Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I wish I could be in a dozen places at once. Tuesday night was a great example. There was a special screening of THE DEVIL’S REJECTS in Santa Monica, a screening I was supposed to introduce at the Aero Theater, a special screening of APOLLO 13 and a reception at the IMAX theater at the California Science Center with Tom Hanks and Ron Howard in attendance, and, most importantly, my wife’s birthday party with friends and families at a local restaurant.
It was a lovely dinner.
I made sure to send ObiSwan to cover THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, though. He’s the biggest fan of HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES I know, and he seemed genuinely excited at the prospect of taking an early look at the movie. Swan’s a fan of STAR WARS, sure, but he’s also a fan of transgression on film. He just finished a short film I have nothing to do with that is all about the seamy side of human behavior, and he counts the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE among his very favorite movies. Evidently, he flipped for THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, and plans to do a slew of coverage between now and the film’s release. Here’s his first li’l peek at the film and the guy behind it, Rob Zombie.
God bless Moriarty for being a decent guy who has his priorities in order. Due to family obligations, he was unable to attend the screening Tuesday night of Rob Zombie’s anticipated HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES sequel, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. And can you guess what lucky son of a bitch got to go in his place?
I first saw CORPSES in Austin at one of Harry’s famous Butt-Numb-A-Thon festivals. The early buzz as a movie that was so extreme that Universal dropped it fascinated me. Lions Gate Films stepped up to the plate and gave Zombie a new home for his directorial debut. The title packs a punch, and with the infamous Rob Zombie at the helm, it all added up to one hell of a promise to genre fans. For me, it was a promise kept. CORPSES delivered exactly the kind of ride I was up for, and then some.
So, having said all that, what did I think of REJECTS? I won’t beat around the bush. I’ll just give it to you straight... my gut reaction:
Epic and badass. I dig the living shit out of this crazy bastard of a movie.
If you’re a true fan of CORPSES, you will not be disappointed by the further exploits of Baby, Otis, and everyone’s favorite degenerate clown, Captain Spaulding. If CORPSES is the foreplay, then REJECTS is the actual down n’ dirty, non-consensual deed. And if the first film didn’t get you hard, then at least give REJECTS its day in court. It’s by no means a rehash, and Zombie has clearly grown by leaps and bounds since his first outing. He trusts his instincts more and he’s crafted a film that transcends easy genre labels. It’s unflinching, brutal, and pissed-off, but at the same time it’s a haunting meditation on revenge. It’s Peckinpah. It’s DELIVERANCE. It’s 70’s. And it’s the best time I’ve had watching a movie in a long while.
After the screening I got to meet the whole “Rejects” gang. They were all great. Sid Haig is friendly and genteel. Bill Moseley is surprisingly quiet and reserved. Ken Foree (who I met last year when I was a KNB zombie for Moriarty’s SHAUN OF THE DEAD screening) is one righteously cool dude. And Sheri Moon... well, she’s pretty much a heapin’ stack of gorgeous. After the screening, I asked Rob if he had time to sit down for a few minutes to discuss his films:
OBI-SWAN: What are the movies that are stuck in your head... the movies that have made a lasting impression on you? Who are the filmmakers?
ROB ZOMBIE: It’s a pretty easy list. The films that affected me came before DVD or VHS. It was really just what I saw on TV. We only had twelve channels that worked and only two of them showed movies. And those movies would get repeated a lot. All the Universal stuff. That really grabbed me. The classic monster stuff and the Hammer stuff. And then there was ‘70’s filmmaking. BONNIE AND CLYDE. I was obsessed with BONNIE AND CLYDE as a kid. I loved Michael J. Pollard. That’s why I put him in the first movie. TAXI DRIVER, of course. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. DAWN OF THE DEAD, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. The funny thing about the ‘70’s was that every time I went to the movies it was a mind-blowing experience. It was like, every time I went to the movies, my life changed.
OS: In an early cut of THE GODFATHER PART III, the first scene was very similar to the first scene in the original GODFATHER, with someone sitting across a desk from the Godfather, asking for a favor. Then Coppola changed his mind and started the film in a different way. I was really surprised you didn’t start THE DEVIL’S REJECTS with a Captain Spaulding TV commercial. Was there a temptation to do the expected? Was it a choice you were conscious of, or did it just fall together naturally?
