“Never Turn Your Back on a Clown”

But I want you to stick with this film.You see, Zombie, who wrote and directed The Devil’s Rejects, knows what he’s doing.  He knows you’ve seen this setup before.  When he switches gears on you (and he will) you will realize he’s telling you, “Okay, this is how these films used to be made…but I’m changing the formula.”

My God, does he ever.

The Fireflys drive to Father Firefly’s half-brother who runs a whore house in the desert.  Meanwhile, the obsessed Sheriff hires two bounty hunters to find the family.  He then goes to interrogate Mother Firefly, but loses it and guts her with a hunting knife in an act that suggests sexual intercourse.  As the life goes out of her ecstatic eyes he kisses her blood-stained lips.

As you may have guessed there’s no Good vs. Evil in this film. It’s Evil vs. Evil.  And no one looks good; Zombie shoots and blocks the scenes so the light is always harsh; people’s faces are revealed as corrugations and lines which delineate their inner demons.  No one, even the hapless victims of which there are many, escape this harsh exposure under Zombie’s camera.

In a mesmerizing sequence shot with music and no sound the bounty hunters invade the whore house and capture the Fireflys.  The Sheriff drives them in a convertible back to their home.  He will exact his revenge there.  He ties them to chairs and nail-guns photographs of their victims to their chests.  There is  a crucifixion scene.  Finally, he douses the place with kerosene and lights it up, but not without releasing Baby and telling her to run for her life.  He wants to hunt her down.

Outside Baby ducks into a cattle chute, following the metal railings into the dark.  The Sheriff comes after her wielding an axe.  We are reminded of the scene in the original film where Baby was chasing the teenager in the bunny suit before she stabbed her victim and licked her knife under the full moon.  The Sheriff pauses, a smile on his face, and remarks, “I smell rabbit.”

Baby is now flat out running.  Time to slow her up.  He pulls his sidearm and fires.  The round goes through her calf.  “I bet that hurt,” he tells her.  “I could hear the bone shatter.”

But he wants to show Baby that Karmic payback can be a real bitch so he puts the axe aside and begins to beat her with a thick leather strap.  Baby is clawing and squirming on the hard desert floor in a vain attempt to get away.  The Sheriff asks her if she likes being a victim, likes being tortured by a sadist.  Hey, this is Baby we’re talking about.  You’re damn right she does.

But the Sheriff has made a mortal mistake.  He forgot to check his six when in the presence of a Firefly.  Baby’s brother, Tiny, an eight-foot shambling freak, saves her life.  Whaddya know, that axe came in handy after all.

Tiny saves the Father and Brother Otis from the fire.  They tell him they will be back to get him.  Tiny nods and, with his deformed body silhouetted against the orange conflagration, he shambles inside the burning house to die.

The Fireflys escape only to come upon a police roadblock the next day while “Free Bird” plays in the background.  The final assault begins.  Again reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde but with Zombie’s own surrealistic touch added to the mix.  The credits roll scored by “Seed of Memory” by Terry Reid while we are shown sweeping camera moves that fly along the road and arc above the scrub-covered hills as if in a vain attempt to escape the carnage. When the screen goes black we say softly to ourselves, “Wow.”

Rob Zombie has without a doubt become the preeminent director of the horror and violence genre with these two films.  His use of music for the soundtrack is nothing less than phenomenal.  He is not only willing to take chances with both material and artistry, but to demand this is the direction horror must turn if it wants to survive, even evolve, as a genre.  Don’t miss this one.