Which do you prefer Saw 1 & 2 or House 1000 Corpses and Devils Rejects?

House 1000 Corpses and Devils Rejects

Strawberry Shortcake.



Oh wait, I mean Devil's Rejects!

House and Reject...

"House of 1000 corpses", then the two "Saws" and then "Devil´s Rejects". So it´s a though call...

House, Saw, Devil's Rejects, Saw II

neither really, they are vastly overrated movies on all fronts. Zombies movies aren't anything particularly new, and saw just isn't what people say it is.

Mr Zombie gets attention way beyond his directorial and story telling abilitiies imo. Its trendy hollywood movies, not much horror and tinny gore effects which always leave me with a filling of a laclustre movie. Saw was billed as Se7en, it wasn't and its a tad over the top to suggest its of the same quality really.

I probably liked house and devil reject's a bit better if its 2 vs 2, but they are still just 3 star movies to me.

spud if you're critisising DR, which imo is a superb film, what movies do you rate as 5 star ones then?

DR rule! House is quite good, Saw and especially its sequel are crap.

5 star out of 5? Well I'll assume you mean just horror movies

Alien, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead II, The Shining, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing, The Shining, etc.

Devil's Reject is a piece of shit next to them, and that's being extremely kind. But then most movies are a piece of shit next to a good 5 star movie, and once again, Devil's Reject's is barely a three star movie imo.

heh, somehow i knew you would come up with films like these - all time classics of horror, canon, which shows up in every single article/book about horror genre. and by no way surprising you didn't mention any new movies - are there any?

barely three for DR? you're kinda harsh, but de gustibus non disputandum est

That might be because they are all damn good movies don't you think? You know like what the definition of 5/5 would mean The top notch should be reserved for a movie that deserves it. Average movies I kind of tend to rate as average. I'm leniant towards total crap though, you have to be on this site, but I'm not one for overrating movies.

I'm not quite sure I understand what your getting at, they are old so they suck? Or your supposed to drop your standards just because there's not been something exceptionally good for a while? Then what does that mean about the obviously better movies out there? 6 star? Or a homer simpson style nine thumbs up? That's exactly my point about overrating, not every movie is going to be a five star movie, a top notch affair. House of a 1000 Corpses was deeply flawed, and to be honest, Devil's Rejects barely addressed any of the criticisms, its just more of the same. They were okay, clearly better than saw, but I really fail to see anything in them beyond that. They were enough to be entertaining, but there wasn't enough quality to the movie, nor personal appeal which are the two driving forces behind me buying a movie on DVD. Nor did they have any impact on me after seeing them. A better question than to ask what's a five star film if your unsatisfied with five star movies, might be what have you bought on DVD?

Anyway, still, Rob Zombie's two affairs weren't particularly new or refreshing for me, they were over in dulgent in slow motion and other cheap effects that gave it this detatched direction and mtv style glam to it whcih I don't find appealing. For a horror film, this means the only thing its got going for it then is the feel good action factor and the gore, and I've seen much better on both accounts. If Zombie's style is to not attempt to do any kind of out right shock scare, or real constructed atmosphere, then he at least has to pump up the gore to the point of repulsion. That didn't happen, and what we are left with is a bunch of 'serial killers' that just seem to say fuck all the time and stab people. I'm sorry to disagree but its always the way, all I can say is I've seen better films, far better films. On its own merits it deserves about a 3 overall. That's a reasonable, midway, slightly above average movie and that's an apt description of his two movies. I find it hard to believe that you find that to believe, so to say.

There's better films that get less attention, and there's obviously far better films that get far more attention (which you did ask for). What were you expecting when you asked the question or was it a loaded question?

Of course, indeed, there's no accounting for taste

I liked DR a LOT, must have seen it 6 or 7 times now. Maybe im not really objective because i always liked rob zombie, but the "feel" that DR has makes it so good, at least far more better than house of etc.

