Editorials
Free as a Bird – Rob Zombie’s ‘The Devil’s Rejects’ Turns 20
Rob Zombie has been one of the most polarizing figures in the horror community since making the leap from musician to filmmaker. He made his feature writing and directorial debut with House of 1000 Corpses in 2003 — after being purchased by Lionsgate when its original studio, Universal, shelved it three years prior due to fears of it receiving a dreaded NC-17 rating.
Corpses fell victim to many issues faced by first-time directors — Zombie was seemingly unsure if he’d ever get the opportunity to make another movie, resulting in an anarchic mélange of ideas and influences — but the end result remains potent all these years later. Despite the troubled production and a largely unfavorable critical response, the film turned a healthy profit, giving Zombie the sinister urge to make a sequel as his sophomore effort.
Released 20 years ago today, The Devil’s Rejects is decidedly more grounded in reality than its heightened predecessor. The follow-up shares more in common with 1970s exploitation cinema than horror, although the genre is still present along with elements of western, road movies, and even comedy. Zombie’s refined approach allows him to blend the tones more smoothly this time around.
The Devil’s Rejects kicks off with a literal bang. Set in 1978, the savage Firefly clan — collectively responsible for more than 75 deaths — have been tracked down by vindictive Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe, The Rock), whose brother fell victim to the merciless killers in Corpses.
A shootout between the family and state troopers ensues, with Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) and Otis (Bill Moseley) narrowly escaping. They meet up with Baby’s estranged father, local celebrity Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), who helps them flee from the law. The fugitives’ ruthless reign of terror continues on the lam.
Zombie creates a fascinating dichotomy with his characters, challenging the notion of protagonist and antagonist. Although the Fireflys’ actions are reprehensible and Wydell’s vengeance is justified, the former villains are presented as antiheroes for whom the audience is encouraged to root. It comes to a poetic climax with a shootout boldly set to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” — one of the most effective uses of a popular song in cinema.
Captain Spaulding is still a vulgar curmudgeon but spends most of the movie sans his iconic clown makeup, as the desperate times have forced him to assume the role of patriarch. No longer the gangling albino introduced in Corpses, Moseley delivers a career-best performance as Otis, a bearded madman in the mold of Charles Manson. Baby’s sweetly sadistic tendencies are also presented in a more grounded manner. Tiny (Matthew McGrory, who passed away shortly after the film’s release) doesn’t have much screen time but plays an important role in the story.
In addition to the characters evolving, several changes were made on the casting side between the two films. Most notably, Leslie Easterbrook (Police Academy) replaces cult favorite Karen Black as Mama Firefly after the former reportedly wanted too much money to reprise the role. While Black’s unhinged magnetism is impossible to match, Easterbrook admirably sinks her teeth into the deranged matriarch.
The hulking Rufus was recast from one former professional wrestler to another, as Tyler Mane (who went on to play Michael Myers in Zombie’s Halloween films) took over the role originated by Robert Mukes. Grandpa Hugo was written out of the script following the death of actor Dennis Fimple prior to production. Walter Phelan returned as the mad Dr. Satan in a gory scene that was deleted because Zombie astutely recognized that the character was incongruous to Rejects‘ tone.
As he’s become known to do, Zombie populated the cast with cult actors in roles both large and small, including such recognizable faces as Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Elizabeth Daily (Pee-wee’s Big Adventure), Priscilla Barnes (Three’s Company), Geoffrey Lewis (Double Impact), comedian Brian Posehn, Danny Trejo (From Dusk Till Dawn), wrestling legend Diamond Dallas Page, Dave Sheridan (Scary Movie), P.J. Soles (Halloween), Mary Woronov (Chopping Mall), and adult film star Ginger Lynn.
Rejects embraces a gritty realism that makes the violence cut deeper. Cinematographer Phil Parmet’s (Zombie’s Halloween) documentary background proved useful for emulating the cinéma vérité aesthetic. Zombie is careful to balance the brutality — such as the intensely uncomfortable motel scene, which initially earned the picture an NC-17 rating — with levity. Supporting characters are the primary sources of comedic relief, but even the Firefly family members earn a few laughs (“Tutti fucking fruity!”).
Zombie has continued to make interesting, if divisive, choices as a filmmaker, but The Devil’s Rejects remains his strongest work on the whole. It’s a relentless and emotionally draining yet entertaining and endlessly quotable experience. In striking that unique tonal balance, its characters were cemented as bona fide horror icons.
While Rob Zombie undermined his own efforts with 2019’s superfluous sequel 3 from Hell, The Devil’s Rejects showcased a filmmaker as free as a bird on this day twenty years ago.
At one point or another, nearly every culture on earth believed in malevolent entities that interfered with human affairs. While it’s more likely that this is due to our species’ universal fear of the unknown than the possibility that we share the earth with supernatural monsters, there’s a reason why so many horror movies base their scares on good old-fashioned demons.
