Rating: 2/5
Some nerds get themselves in trouble when they ask for directions to where Dr. Satan worked and fall into the hands of the Firefly family — think The Munsters if every one of them was a psycho killer
The core is unambiguous — Rob Zombie loves Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and asked, “What if we were on the Sawyer’s side?” It looks like the material is there, but he (like so many first-time filmmakers) had a bunch of stylistic ideas he wanted to try out, and the movie suffers for it
The film plays like a mixtape of influences — more freak show comedy than a horror film for most of its runtime, and desperate for the audience to know how much the filmmaker knows about horror and shlock — you’re either into it or over it before the title card
Honestly, the only stylistic choice that I outright hated was the artificial zoom-ins and outs — they look cheap in moments where I don’t think that’s the intent
This movie isn’t great, but it has weird promise (see spoiler talk below).
Stray Thoughts
- Doctor Wolfenstein calls himself “the ghost with the most.” I thought that was Beetlejuice?
- [spectral laughter]
- Karen Black! She’s better than the material, but I’m happy to see her let loose
- I’ve heard the next one, The Devil’s Rejects, is better and that 3 From Hell divides fans, but I plan to check both out eventually
- And I like Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 — that’s a movie that makes some odd style choices that work in its favor
** Spoilers ** The best part of the movie is when they lower Denise into Dr. Satan’s lair — his goon squad and lair are creepy, and Denise is the only character we have a chance to care about. The tension mounts, the mystery unfolds from her perspective, and we genuinely don’t know what will happen. The movie eventually gets in its way again, but the promise of a legitimately good filmmaker is there