To get back on the above quote: RZ didn't want to make a new or refreshing movie, he wanted to make a sort of tribute to 70's movies. i think that worked out very good, DR breaths out a sphere that is just ultracool. Of course its up to everyone to like or not like that style and hell yeah, compared to the best classics ever it may not be among them but it was ( and is) a very good and entertaining movie.

Also about the gore level: RZ had to come up with a movie that was not too gory because it had to be shown in the (american) theatre and would face a ban if it was too over the top. There were a lot of rumours about an "extended edition" with much more gore, but i think he wasn't as free as he wanted to be on the gore level...

but i can't understand you didn't like it?

grtz cyber

But ultimately it wasn't anything really like a 70s movie (which in itself is not a problem for me), you can see what he's trying to do, but it feels like an mtv movie because of all the "flashy" camera work, special effects and editing. That statement might be a tad harsh, if taken too far, but its part of its problem imo.

Maybe part of the problem is that he homaging movies like last house on the left and the hills have eyes, both of which I also think are overrated, although below average movies.

Characterisation is all "fucking this" and "fucking that", the devil's rejects are a bunch of hicks not anyone that's really dispicable or scarey which I assume he was trying to do... and thats it, there's no horror in this movie, so he's essentially made some hybrid flashy action film, of which i've seen better, so as i said, its about average. I'm not sure if the problem is that he wrote the movie himself as is the problem a lot of the time with overworking directors, but i would like to see him try something a little less cliché and "kiddie-hip" and a little more like a horror film. That requires atmosphere that isn't glossy, uninvolving and inplausable. The whole portrayal of violence is empty when in a film of this nature needs to bring something out of the audience, but there are countless movies that do the detatched and over the top violence better and to greater effect, Natural Born Killers for example.

I hear "gritty" and "brutal" thrown around, but detatched and light would probably be words i'd associate.



Cyber, really? i thought i was pretty precise and clear on the matter in my first post and elaborated on later; it was okay, its an above average 3 star movie but it is not, in my estimation, anything more than a 3 star movie, its not in the same league as true classics; i wouldn't buy it or anything. It is, in my opinion therefore highly overrated. That's not a statement of contempt or anything, which it feels like its getting twisted into. Given that there are two overrated average movies only under his belt, I also said Rob Zombie's directorial abilities have so far been overstated.

The inception of this thread is comparing two sets of films, both of which get far more credit than their worth, I don't know if its overcompensation or what but i have a real hard time seeing it; being made out as if they were something overly special was the gist i was aiming for. As you can see, i'm clearly not the only one who doesn't rate Devil's Reject as superb, I'm just saying none of them are superb, and none of them really as the preference, I'd probably go for watching a different film or another type of movie at this moment in time, than choose between the four movies to watch again. I guess my words were stronger, but then I listed some real 5 star movies to counter the fact that I really don't think Devil's Rejects is a 5 star movie as requested.

Factors of restricted freedom, censorship*, etc. seem academic as an excuse, if there's nothing there that's representative of genius up there on the screen and if his movies aren't really horror or deliver, then I really can't be blamed for not seeing it in two adequet movies. If house was brilliant then yes, maybe that would explain it. But house wasn't brilliant, and neither was rejects. Maybe Halloween will be the masterwork. I remain skeptical at this point in time, with just reason I thought.

So, I choose House and Devil's, but not with any statement of overblown favouritism of overwhelming superiority over all other movies, as seems to be the case in Fang-advert-ia.

ps. and don't think i'm some kind of zombie hater, I found a lot of his music more appealing than his movies so far, but I don't feel i can overrated his movies just because i like the guy
pps. actually you'll probably know that anyway cybersatan, since if you cast your mind back to Filenexus/masenka you'd remember me having Rob Zombie as an avatar well before the infamous goomba


* Paul WS Anderson uses this line a lot to cover up the fact he's a lousy writer, Rob Zombie is not exactly bad like that dude, but that's always what i imagine these days with the "but... but..." lines if you know what i mean. The irreversable damage anderson has caused... he's even destroyed the "but the studio" line

Here you go cybersatan, nostalgia attack:

hellacool avatar yes

( but i can't remember that it was yours at that time, though i can't remember a lot from that time in my life, lol)



to get on your last reply: the post goes a bit in another way, i agree movies like alien and ED2 are 5 star and compared to THAT DR is not worthy, but overal it is a rally good movie. Personnaly i would like to see more of those movies. Still it will be a matter of taste once again, you don't like the flashy and cliche "feel" it breaths, personnally that is what makes it so cool for me. Much more than a movie like natural born killers ( wich i like alot too btw).

