The Devil's Rejects (2005) - Blu-Ray Review

Review:

*Originally written November 24th, 2018*

Almost every part of me wants to hate Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, his homage to '70s horror and crime cinema and sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, but for some reason, I find myself enjoying it a tiny bit more with every watch. It's utterly repulsive, completely unrestrained and just bat-shit insanity. It's Rob Zombie's vision put on the screen without a single bit of compromise.

I'm still unsure how I feel about Zombie himself as a director. He certainly has a vision, style and tone that feels unique to himself, which is something I always like in a director. A Rob Zombie film FEELS like a Rob Zombie film for better or worse. His films vary in quality, but out of what I've seen (Only Lords of Salem left to watch) I'd say this is by far his best work. On only his second film, he's let off the leash to deliver his sun-drenched horror show of sadism.

I remember very little about House of 1000 Corpses, so I'm not entirely sure how it connects aside from the use of the Firefly Family. Anyway, it finds the last surviving members of the family on the run after their 75+ murder spree is finally connected to them go on a road-trip to escape the authorities. 

The big problem here is just how unlikable the Firefly Clan are. Rob Zombie really needs to stop casting his wife Sheri Moon Zombie in things, she is just the absolute worse. Not helped by the obnoxious writing that has every character dropping the F-Bomb every 2 seconds. I gotta mention the brutal "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these" scene. Just brutal and irritating.

Moon Zombie aside, the characters are far from likeable, but they do at least have some charisma that keep you going through the film. Sid Haig is by far Zombie's best creation as the murderous party clown Captain Spaulding. The last of the trio of leads is Bill Moseley's Otis, who is easily the most sadistic of the 3. It's strange that a film with such disgusting and horrible characters is entertaining to watch for me. There's not a single redeeming aspect to any of these monsters. They kill, rape and torture their way through the entire film, but it's still somewhat watchable.

It's rare a film actually makes me uncomfortable, but Devil's Rejects is one of those rare films that actually pushes the boundaries. The tone and treatment of the film is grotesque. Our lead characters graphically murder, rape and torture people no remorse. Zombie's style is inherently ugly, but it has '70s look and vibe to it I kinda like. It's a sun drenched, Texas Chainsaw Massacre homage in some respects, but it's let down by Zombie's frequently annoying use of stylistic touches that just don't work. His constantly use of slow-motion is aggravating to say the least and the digital blood gore looks atrocious, I expected better from someone like Zombie, who imagined would go practical any chance he could.

 If you expect any of the victims to get away or have any kind hope, yeah, this won't be the film for you. Innocent bystanders are merely fodder for the Firefly Family to abuse. It's tough watching, especially the extended motel scene where we actually spend time with a few of their hostages and after their treatment, you kinda hope they will get away, but nope. Not in this one.

By the end of this thing it's just kind of exhausting spending just under two hours (Which is a little too long) with these horrible characters. I'd love to watch this with friends who have no tolerance for this sort of thing. Oh, and as memorable as the ending is, did Zombie really have to use the 8mm home video footage to try and make us feel anything for these characters? It's just asking a little too much for audience at this point to even attempt at making us sympathetic for these repulsive scumbags.


For better and worse The Devil's Rejects is Rob Zombie's finest work as a director and I'm honestly very interested in his sequel to this due out next year, which is an interesting prospect considering how this ended. Not for people who can't handle horrific content, but if you can stomach it, I'm sure there's something you can get out of this.

7/10 Dans

The Devil's Rejects is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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Batman Begins (2005) - 4K Review

Review:

*Originally written September 1st, 2018*

It always feels weird going back to Batman Begins, the reboot of the Batman franchise after Batman & Robin murdered it for 7 years. It paved the way for so many superhero films today, with many directors also trying to apply the vibe of this to many different genres. It's not perfect, and it doesn't hold up as well as I'd like, but Batman Begins is still an excellent comic-book film that delves into the character more than anyone of the films before it.

A big problem with Batman Begins isn't even the film's fault, but the fact is, it is completely overshadowed by The Dark Knight. While obviously that wouldn't exist without Batman Begins and this paves the way for the greatness to come, you just know potential Christopher Nolan has under his sleeve that he wasn't able to unleash until the sequel.

Part of me wants to call Batman Begins safe, which is it by today's standard of comic-book films. It captures a wonderfully dark and gritty tone, delving more towards crime-drama that cartoony superhero flick. Gotham is Chicago, but a dark, fully realised and hellish version of the city that feels real and alive. Much more so than Burton's take on the city.

Christian Bale does get a lot of flack for his "Bat voice", which is understandable, but I forgot how restrained it felt in this, compared to the borderline parody it becomes in The Dark Knight Rises. He carries the role extremely well, especially in the moments as Bruce Wayne, but part of me feels the character would have benefited greatly from him playing it as Patrick Bateman. 

After the stream of Marvel films I've been watching lately, this did feel like a breath of fresh air. It actually feels and looks like a film. It retains the grain and doesn't feel overly polished and shiny. I'd always found the Blu-ray release of this to be ugly too, but the 4K is absolutely gorgeous, the amount of detail retained in all the darkest scenes is damn impressive and my god, those oily blacks look great in UHD. 

Superhero films suffer a lot from the villain problem, which is something DC has always been able to top Marvel over. It's been 13 years now, so it's not a spoiler, but Liam Neeson's Ra's al Ghul is great. His plan is very comic-book, but it's just not silly enough to break away  from tone. A lot of people have a problem with his death scene and how it breaks Batman's rules on killing, but it worked for me and I always found his no-killing policy utterly nonsensical anyway.

Batman's no killing rule also creates a very problematic and overlooked scene early on. In which he refuses to kill a thief in front of the League of Shadows, but then goes on to accidentally kill all of them and the thief... I'm still trying to wrap my head around that scene. Was it a moment showing how under trained Bruce was and was just winging it with disastrous? Or was it a severe oversight in the screenplay? Either way, Bruce does not seem to care he'd murdered a dozen men by mistake and it is never mentioned again. Weird.

I'm also surprised at the lack of action there is in this. The only real highlight being the Batmobile chase. I do always appreciate the amount of practical stuff that went into the making of this trilogy, keeping CGI to a minimum. Everything feels natural, unlike the later Batman antics shown in the Snyder films. I also kinda like the clunkiness of Batman's combat. He doesn't feel smooth like he does in say the Arkham games, it feels messy. 

My biggest gripe with Batman Begins is Katie Holmes who is absolutely awful as Rachel Dawes, thank god she was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal. I feel bad picking on one actress out of a cast of people who did universally excellent, but my god, she sticks out badly.


Batman Begins might hit a few beats we are massively familiar with now, but it still holds up for the most part, paving way for all the dark and gritty superhero films we could ask for. A pretty excellent start to this trilogy.

8/10 Dans

Batman Begins is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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