Of course, coming up with visual depictions of otherworldly horror is no easy task, and that’s why I’ve decided to highlight six of the scariest demon designs in horror. After all, a creature feature is only as good as its antagonist, so this is one situation where the uglier the better!
For the purposes of this list, we’ll only be including movie monsters that are explicitly described as being demons from an established religion/folkloric tradition. We’re also only considering the demons’ scare factor – not the overall quality of the movie it came from. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own demonic favorites if you think we missed a particularly freaky one.
One more thing – while we won’t be including it on the list since it technically never made it into the movie, I’d also like to give a shout-out to Valak’s tragically unused true form from The Conjuring 2.
With that out of the way, onto the list:
6. Violator – Spawn (1997)
I’ve already written about how this ’90s Blockbuster Bomb is nowhere near as bad as most people say it is, but I’ll never get tired of insisting that John Leguizamo’s Clown/Violator is one of the greatest movie monsters of the ’90s. Not only was this ambitious union of digital and practical effects remarkable for its time, but it’s a genuine miracle that the crew was able to faithfully translate Todd McFarlane’s exaggerated design to the big screen.
While the comic book version of this hellish shapeshifter was already frightening, and I’d argue that the soft-spoken telepath of the HBO adaptation is even scarier, the special effects here really make it feel like Violator is about to leap off the screen and gobble up your entire family.
It’s just too bad that the rest of the film isn’t equally impressive!
5. The Demons – Hellboy (2019)
The 2019 Hellboy reboot may not be a good movie, and it left an especially sour taste in fans’ mouths after the cancellation of Guillermo Del Toro’s final entry in his proposed trilogy, but there’s still plenty of stuff that this ill-advised adaptation gets right. Among this R-rated romp’s good ideas, I’d argue that the film’s demonic antagonists are at the top of the list, especially if you suffer from some form of megalophobia.
While the film only briefly unleashes an assortment of hellish monsters upon the world during the final act, the Eldritch designs and Neil Marshall’s expert direction make these some of the scariest scenes in the entire Hellboy franchise. To be honest, I’d like to see an entire movie about kaiju-sized fallen angels wreaking havoc on modern society.
4. Satan – End of Days (1999)
End of Days is a deeply strange movie. A supernatural action-horror thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as he attempts to thwart the biblical apocalypse, there are moments here that feel like they came out of a parody. Yet, it’s precisely these idiosyncrasies that make the movie so much fun, especially when the filmmakers do their best to make Lucifer himself a formidable opponent for the man who took down both the Predator and the T-1000.
If you ask me, special effects maestro Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery knocked it out of the park with his surreal and undeniably Eldritch design for Satan. Hell, this winged monstrosity appears to have more in common with Cthulhu than anything you’d see in your average exorcism flick, which makes it all the more tragic that the finished film ultimately replaced most of the demon’s practical effects with CGI.
3. The Lipstick-Face Demon – Insidious (2009)
There’s no discussing iconic demon designs without bringing up one of the most popular supernatural antagonists of the past few decades, the Red Face Demon from Insidious. Also known as the Lipstick-Face Demon and The Man with Fire in His Face, he may have only been the main antagonist of that first Insidious film, but this memorable villain has since become the mascot of the entire series as well as proof that familiar iconography can still be scary if presented properly.
That being said, it’s Joseph Bishara’s consistently freaky performance that makes Red Face such a haunting character, with his exaggerated movements and facial expressions helping to bring the design to life. Of course, I’m of the opinion that the demon’s affinity for Tiny Tim songs might just be the scariest thing about him!
2. The Mimic – The Mortuary Assistant (2026)
The live-action adaptation of Brian Clarke’s The Mortuary Assistant may not be quite as scary as its source material, but you’ve got to hand it to the filmmakers for recreating the game’s paranormal antagonists so faithfully – especially since they weren’t exactly working with a Hollywood budget.
Sure, the team benefited from the fact that the most popular of these demonic entities, the grinning Mimic, boasts a relatively simple design consisting of a pale, emaciated body and a doll-like face with uncanny proportions. But I love how they added a corpse-like texture to its skin. Mark Steger’s eerie performance also enhances the effects work and helps to make this one of the most memorable monsters on the list.
My only real gripe with this design is that they gave the Mimic a nose, removing some of the charm of that original design.
1. Porcelain Jesus – Belzebuth (2017)
Emilio Portes’ Belzebuth is a criminally underrated religious horror flick, so it stands to reason that it also features one of the scariest demons on this list. I know I’m technically bending the rules here, as the creature that appears in the film isn’t really the demon itself but a statue that was possessed and corrupted by it, but I believe this blasphemous design speaks for itself.
Over the course of the film, the demonic antagonist possesses a series of unfortunate victims before eventually settling on a porcelain recreation of Jesus, with the ensuing monstrosity chasing our lead characters during the flick’s scariest sequence. As with any piece of religious horror, your fright-mileage may vary depending on your respect for holy iconography, but I’m of the opinion that this design is scary enough to transcend religious barriers.
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