Though now i think about it: NBK was written by tarantino, right? Dr has a bit of the over the top feeling that tarantino movies have, though i know people that don't like him either.

Lets just say its a matter of taste, and we agree that compared to the REAL classics its not in that catagorie



grtz cyber


ps: Halloween 9, im really not sure what to expect from that one...

Well i would lower your standards if you liked the first one, since its a remake after all.

I really don't see how cloning tarantino is going to work for a movie like Halloween, so at least Zombie will have to try a new direction. If its excellent, we'll know for definite there's more to Zombie than appears if nothing else.

I agree with all of your 5 star picks there Spud but I'd never consider ED2 a 5-star horror film myself (let alone a 5-star any kind of film). I feel that one achieved inflated status amongst it's fans due to the cult status of the first film which was much better imo. I detest the direction the series went in after the original with Raimi abandoning just about everything that made the original the classic it was/is. The comedic spin disgusts me and the portal into Army of Darkness and the film itself (AoD) is nonsense - to me it seems that he ran out of creative steam on how to wrap things up nicely in ED2 so he spins it off into the whole alternate universe thing. ED2 is extremely entertaining and Bruce is fantastic as always (possibly his greatest role to date - at least from the films I've seen him in) but the direction Raimi took the series in really bothered me.

Anyways, I'd agree that none of Zombie's or the Saw films are top-tier but they do have their place in the genre and compared to so much of the other horseshit out there they have done more good than bad for their role in the 'revival' of horror cinema in recent years.

5 stars? No way. Entertaining and watchable - absolutely.

(I've never bought ED2 on dvd yet - been tempted but ultimately I keep slotting it lower and lower on the 'must have' list - I saw the AB disc of ED2 last week for around $10 and I was tempted but ultimately said the hell with it and picked up some other titles instead).

It's all subjective though.

lol, are there even people that don't have ed1, 2 and 3?

joking


and yeah i remember the first time is watched those, 2 is actually a remake of 1 with a bigger budget but 3, i was like what is this? but the humor and those ultracool oneliners make it so good: --> IM BAD..BUT IT FEELS GOOD! or...GOOD OR BAD? BUT IM THE ONE WITH THE GUN! one of the best oneliners ever (or at least the one i can remember from a movie )


grtz cyber

Hell Yes. Indeed, I thought Evil Dead 2 was a way better movie than Evil Dead 1 myself, although that in itself doesn't mean the first is anything but great either.

Part of the brilliance of it is that it isn't a mere sequel or unforgotten cashin, I don't think it was the first that made the second what it has become, actually I think what Evil Dead 2 acheived is despite the first. The film is a radical change, and given the huge status the fist had, the second departed and toyed with the first. If the sequel didn't deserve credit, it would be met with contempt not admiration because of that I would say. Yet it doesn't. Its not an out and out serious horror movie and never attempted to be, but that's good, Evil Dead 1 had done that and Evil Dead 2 as more of the same wouldn't have been half as good. The change in style and direction means it stands up on its own, and made a better film out of it. In fact, I easily think Evil Dead 2 is a better film, there's just more in it. Its easier to watch, stands up better to repeat viewings and just plays well, through and through. Evil Dead just doesn't have the replay value, as good as it is. Of course if your choosing something for the horror value your going to probably be picking the first, but I think the comic change was brilliant, it parodies the first one to the extent it recaps it in about 2 minutes and moves on, stripping out all the characters and self importance

Evil Dead 2 was also a much deeper movie that the first, despite not being deadly serious. The fact its not deadly serious means its not in the same little subgenre of horror, and that's a good thing. Its a perfect sequel, it progresses the story and doesn't dabble in pandering to the firsts already established successes and builds its own, and ultimately it also doesn't fall into any of the pitfalls of the first, like a more plodding pace.

