Rob Zombie Movies Ranked
Rob Zombie soared to fame in the early 1990s thanks to his affiliation with the heavy metal market, his debut solo album “Hellbilly Deluxe” (1998) achieving global success. His style focused on his love for horror movies, particularly the classics such as The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Within the waves of his musical achievements, Zombie began to branch out into directing films, breaking into the horror market with some of the most gory, cruel, and abhorrent films that mainstream horror had seen in a while. Over the years, his directorial auteurship has evolved into one of cinema’s most complex and utterly maddening styles of filmmaking.
In this edition of Ranked, we here at The Film Magazine shall re-evaluate each of this divisive filmmaker’s eight feature releases, judging each in terms of quality, importance and longevity for this: Rob Zombie Movies Ranked.
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9. 3 from Hell (2019)
3 from Hell is the third and final entry into Zombie’s Firefly Trilogy, tracking his staple murderous triad consisting of Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), Otis (Bill Moseley), and a more brief cameo than usual from Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), as they continue on their murderous rampage.
The trilogy’s prior departures soared with a ghastly sense of innovative brutalism, yet 3 from Hell lacks the maddening magnetism that is dominant even in Zombie’s most lacklustre works.
At the root of the film’s poor reception is the fatigued repetitiveness that mainly derives from the at-times shoddy actions of the beloved characters that otherwise excelled in The Devil’s Rejects (2005). Baby and Otis, along with the new addition of Otis’ half-brother Foxy (Richard Brake), simply parade around killing throngs of people whilst babbling petty dialogue including the eye-rolling line of “snitches get stitches”.
The absence of the late Sid Haig is felt, and possibly a further dose of Captain Spaulding’s deranged absurdity could have sparked a new lease into 3 from Hell.
8. Halloween (2007)
Not many Halloween films have garnered as much of a contentious reaction as Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s household staple Halloween (1978).
The autumnal franchise has seen a plethora of sequels and retellings, with every new storyline adding a new zest into the lore of Michael Myers. Typically, Haddonfield’s resident bogeyman thrives in the illusory aura that accompanies his persona, but Zombie injects a debatable origin story amidst the gory remake to cast his unique signature across the narrative. Myers’ earlier years are laid bare, revealing a troubled past engrossed in abusive parenting and the consequences resulting from a stolen childhood.
Halloween abandons the tense build up in many of the film’s excessively graphic kills, leaving you bemused and wide-eyed over the sheer viciousness that Myers exhibits. The film is 110 minutes of bloodshed and nothing else whatsoever.
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