'Rejects' is a depraved love letter to B-films

July 22, 2005|Globe Staff

Rob Zombie, the erstwhile heavy-metal rocker and pride of Haverhill, Mass., has just released his second big-screen venture, following 2003's critically nuked ''House of 1,000 Corpses." Titled ''The Devil's Rejects," this sort-of sequel follows three sadistic killers as they cut a swath through the mid-1970s Midwest. It is a proudly sick film of no social value whatsoever, and all right-thinking moviegoers will properly shun it as a pox upon their multiplex.

Everyone else might want to check it out.

Steeped deeply and knowledgeably in the trash aesthetic of Roger Corman B-films and Combat Zone grindhouse fare like ''I Spit on Your Grave," ''Devil's Rejects" is a blood-smeared and almost completely scurrilous love letter to anyone who ever appeared in the junk movies of the '60s through '80s. This extends to the casting of anyone who ever appeared in the junk movies of the '60s through '80s.

True, of the psychotic central trio, only Sid Haig as the clown-faced Captain Spaulding has bona fide psychotronic street cred (he costarred in the 1968 cult classic ''Spider Baby"). Sheri Moon, as his pneumatic daughter Baby, is better known as Mrs. Rob Zombie, and Bill Moseley, as their testy, Manson-esque partner in crime, Otis B. Driftwood, has only been around since the late '80s.

(Yes, they're named after Groucho Marx characters. Rob Zombie, it turns out, has a thing for Marx Brothers movies as well, and he really loves cheesy mid-'70s rock songs such as Elvin Bishop's ''Fooled Around and Fell in Love" and David Essex's ''Rock On." No one has ever combined drive-in sleaze, references to classic comedy teams, and the oeuvre of Lynyrd Skynyrd before, in large part because no one has considered it a remotely good idea.)

As the Spauldings tear across the desert, with Sheriff John Wydell (William Forsythe) the designated hellhound on their trail, each of their gore-spattered encounters contains a cameo designed to make late-night cable aficionados sit bolt upright in disbelief. There's Mary Woronov (ex-Warhol Factory regular and Miss Togar of ''Rock 'n' Roll High School") as a doomed nurse! There's Steve Railsback (the title character of ''The Stunt Man") as a state cop! There's E.G. Daily, Dottie from ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure," as a hooker! Leslie Easterbrook (the ''Police Academy" series) as the foulmouthed Mother Firefly, Ken Foree (''From Beyond") as a bordello proprietor, tough guy Danny Trejo as a bounty hunter, ''The Hills Have Eyes" oddity Michael Berryman as an . . . oddity! There's even P.J. Soles, of ''Halloween" and ''Stripes" and ''Rock 'n' Roll High School," as a threatened mom.

P.J. Soles, ladies and gentlemen! This isn't a cast, it's a class reunion.