Rob Zombie first introduced us to the Firefly clan in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES back in 2003. This wild and weird display borrowed from movies like THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, while also setting up a vicious and horrific tone all its own. So much so that we didn’t care too much about the characters being tortured at their hands, simply because Baby, Otis, and Captain Spaulding were horrifically charismatic. Even still, at the time I caught this flick, I would have never willingly called any of these marauding monsters heroes of their own story. Nah, even if the obnoxious young adults that fall victim to the Firefly’s house of horrors didn’t register much sympathy, it would be crazy to think of Otis Firefly as any sort of leading man. Well, things sure changed when Zombie took this psychotic band of misfits on the road for the follow-up sequel.
When THE DEVIL’S REJECTS arrived two years later in 2005, it was nothing like I would have expected. Gone were the sideshow theatrics and the Halloween laced horror setting. This time, after a massive shoot out with the police department, Otis (Bill Moseley), Baby (Sheri-Moon Zombie) and Captain Spaulding (SId Haig), bring their reign of terror on the road. Even with all the atrocities they commit on the unlucky victims that cross their path, this was their story. As crazy as they were, William Forsythe’s Sheriff Wydell was nearly as twisted as the f*cked up family he was trying to take down. And by the time we got to the eventual showdown, complete with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” these three psychos are the ones you are rooting for on some strange level. Instead of following up the former film with perhaps more Dr. Satan, or bizarre antics, he gave us a twisted take on BONNIE AND CLYDE.
At the time THE DEVIL’S REJECTS cast it’s vicious spell on moviegoers, there was already an acceptance of that level of gore and on-screen violence. After all, 2005 also gave us Eli Roth’s HOSTEL and the first sequel to SAW. Yet, like horror tends to do, the unfortunately labeled “torture porn” (it wasn’t) would eventually make room for the next horror trend. And with the final scene in REJECTS, it certainly appeared that it would be unlikely we’d be seeing Captain Spaulding and his crew again. For the past decade of so, that level of theatrical gore and horror temporarily retired. Yet here we are in 2018, and Rob Zombie has reunited the original cast and is bringing fans back to this twisted world in the upcoming sequel 3 FROM HELL. It seems that the Firefly clan are so goddamn awful, that even the fiery pits of hell wouldn’t take them. Or as we are learning from the many Instagram shares from Rob Zombie, they apparently survived and had their asses thrown in jail.
While there is very little is known about the plot at this point, you have to wonder about whether Zombie will directly take on some of the current animosity and division that is going on around us. While this may be true all across the globe, it is especially true for the United States. Even before the 2016 election, there was a growing sense of hostility here. Weirdly, some of that came in the form of entertainment while fans of one thing would bash fans of another. And now, in 2018, we are a divided country that demonizes one another on a daily basis. So the question is, how will a sequel to CORPSES and REJECTS play, over ten years later, when we are already so at odds with each other here in the USA, and damn near everywhere else?
Zombie may not be the one you’d expect to shine a light on the mess we are in through fiction. Yet, it is impossible to believe that we won’t see some of our current situation through the eyes of his killer cast. In fact, when the news was announced, we suggested that this was the perfect time for a sequel – and you can check that out here. However, in only a matter of months, the divide and the news feed is like a daily nightmare that we see on a never-ending loop. Will the upcoming sequel take on any of the real life horrors that we are seeing? Certainly it will be controversial for Zombie to address the current administration and the anger and frustration the citizens of the US are currently facing. In fact, it would be safer to just avoid all that. Yet this is Rob Zombie we are talking about. The man is not the type to avoid controversy.
Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but we think it would be interesting if 3 From Hell directly takes on our current political climate. While I’m not so sure I’d like to see Baby, Otis and Spaulding treated like heroes in any way, shape or form, they somehow feel relevant today. I want to see how they would react in modern America. Perhaps they will find themselves an adversary even more disturbed than Sheriff Wydell. Imagine their world and ours colliding, and you may have something that will shock and horrify audiences unlike anything Zombie has done before. This would be a risky take for the filmmaker, but it would also be a compelling one that could bring 3 FROM HELL to another level. That sounds a bit more intriguing than just another chapter in the series. So will the director focus his latest on the mess we find ourselves in with his horror-centric cast? If anyone has the fortitude to do it, it may just be the guy who gave us “Dragula.” And I mean that sincerely.