I haven’t seen The Devil’s Rejects since I covered the junket 20 years ago. It is a tough film, and revisiting it now on the Lionsgate Limited edition reveals my memory had dulled some of its intensity. Man, it just never lets up with the rejects tormenting everyone unlucky enough to cross their paths.
A 4K of Rob Zombie’s aesthetic a funny thing. It’s never going to look glamorous. It is sweaty and dusty throughout the film, mostly in clear daylight but gritty and grainy. Sid Haig’s teeth are especially strong in 4K. The film concludes with a nighttime raid and there is some deep night shadow in that. But most of the film presents the ugliness in vivid clarity.
It envelops you with sound too. The opening gunfight surrounds you but also tear gas oozes in the rear.
There are no new bonus features this time around, but the archival ones are pretty thorough. Zombie has always been an outspoken filmmaker. There’s also 30 Days in Hell, a documentary longer than the movie itself by a good 30 minutes. So this Lionsgate Limited preserves the historical record and does so thoroughly. It is a doozy.