a really
Speaker 2: good cut. You see him, you see Baby being like laughing,
Speaker 2: and it cuts captives falling and he.
Speaker 3: Just looks like, look like, what's the point A.
Speaker 1: We don't have time for this. We need to get
Speaker 1: on the run now and be like come on.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 1: But it's almost that he's almost gentleman criminal type thing,
Speaker 1: isn't it where it's like, oh, I'm a criminal. It's
Speaker 1: like dexter, I'm a criminal, but I have standards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the thing I think if you did
Speaker 2: a film of just him, I know you can't do
Speaker 2: it now because unfortunately said, heyg is no longer with us.
Speaker 2: But if you were to do a film of just
Speaker 2: Captain spawning, I think that would be a much more
Speaker 2: interesting film because you don't have the issue of Otis.
Speaker 2: You don't have necessary even if it was just him
Speaker 2: and baby someone to care for.
Speaker 1: I think you need him with a family dynamic. So
Speaker 1: even if it's not Otis and you need to at
Speaker 1: least have baby there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think those two as a as a
Speaker 2: movie would be much better.
Speaker 1: Plus, Rob Zombie just doesn't make films that don't have
Speaker 1: his wife in them, so you got to put.
Speaker 2: It in there fair enough. But yeah, it's a I
Speaker 2: don't know how I feel about this film because it's
Speaker 2: not a bad film. It's definitely the best I've seen
Speaker 2: from Rob Zombie. But the only other ones I've seen
Speaker 2: on the Halloween movies, and they were terrible.
Speaker 3: This is the best one in my opinion.
Speaker 2: This is at least mostly enjoyable to watch. Outside of
Speaker 2: some of the more extreme stuff in the motel, Captain
Speaker 2: Spaulding is a likable character, very well played I like,
Speaker 2: and it's got the interesting part, something that Halloween didn't
Speaker 2: have anywhere through it. This one has the interesting part
Speaker 2: of the breaking bad for the Sheriff, where he starts
Speaker 2: off just trying to catch them and then flips into
Speaker 2: becoming one of them. Yes it's undercooked, Yes there's some
Speaker 2: very bad choices, but overall this is kind of an
Speaker 2: average film. I'll be honest, I'm not the audience for it,
Speaker 2: so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
Speaker 2: But I think if you're into sort of gorehouse horror,
Speaker 2: then you probably will like it, and it'd be worth
Speaker 2: a watch. If you're not, and certainly if you've got
Speaker 2: delicate sensibilities, it's not one I would advise.
Speaker 3: And I like this film.
Speaker 1: I don't like it as much as I did when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager, and I suspect I suspect I
Speaker 1: would like it even less if I hadn't seen it
Speaker 1: at the age I saw it at. So I've got
Speaker 1: a nostalgia for it if I didn't have that, because
Speaker 1: having watched it back now as an adult, I can
Speaker 1: definitely see some flaws in it. It really does feel
Speaker 1: like the Sheriff just he has one bad dream and
Speaker 1: suddenly he's a psychopath, although actually he's got a few
Speaker 1: bits before that where he's threatening to kill people, So
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Actually cracking already from the start.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you just needed.
Speaker 2: That smoothing out a little bit so that it's more
Speaker 2: of a without slow ramp. Yeah, without the motel scene,
Speaker 2: you could have given him at least a little bit
Speaker 2: more time just to watch him break. That would have
Speaker 2: been slightly That would have been a better.
Speaker 3: Meat for him.
Speaker 1: But we didn't mention because they're not really that relevant, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: But Danny Treyjo and Diamond Dallas Pager in this movie,
Speaker 1: as well as a couple.
Speaker 2: Of bounty hunters, Yes they are.
Speaker 1: It's always great to see Danny Treyo. I love seeing
Speaker 1: him turn up in stuff.
Speaker 2: He is a man who sort of turns up in everything,
Speaker 2: and like Danny Treo is, Danny Treo is incredible. But
Speaker 2: sometimes you're just like, why are you even in this?
Speaker 2: Like you're way too good for Like when he's in
Speaker 2: freaking Spy Kids, and I'm like, why are you in Spike?
Speaker 2: Like I Spik? I love. I love the fact that
Speaker 2: technically the character he plays in Spy Kids, Yeah, canonically
Speaker 2: is the same character he plays in the film Machette,
Speaker 2: And they are very very different movies.
Speaker 3: Yes, very different movies.
Speaker 1: The first Machette I actually don't think is that good,
Speaker 1: but the second one Machetti Kills.
Speaker 3: Or Machette Kills, I don't want to be pretentious.
