The Devil's Rejects

After a police raid, three members of the Firefly family run for the desert with a sheriff behind them. The film plays less like horror than like an outlaw Western, and works to pull the audience onto the killers' side. Rob Zombie directed; it is the second film of the Firefly trilogy. He deliberately abandoned the cartoon tone of House of 1000 Corpses for something harder. He names the influences himself: Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. He wanted to make a violent Western. The fight with the MPAA was long. The film was rated NC-17 eight times and only got an R after roughly two minutes were cut, mostly from the motel scene. The unrated DVD restored the removed footage. Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Sheri Moon Zombie return. The shoot was emotionally punishing; Sheri Moon Zombie described a scene with William Forsythe that took hours and affected her deeply. On a 7 million dollar budget it grossed 20.9 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 54 percent, with critics broadly agreeing it improved on the first film. Roger Ebert praised the craft; others said the characters were underwritten. Who it is for: viewers who like hard seventies American cinema and films that are morally uncomfortable. Who it is not for: anyone testing the limits of screen violence. It holds on the torture and does so to push the audience.