14. 3 From Hell (FTV)
Third installment in Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" franchise sees the Firefly family on the lam in Mexico, where an old score will be settled.
Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of Rob Zombie's films and this franchise. There's something about the way he melds homemade B filmmaking and occasional flashes of cinematic artistry that makes his content exciting and somehow more relatable. You never get the sense of a big studio executive pushing the buttons, it's as if a fellow fan of the genre made a movie just for you.
That out of the way, I had a great time with 3 From Hell. Sid Haig's Captain Spalding is given an all-to-brief farewell (the actor was already terminally ill during the shoot), Bill Moseley's Otis Driftwood is scarier than ever, if a little bit crowfooted around the eyes, and Sheri Moon Zombie's character Baby, who could be annoying at times in earlier films, is given a bit more depth as the effects of solitary confinement have taken a toll on her already loony psyche.
The movie opens with a "Helter Skelter" style documentary to fill us in on the backstory, and we get a rare chance to see these characters speaking directly to us and perhaps giving us some insight as to what makes them tick. Then it moves on to the jailbreak sequences which while a bit farfetched, propel the story forward with energy. The final act takes place in a Mexico that is reminiscent of Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino's in "From Dusk Till Dawn", but a dirtier one--you can practically smell the scenery and characters.
Inevitably, one must compare the third installment of a franchise against those that came before it, and it's there where 3 From Hell falls a bit short. Neither of the sequels compare with the original's bold vision, which was less concerned with homage and stylistic imitation, and there's a certain meandering quality to the latter half of 3 From Hell which keeps it from being truly great. But frankly, with second sequels, "pretty good" is something of a minor miracle.
3 out of 5 stars.
Bob's October 2020 Horror Movie List
*FTV denotes first-time viewings
1. Viy (1967) 4/5 (FTV)
2. Night Visitor 3/5 (FTV)
3. Tigers Are Not Afraid 5/5 (FTV)
4. I Trapped the Devil 4/5 (FTV)
5. Vivarium 3/5 (FTV)
6. The Kiss of the Vampire 3/5 (FTV)
7. The Invisible Man (2020) 4/5 (FTV)
8. Horrors of Malformed Men 3/5 (FTV)
9. Come to Daddy 3/5 (FTV)
10. Dead Alive 4/5
11. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things 3/5 (FTV)
12. Swallow 4/5 (FTV)
13. One Cut of the Dead 4/5 (FTV)
14. 3 From Hell 3/5 (FTV)