If i had the choice of owning Evil Dead 1 or Evil Dead 2, i'd choose the second, easily Evil Dead was a brilliant low budget movie and a great movie, but Evil Dead 2 was a better high budget movie than a mere updating of Evil Dead would have been. Most sequels fall into the trap of trying to pander to a retelling or recapturing of the first, Evil Dead II was very surprising when it didn't, and it was even more surprising to me that it was way better than the first. The first was a brilliant movie, and it really did have an impact, but I think the second also made similar movements, and I think its just as top heavy with significance to justify one of my sparingly dished out 5 stars

But then, its always subjective. And i guess this is where we return to the most relevance to the thread here. My list of movies i go for have the same tell tale marks of social commentary, self-parody, etc. I also go for deeper and more impacting movies. If its trying to be a real horror movies, it has to be at least "scarey", or effective in some way, for example. I have difficulties seeing a film that's just a bunch of guys slapping people around saying fuck with the camera spinning round or doing slow motion loop the loops as anything other than a bit of entertainment which is a gripe I have with a lot of modern cinema. We seem to have lost a lot of the deeper messages of what some people deeply desire to be an artistic and expressive medium (Wasn't it Terry Gilliam who said that the problem is that people are making too many movies these days? Maybe it is? If it was a more scarce and less business orientated medium, maybe people would approach it with more weight. Of course, there still are those people so maybe he's wrong). There's still okay films, there's terrible ones, but there's also a lot of PR and overrating going on these days... stuff like Saw, House of 1000 Corpses, or Devil's Rejects, or whatever else does the job of bringing in the money and passsing the time, but nothing that leaves a deep impact on me or something that leaves me changed, which I think is pretty much is mandatory to giving a top tier rating. Otherwise your handing out superficial grades when its probably better and more apt just saying if you liked it or not. Which brings us back to devil's rejects. Its a decent enough movie, i mean I said 3/5. 3 stars is like what, better than average? That's a like isn't it? Its not something that's going to part the ocean, or a similar scale of biblical mythology, get me to open my wallet.

I would most definitely get the anchor bay Book of the Dead edition of Evil Dead 2, its probably the best dvd print around and the set is cool enough. The movie is the ultimate reason, imo that's a brilliant movie. I assume you've got the first book of the dead edition of Evil Dead at least?

ps. Another aside, I have this overwhelming dread that if this Evil Dead remake ever gets around to production, that we may indeed see what an inferior Evil Dead 2 would have been like if it didn't make its own place. All the quotes and indication are that they "are going back to the first", which gives this sense of impending doom.

I'd try to assure you that, it isn't a bit of it, but its the sheer number of times and people have said it I just have to tolerate it and develop an ulcer.

I would try to argue that's a major misconception, which falls apart if you look at it. If it was true, for example, why does it shift from a 3rd person to a first person narrative when linda is reanimated/ash becomes a deadite? The first bit is a recap, nothing more, and infact it totally strips the movie to bits which kinds of points to what was really significant to it. Evil Dead 2 starts at the exact moment when Evil Dead 1 ends, its that motobike camera shot through the cabin. Anything before that is merely Evil Dead 1, stripped to what is significant for the sequel, for the sake of not acquiring 100 million territories of licensing agreements to recycle the footage from the first. From then on in, it distances itself from the first by parodying it, and then completely going in the opposite direction.

I think this will be more apparant if this Evil Dead remake resurfaces. Then unless there's a stroke of genius, we will see what a mere remake looks like.


Anyway, i class Evil dead 2 remake in the same category as Evil Dead is a zombie movie. Neither of which I think are true.