Summary
Everyone's favorite clan of murderous hicks is back! (Well, everyone's favorite since the Leatherface family, anyway.) As in House of 1000 Corpses, there's plenty of murder, torture, and familial squabbling. But this time, a police raid forces the family out of their home, formerly a sanctuary of gleeful immorality, and onto the bleak backroads of rural Texas. Still murderous but suddenly vulnerable, Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding are hemmed in by a police dragnet lead by the vengeful and increasingly unbalanced Sheriff Wydell, brother to the murdered cop in 1000 Corpses. It's delightfully, insanely, beautifully violent. And not in that slo-mo, soft filter, doves flying John Woo way, either; it's a gritty, dirty, drive-in movie, down-home American kind of violence. Bravo, Rob Zombie, bravo.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
There are many strong candidates for the "most disgusting" prize in this movie, but I think the winner has to be Sid Haug's teeth. His Captain Spaulding is the very evilest of all evil clowns, guaranteed to give you nightmares even while you're laughing at him terrifying an 11-year-old kid and his mom and stealing their car (that poor little boy is never going to be able to go to a circus again). Actually, he got all the good laughs, including his shocked and disgusted reaction at being accused of wanting to screw a chicken by a hick without sense enough to be polite to the scary clown-man. Even a filthy, murderous clown like Captain Spaulding has his limits, I guess. You know, now that I think about it (this is unrelated to the chicken, I promise), Captain Spaulding could be Shel Silverstein's evil twin brother. Aside from the similarities in facial hair, they both obviously enjoyed their weed and their women, although Shel got invited to the Playboy mansion and Captain Spaulding had to settle for his buddy's grotty whorehouse. But still, Captain Spaulding looked so relaxed there, and I could almost picture Shel wandering in and composing a lewd poem about Baby on the spot. Not that I'd wish for Shel Silverstein, beloved by children and hippies everywhere, to be caught in the subsequent bloodbath or to associate with maniacal murderers. But whatever Captain Spaulding's faults were, he was certainly loyal to his friends, and I like to think that he and Shel might have been friends under better circumstances.
In fact, the fugitives were all touchingly loyal to each other, in spite of their bickering. Well, I suppose Mother Firefly was a captive, not a fugitive, but she was certainly devoted to her family. Plus, I didn't really get into her story as much since it mostly just made me miss Karen Black (who played the role in 1000 Corpses). Nobody does crazy like she does. Anyway, the "us against the world" feeling of Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding's flight was certainly part of what made it interesting, but I think what really forced me to feel for them was just how lost they seemed out in the real world. Of course, once Sheriff Wydell started torturing them, they immediately became sympathetic underdogs, but I felt that like was pretty much there to set up a rah-rah action scene when the tables turned once again. It was just how bad they were at navigating in the real world that made them compelling to me. As Barbara Jo discusses in her review of House of 1000 Corpses, it's as if the family had created their own world in their blood-splattered farmhouse, a place where moral standards are not just broken but are denied entirely. (That is, if you ignore the stupid cyborg-living-in-the-basement thing, which I feel entirely justified in doing since Rob Zombie completed dropped that story in The Devil's Rejects) Aside from the occasional hapless cheerleader that Captain Spaulding sent their way, the family lived entirely out of contact of human society, apparently protected from retribution by the sheer chaotic force of their amoral, animal natures. The intrusion of Sheriff Wydell and his men forced them out of their protective bubble, and for them it was like the fall from Eden. Aside from some minor mayhem (well, not minor if you're in the country band they captured and killed with creativity but for no good reason, but minor in light of the 1000 corpses they had in their backyard), they're lost and helpless out on their own. Sure, they're still evil and all, but they couldn't have managed their escape from the forces of law and order worse if they'd tried. Instead of hauling ass over the county line before a proper roadblock could be set up, they waste time messing around with the country band, leave a trail of bodies and stolen cars behind them, and then spend an evening partying with someone who (a) is known to be their friend and (b) runs a public establishment within hours of their house. It probably would have been a good place to check out even if the Sheriff hadn't figured out their connection with it. Their total lack of sophistication in dealing with human society is oddly touching and tragic. It's like they just didn't know what to do with themselves when forced into the light of day, and just fell back on torturing hapless musicians just because it was familiar. Even Otis's nutball speechifying about being the devil seemed half-hearted. So even though I liked them better while they were living on their alternate moral plane, murdering in artistic ways without fear of reprisal, their tragic destruction was beautifully done.
BARBARA MAY
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