RZ: Sequels are a tricky game. I hate sequels, for the most part. Everybody goes, “What about GODFATHER PART II?” Okay, GODFATHER PART II is good. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. You can name about five great sequels and the rest of them are horrendous. They just hit all the same beats and they just want your money. I don’t look at this as a sequel, but I love the characters and I wanted to do more with them. I never wanted the audience to be like, “Here we go. I knew they were gonna have this scene and here it is.” I purposely tried to make it completely different. I took things from the first film I thought I succeeded at and tried to expand them. And the things I thought didn’t work, I didn’t do them again. Films are big. And with a first film, there’s no room for failure. Your first film is like boot camp. John Carpenter said something to me once. At the time I hadn’t made a movie, but now I know this from experience. He said, “When you’re on set, it’s not about art. It’s about moving this army over that mountain before the sun goes down.” And somewhere in the middle you have to make art. We had twenty-nine days. We shot this two weeks faster than the first movie. And I’m excited to make my next movie. Every time you make one, you learn...
OS: All the actors who worked on the first film who came back for this one have noticeably stepped their game up. Everybody took what they were doing and brought it to the next level.
RZ: Yeah. That was a big thing. I met with the actors and I said, look, I don’t want you to be the cartoon version of Captain Spaulding. I don’t want the funny one-liners. I want to take that character and make him real. If we don’t make him real, then he’s gonna turn into what Freddy Krueger has become. I want Otis to become real. I want Baby to be real. Let’s make it real and cut the shit. And that was hard. We worked for a long time on that.
OS: The rape scene with Bill Moseley and Priscilla Barnes is really strong. Bold. I was taken aback. Movies don’t normally shock me. It’s not often that a movie like IRREVERSIBLE comes along and I’m like... Holy shit... what did I just see?
RZ: Exactly.
OS: Priscilla Barnes is amazing.
RZ: She is amazing. I truly believe that everybody in this movie is giving the best performance they’ve ever given. I can’t think of another time that Sid, Ken, William Forsythe, Leslie [Easterbrook, most famous from the POLICE ACADEMY films], and Priscilla have been this strong.
OS: There’s so much talent here...
RZ: And a lot of them can’t get work because they’re not twenty fuckin’ years old.
OS: Do you think of your cast the way Orson Welles thought of his troupe? Would you bring them along for another film even if it’s not CORPSES or REJECTS?
RZ: Without a doubt. They’re amazing. I mean, look... they’re all here. There’s no egos. Some of them flew in specifically for this. They care. They care about the film. They care about each other. And it shows.
OS: Your filmmaking style right now is extreme, but within that there’s so much character and there’s so much humanity and truth that – and I know it might be difficult to respond to this – but how could anybody, even if they don’t like it, not call this great art?
RZ: I didn’t just want to make a violent movie. My point was, I wanted to make a character-driven movie about people who happen to be violent. And I wanted to do it in an artful way. And I wanted to tell it in a way that... it’s not just there’s lots of blood and tits, have a good time! It’s not about that. It’s never about that in this movie.
OS: Although, the titty factor is up in this movie.
RZ: It is up, but it’s like the ‘70’s stuff. There’s a lot of nudity. There’s full-frontal nudity. But even with all that, it wasn’t a “sexy” shower scene. It was a vulnerable, horrible shower scene. And it was really hard to cast that. It’s hard to find girls who look real anymore. I didn’t want the obligatory “big-titty” moment. Watch a porno movie if you want that.
OS: Your movies are extreme, but I think there’s a hell of a lot more going on with you. I suspect you’ll start exploring degrees of subtlety as you go on.
RZ: Oh, yeah. There are things I want to do, and I’m not sure exactly what it will be next, but I know I want to continue to challenge myself. Most of the time, people are like, here’s something I do really well, so let’s just keep doing it over and over again and cash checks. That’s not what I want to do.
OS: I’m not saying I want you to move away from horror. The thing I love so much about CORPSES and now REJECTS is your level of commitment. It’s surprising how little commitment there is in the genre... guys who are willing to go all the way.
RZ: Commitment is the key thing. The greatest thing anyone can say about a film is either it’s great, or it’s a total piece of shit. There’s something truly special about both reactions. The stuff right in the middle is just another bland product I don’t give a shit about. The best thing someone can tell me is either your film is awesome, or it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. When I first started out with White Zombie, the first review we got was literally, “This is the worst band ever.” And I was like, we must be doing something right. You want the extreme because that’s where the beauty is.
I want to give a big thanks to Rob for chatting with me about his movie. He was generous with his time and could not have been any cooler. I hope to sit down with him again soon to discuss other aspects of his work. THE DEVIL’S REJECTS is quite an achievement and I can’t wait to see it again this summer.
Cool. Obi-Swan’s already got some more stuff planned for this one in the weeks ahead.
"Moriarty" out.
