The Unholy Three

Growing up I didn’t watch any horror movies. When I was in high school, one night I was hanging out with this rich kid I worked with at a grocery store and my little brother and we went to the movies. The rich kid wanted to see Scream (1996, Wes Craven), and I remember thinking it would be lame. But the Drew Barrymore cold open prologue blew me away—and still holds up better than the rest of the movie. In its day, I was hyped about Scream.

     For many years after that the only other horror movies I saw were the wave of “attractive high school teen ensemble” knock-offs that followed: I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Disturbing Behavior (1998), and Urban Legend (1998). Can I help it if at that age raging hormones clouded my aptitude for being capable of discerning quality filmmaking?

     At last I had gone from buying tickets to see a horror movie because of a hot actress to having a date and seeing a horror movie because of the time honored tradition of scary movie as date night. And it was out at the movies one of these nights when I saw The Ring (2002, Gore Verbinski), which remains my favorite horror movie.

     Eventually I saw all the horror movies I could. There’s maybe no other genre as rich and with as many categories and sub-genres—from silent German expressionism to possessed pets. Yet the only horror movies I’ve found exceptionally well made and returned to repeatedly are the masterpieces The Ring, Audition (1999, Takashi Miike) and Trouble Every Day (2001, Claire Denis). Okay and The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick). And early Cronenberg!

     When House of 1000 Corpses (2003, Rob Zombie) was released I was a huge fan.  And something about that movie made you want to see more stuff like the classic monsters from Universal in the 30s and 70s slashers like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper); or, if you loved Bill Moseley in it as much as I did, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986, Hooper). But then The Devil’s Rejects (2005, Zombie) got caught up in a genre that’s come to be known as torture porn, and traded spooky frights for depraved terror. And 31 (2016, Zombie) is the worst movie I've ever seen.

     I’m writing this after having seen 3 From Hell (2019, Zombie) screened last night in a theater. Despite having low expectations based on Zombie’s diminishing output, curiosity compelled me to give it a chance. The 80’ high screen in the multiplex helped hold my attention, but I left disappointed. Why did I go?

     If House of 1000 Corpses is playful and almost cartoon-like, and The Devil’s Rejects is bleak and disturbing with an increase in realism, then 3 From Hell falls somewhere in between; although what’s problematic is how it feels like the look Zombie's aiming to achieve is excessively stylized. It’s as though he tries to hide his screenplay’s flaws with as many bells and whistles possible. You’ll often hear directors talk about how a close-up loses its effect if over-used. Rob Zombie wouldn’t be one of those directors.

     3 From Hell is shot mostly hand-held, with long lenses, zooming and tracking its subjects in close-up. There are also scenes of violent assaults patched together with freeze frames. And the movie may set a record for the length and amount of slow motion shots. What at first seems like Zombie has developed new techniques ends up feeling misguided or even desperate.

     The premise itself is never even close to being believable. I wonder if Zombie was going for a look as excessive as the narrative? There’s a scene where OTIS (Bill Moseley) holds a prison warden and his family hostage when a clown knocks on the door, then proceeds to perform his act. Where did the clown come from? It’s never mentioned. And yeah I get that it’s just a movie, but I question the choice of including incidents like this one that indulge in such bits of absurd surrealism when it's the final part of a trilogy that never has before.

     Without Sid Haig, all that’s left of the Firefly clan are Otis and BABY (Sheri Moon Zombie). It seems that Baby is supposed to be the star of 3 From Hell. And I get that she’s played by Rob Zombie’s real-life wife, but how does she get top billing over Bill Moseley? Baby isn’t nearly as enjoyable as Otis, although she gets some characterization in her prison scenes where we learn she “gets in people’s heads,” as we also get in hers courtesy of an anthropomorphic cat ballerina who dances in the snow; obviously this harks back to Zombie’s white horse visions from his Halloween 2 (2009). But at this point I’m just beating a dead horse.