When I received The Devil's Rejects a few weeks ago from Netflix, it dawned on me that I hadn't seen the prequel, House of 1,000 Corpses. I was told that it didn't really matter whether I had seen the first installment or not, but I decided to be a loyal movie patron and watch them in order. And this, despite having read a hundred blog posts favoring the second installment over the first.Two things dawned on me in the first 15 minutes: (1) making a batch of Buffalo chicken wings for the movie was a bad idea, and (2) I had already seen the movie. Now, I'm not one to forget what I've seen and what I haven't. I have friends who constantly get halfway through a movie only to then realize, Oh, I've seen this before! But, like I said, this has never happened to me before. How it happened now, I don't know; but after 15 minutes it all came back to me, and I remembered every bit of it.
I almost turned it off, but decided to watch it again to see how it measured up for me years later. It was about the same as I remember it being: sick, twisted, and somehow tame. It seemed like all of the "disturbing" parts were purposely shot with a distorted, grainy wash, which for me took away from the movie in the same way that the other visual editing effects did. With the exception of The Wall, I've never seen visual effects (e.g. hue, saturation, etc.) I liked. (Is The Wall even considered a movie?) The movie redeemed itself, however, by being thoroughly laced with humor.
Looking forward to The Devil's Rejects! I hope it has the same sense of humor and loses the distracting visual transitions.
I was able to begin appreciating it after 6 viewings, but before that I just couldnt get into it, thought it was garbage and overrated. Now I like it for being the over the top music video nightmare it is
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll have to watch it again one of these days. It's remained untouched on the DVD shelf since its virgin viewing.
ReplyDeleteI think you will enjoy The Devil's Rejects though. The sick sense of humor is definitely there with better filmmaking to go along. No more crazy hues and silly VFX, just straight forward 16mm grit and grain. Zombie learned so much from House and he admits it too. He barely shot enough footage to make the movie, so that may explain some things.
Carl - Jeez, man! Your viewing frequency is impressive. Not only do you posts 100 times a day, you watch these flicks multiple times, too!
ReplyDeleteBecky - You were absolutely correct. Sick sense of humor + better film making = I liked this one much better!