DVD | The Devil’s Rejects

Rating: R18 Contains Sadistic Violence, Sexual Themes & Offensive Language
Duration: 106 mins.
Genre: Horror.
Actors: Geoffrey Lewis, William Forsythe, Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, Ken Foree, Leslie Easterbrook, Matthew McGrory.
Release Date: Available Now.

In The Devil’s Rejects, Rob Zombie once again pushes the cinematic boundaries of this genre, with a family whose motto, it would seem, is ‘The family that kills together, stays together’.

Of course, plenty of people are going to be wondering why anyone would want to see a movie that ‘Contains Sadistic Violence’. For me there were two reasons. Firstly I was curious, I had read a review when the movie was first release in theatres, that claimed The Devil’s Reject’s had some very rewarding redeeming features. Secondly, the Horror genre is a growing force in the box office, and if you want to be able to comment on popular culture, you have to take not of such things.

So back to the movie, the opening scenes show a line of police cars driving along a dusty road and surrounding a house, the occupants of which are soon to become known as The Devil’ Rejects. This family is one of the most dysfunctional families in movie history, and together they have killed, maimed, done all manner of evil things to an unknown (but huge) number of victims.

Sheriff John Quincy Wydell, is a religious man, and tells his officers that they are there to do God’s work, and thus starts one of the most interesting transformations of the movie.

A gun battle ensues, the brother is killed, his mother taken hostage, but two family members escape, to joining up with another member of the family and continue their killing whilst on the run from the law.

Wydell, of course, dedicates his life to tracking them down. And track them down he does.

What started out as a fairly simple story of good vs evil – there’s that evil word again, and I don’t use it lightly, if you want to see what evil looks like, then this is a fantastic movie to watch – now gets more complicated. The family you see are evil spawn of the devil type people. It’s easy to despise them, hate them, and want all manner of horrible things to happen to them.

But then a transformation takes place, not in the Rejects, but in Wydell. Wydell finds out that they had killed his brother, and Godly justice is replaced by a homicidal thirst for revenge. But not just any revenge, sadistic, painful revenge.

The tables are turned on the viewer and we start to have compassion on the rejects. It highlights a great dilemma for those of the Christian faith: Jesus calls us to forgive. Period. He didn’t say that we could pick and choose those who are worthy to forgive, Jesus only said to forgive. Everyone. But Wydell, the main ‘Christian’ character in this movie chooses to embrace revenge, and soon finds that revenge only leads to destruction.

Scott Derrickson (Hellraiser: Inferno, Urban Legends: Final Cut, Exorcism of Emily Rose.) has an interesting (and I think very valid) theory about horror movies: “No other genre offers audiences a more spiritual view of the world, and no other genre communicates a more dearly defined moral perspective - the recognition that there actually is a spiritual realm.”

According to author Ted Dekker “we need to paint evil with as dark a brush as possible.” Rob Zombie paints with as much darkness as he is able, the result of which is a movie that is visually and emotionally hard to watch. But without such darkness, evil is able to hide behind the façade that it doesn’t really exist, or that, as portrayed in comedies, evil isn’t really a big deal. And that’s the real danger.

Food for thought:
Could you forgive anyone, no matter what they have done? Or do you have a line in the sand, with forgiveness on one side, and revenge on the other?

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