Speaker 2: Machette Kills, I actually think is a pretty humorous movie.
Speaker 2: It's it's kind of that it's in similar vein to
Speaker 2: play Planet Terror, where it's that sort of we're going
Speaker 2: to do grind house, but we're just going to dial
Speaker 2: it right.
Speaker 3: Up and go crazy with it.
Speaker 2: Mel Gibson is the villain, right okay, and he's quite
Speaker 2: over the top, whereas Robert de Niro is the villain
Speaker 2: in the first one. Right, but the first one is
Speaker 2: played much more straight. It's still a grindhouse movie, but
Speaker 2: everyone's playing it really straight, which I know usually makes
Speaker 2: comedy better, but in my opinion, for Machetti Kills, it's
Speaker 2: better when it's more over the top. Charlie Sheen plays
Speaker 2: the President of America. But yeah, that Machetti Kills came
Speaker 2: out around the same time. I think as another thing
Speaker 2: that I want to see just because it sounds so bad,
Speaker 2: which is Hobo with a Shotgun with Rutger Howell.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's meant to be pretty decent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like just the name of it, hobo
Speaker 2: with a shotgun, you know what?
Speaker 1: The exactly what it says on the tire is a hobo,
Speaker 1: he's got a shotgun.
Speaker 3: What's he going to do with the shotgun?
Speaker 2: There's a couple of surprises in this from TV shows,
Speaker 2: A couple of actors. Should I say that I recognized
Speaker 2: from TV shows? Obviously Michael Berryman we've mentioned. I believe
Speaker 2: he's been in Star Trek before.
Speaker 1: He's been in a lot, Yeah, Star Trek and he
Speaker 1: was a bit of a horror icon. He's actually in
Speaker 1: The Hills Have Eyes, Yeah, we mentioned earlier. Okay, is
Speaker 1: he the same character or is he no?
Speaker 3: No, no, a different character.
Speaker 2: Okay. And then there's Brian Perscine saying, sorry, Brian Persain,
Speaker 2: who was in Well, I know he's been in lots
Speaker 2: of stuff. He was I know him from Big Bang Theory,
Speaker 2: where he's he was much bigger at that point.
Speaker 3: As Yeah, he's a stand up comedian, Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunate. We don't get a lot of American comedians
Speaker 2: in the UK, do we. Other than Bill Burr. We
Speaker 2: had a bit of what was his name? The guy
Speaker 2: played Rufus. I was gonna say Bill Clinton, that's not
Speaker 2: his name, uh rufus in Bill and Ted, Oh, George Carlin,
Speaker 2: that's it, George carlinmore, Yeah, he was brilliant. And another
Speaker 2: one from Williams Robin.
Speaker 1: Williams also sad anymore but some of his stand up
Speaker 1: played over here as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, And then another one from another sitcom on one
Speaker 2: off day stay on this occasion though. Elizabeth Day, who
Speaker 2: plays Candy in this, she was in an episode of
Speaker 2: Friends where she played Phoebe's friend or ex friend who
Speaker 2: ends up stealing smelly kat and using it to sell
Speaker 2: for a commercial.
Speaker 1: Very popular voice actress. She is the voice of Tommy
Speaker 1: and rug Rats.
Speaker 2: You can kind of tell as well because she's got
Speaker 2: I don't think she's a smoker necessarily, but she's got
Speaker 2: this weird back of the throat's smoky sound to her voice,
Speaker 2: and you can when you hear Tommy and Rugrats and
Speaker 2: her character in this, but definitely no character in Friends.
Speaker 2: They've got that similar smoke at the back of the throat,
Speaker 2: which is interesting. Yeah, you can kind of hear that
Speaker 2: even if you can't see her face. But yeah, so
Speaker 2: there's a couple of known TV sitcom actors in this
Speaker 2: in a very unusual move for them.
Speaker 1: Well, funnily enough, House one thousand Corps has had Rain
Speaker 1: Wilson in.
Speaker 3: It before he did. Yeah, Dwight from the Office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not playing the same character though. No, but anyway,
Speaker 1: we're not here to talk about The Office. I think
Speaker 1: We've said all there is to say about The Devil's
Speaker 1: rejec I don't think I've got much more to say.
Speaker 2: It's a decent enough film, but only really necessary viewing
Speaker 2: if you're.
Speaker 3: Into Gore fantastic.
Speaker 1: Well that's it for another episode of Second Take Cinema.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much everyone for tuning in. Please like, share, subscribe,
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Speaker 1: If you leave us a review, that would be very
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Speaker 1: your thoughts on The Devil's Rejects and we will see
Speaker 1: you next time on Second Take Cinema.