3 From Hell (2019) **1/2

On one hand, Rob Zombie's latest, 3 From Hell (2019), is one of his better-made films. It's miles better than 31 (2016) or his terrible Halloween movies. On the other, by the end it feels largely unnecessary, an exercise in genre that offers nothing new. Megan Navarro put it succinctly in her Consequence Of Sound review: "Despite a fascinating set up (I would contest this), Zombie takes an extravagant U-turn straight back to The Devil's Rejects (2005) to try his hand at telling it all over again. In the end, what could have been something more instead falls back into comfortable, familiar territory that’s bloated by meandering filler."

Much like Quentin Tarantino (and a lot of 3FH feels like Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez), Zombie channels Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994) (review) (coincidentally written by QT) before settling on Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974) as the films he pilfers from the most. Unfortunately, Zombie still feels the need to employ shaky cam and quick-cut editing, but thankfully it's less egregious than his previous films. It really does feel like a The Devil's Rejects retread too, straight down to the dialogue—which, I have to say is better than usual in 3FH—there's still plenty of "motherfuckers" (really there are other creative swearwords you can use, Rob), but overall it feels a bit less juvenile and attention-grabbing.

Bill Moseley appears to be going through the motions here but I found Sheri Moon Zombie pretty amusing throughout. Newcomer (to this "trilogy" though it seems there may be at least another sequel) Richard Brake is very good, but I can't say he necessarily "wowed" me. I hadn't seen Richard Edson in a film in a long time, but he just felt like yet another scummy character in Zombie's universe of eternally scummy characters.

Zombie attempts to evoke sympathy with Baby's "kitty" fantasy (actually my favorite part of the whole film), which occurs while she is still incarcerated, but when she's doing awful things later on, the earlier sequence seems out of place (outside of a meek effort at showing that she might be feeling some remorse or experiencing her version of an existential crisis). As to the message and themes of the film, I'm honestly not sure—Zombie seems to want to both glorify the Firefly family but also point a critical eye at the American institution. To be fair, that was the case with Stone's NBK as well, but that film had better style and felt fresh when it was released—plus, it's already been done and 3FH doesn't serve up anything new to that "conversation".

Rob Zombie continues to have a spotty filmic output but I continue to keep watching. I think I've just come to accept that his films are frustrating experiences for me but every so often he puts out something decent and/or some of his films have a sort of appeal to me (even among all the dreck).

You can find my Rob Zombie Feature Films Ranked list here.