THE DEVIL'S REJECTS AT SAN DIEGO COMIC CON PLUS THE PREMIERE OF THE DEVIL'S REJECTS - SAN DIEGO, CA - JULY 16, 2005
By Ken Leicht

Saturday was Devil's Rejects day. There were signings by the major cast members and a rare signing by Rob Zombie himself at the Lion's Gate booth. The booth had Rejects as its theme and included the convertible car from the film. You could also get made up to look like Captain Spaulding. The reward for that, besides getting to look like a mass murdering clown, was that you got a chance to attend the film's premiere that evening at the local Gaslight Cinemas.

After witnessing the carnage that was the actor's signing, there was a break for lunch and then it was time for the Devil's Rejects panel. The panel started late so Rob just decided to forgo any speeches and went straight to the Q & A. Sadly, most of the Q & A was fan boy nonsense and yielded little, if any, insight. The only real pertinent bit of information came regarding Karen Black's absence from the film. Rob said he and Karen were cool. Basically, it was a question of the business end not working out, i.e. money. He said he told everybody he was making this film, "with them or without them." Since the budget of the film was reportedly less than that of House of 1000 Corpses (under$7 million), then if you made a fuss about money then, it was clearly a case of “without”. Frankly I prefer Leslie Easterbrook’s Mama Firefly to Karen Black. Leslie was on hand at the panel and seemed to be clearly enjoying the whole spectacle. Matt McGrory also seemed amused.

Even William Forsythe made a rare appearance. It would have been interesting to hear more from him but the panel was sadly cut short. One of the “time police” from the Con staff walked up to the panel holding a stop sign and declared “This ends now!” The lights then came up and that was that. Rob was not amused. Supposedly after the panel had cleared he went looking for that guy to give him a piece of his mind. To me it was the typical Comic convention giving horror the short end of the stick routine. Memo to the convention people: Horror is a major genre. Rob Zombie is a BIG star. His work has a BIG following. Next time he has a panel, give the boy some FUCKING leeway.
I understand that the Comic Con is a massive administrative nightmare and to keep the trains running on time is of huge importance. But somehow I don’t think if it was Joss Whedon’s Serenity panel, there would have been as much rudeness.

Anyway…cut to several hours later and it was time for the premiere. There was a red carpet and a press line. The majority of the cast and some key crew members were there. Thomas (The Punisher) Jane was also there. Everyone was dressed in a spiff fashion for the festivities, save for the made up Spaulding look-a-like contest winners and the L.A. autograph stalker crowd which had somehow managed to get into the event. As each major cast member came into the theatre, the crowd cheered. This was definitely a Zombie friendly crowd and all the fans were excited to see their horror heroes.

As for the film itself, I am WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY too close to this one to have anything resembling an objective opinion but let’s just say my first reaction was a mix of amusement and horror. Despite the fact that I know a lot of the cast personally, I found that their portrayals, especially Moseley’s, were very disturbing. Bill Moseley’s brutalization of Geoffrey Lewis and Lew Temple in particular made me mad. I wanted to see Otis get his ass kicked after that one.

Overall, I have mixed feelings. It’s better than House but comparing the two films is pointless as it’s sort of an apples and oranges situation. Rob does have a great capacity to disturb in his films. It’ll be interesting to see what he does in the future. Whether he will move away from his Tarantino like devotion to homage and violence remains to be seen. If he ever tones it down a notch and goes mainstream even a hair…watch out.

After the screening was over, cast and crew and fans went to the lobby and reveled in the afterglow. They were all then whisked away to

a private dinner which was held instead of a party. This was much to my dismay as I surely would have been at the party. The dinner was strictly cast and crew.

Finally, it should be noted that a two month old infant attended the premiere and slept through the entire film. Given how loud the movie was, this is an impressive feat. What this says about the Devil’s Rejects, I don’t know. Is it symbolic of how despite the fact that our pop culture has become more and more crass and louder and louder in order to keep our ever fragmented attention, that we are becoming more and more unmoved by it all? Likely it’s just that loud noise is a strange sleep aid to infants. But that’s less profound.

*photos by Ken Leicht