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- Dec 28, 2014
I actually sort of disagree with that, at least the last part. Yes, they are unambiguously evil. Yes, Rob Zombie does absolutely nothing to put any "redeeming social value" or other bullshit into it. This is a refreshing thing since so many current year horror movies try to put some veneer of morality to justify getting off, nonsexually, on watching two hours of pure sadism.Saw The Devil's Rejects for it's 20th anniversary earlier this week. How is it that Rob Zombie made a bunch of regular humans more demon-like than an actual bunch of demons in a black comedic adult cartoon? The difference between the Firefly clan and IMP is that the Fireflies are unambiguously bad people. Period. Their only purpose in life is to torture/kill as many people as possible. And they're just as venomous toward each other as they are to their victims.
There's a touch of "Sheriff John Quincy Wydell is just as evil" to it, but it isn't justifying it.
However, despite being irredeemable monsters and tormenting each other to some extent, the main trio (Otis Spaulding and Baby) seem to have genuine affection for each other. And if you remember the almost as good House of 1000 Corpses, Mama also loved her brood of vipers and Tiny was willing to sacrifice himself for the others.
Another weird thing is it seems like people who are good at playing absolute psychopaths are usually pretty nice. From all accounts, Sid Haig was a major bro, Moseley is someone you'd have a beer with, and I've heard very little about Rob Zombie himself being an asshole, even from people who detest his movies.
I hope he has another movie on the level of The Devil's Rejects in him because it's one of my favorite of all times.
I think my favorite scene in TDR isn't one of the action scenes or even the chicken-fucking scene, but the scene where a film critic based on Gene Shalit is lecturing the Sheriff about the Marx Brothers references the main characters were using as names and insults Elvis in the process and Wydell goes completely berserk. A lot of what was so good about this film is Zombie's obvious love and depth of knowledge about film and actual respectful treatment of a twisted genre, much like Tarantino's love of blaxploitation films and respect for what black people on a low budget could put together which is probably why he is the only white man in movies with an unlimited N-word pass.
"Redemption" would imply "being good" for some reason other than pure self-preservation. That isn't redemption, that's pragmatism from an evil person.Charlie is still very ignorant to the fact of what being "good" actually entails.
I still admire the Charlie who threw down with this bitch in the pilot, but that's not the Charlie we got in the series.
This is sometimes related to esoteric arguments that Lucifer ("light-bringer") is akin to Prometheus, who brought fire to humanity in defiance of the corrupt powers in control of the world, and was punished for all eternity because of it.Semirelated to the whole convo but I hate how media lately is like 'what if the devil was good?". Dude was the corrupter. He was the obstacle in Jesus' path. The demon is behind the dangerous sin to have.
It's pretty common in the "Satanism being atheism but with gay pointy beards and robes" scene.
Anyone who wants to do the villain protagonist thing should read the (very short novel) Grendel by John Gardner. It's probably the original in this microgenre. It's basically Beowulf retold from the perspective of the monster.Why? Why is the only way writers can make villains sympathetic is to straight up make them not villains? Either the heroes are the reeeeeeeeal villains or there was some other unmentioned, even worse villain that makes the titular villain not looks so bad, like in Cruella.
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