The Devil’s Rejects ★★★½

ROB Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects, the 2005 follow-up to the blood-drenched House of 1000 Corpses, starts in spectacular fashion.

It’s rural Texas in 1978 and the serial-killing Firefly family’s full depravity has now been uncovered by police. The family are awoken in their ramshackle farmhouse by loudspeaker-delivered demands to surrender.

The house is surrounded by dozens of full-armed troopers led by Sheriff Wydell, a man who doesn’t think twice about ordering an onslaught.

The battle commences and Otis, Baby, Captain Spaulding, Mama and Co. seem hopelessly out-numbered and out-gunned.

But officers storming the house are confronted by the family in home-made, Ned Kelly style armour, evening the interior fight and enabling the main trio to escape and continue wreaking havoc across the State.

A bunch of crazed killers like the Firefly family require an equally strong nemesis and in Wydell, played brilliantly by William Forsythe, they have their work cut out.

This is an old-Century lawman who thinks nothing of getting himself messy with murder and torture and hiring ex-cons to do the other dirty work he just hasn’t got the time to do himself.

This is definitely a film for a certain audience. It’s extremely well made, arguably Zombie’s best effort to date, suspenseful and disturbing. In fact it’s hard to believe this film no longer has a restricted rating (over 18s only) considering the level of profanity and sexualised violence.

A good part of the film’s success is due to the enigmatic performances of veterans Forsythe, Bill Moseley as Otis and Sid Haig as Spaulding. Zombie’s wife Sheri Moon reprises her role as Baby but still struggles to make the same kind of impact.

However, it’s this weird sense of a loving family they create, juxtaposed with their bloody antics, that grabs the most attention.

The film is built around four impressive set pieces and locations: the opening gun battle; the abductions and horrific murders of a family in an isolated motel; the confrontation with Sheriff Wydell and his bounty hunters in a brothel town; and the final moments, in extended slo-mo and freeze frame, as the wounded trio thunder along the highway in their convertible Cadillac into a police blockade to the sound of Lynard Skynard’s Freebird.

Not for everyone I know, but for those who love bloody and uncompromising shock and awe this delivers in spades.