There is one major reason why Rob Zombie's Firefly family are scarier than any slasher villain, and it has almost nothing to do with the villainous acts they commit. Instead, it has to do with the way they are viewed as sympathetic villains. It's been said that the Firefly family became very sympathetic villains after House of 1000 Corpses, which was a deliberate decision on Rob Zombie's part. The fact that the Fireflys are such sympathetic villains is precisely what makes them scarier than slasher villains. Slasher villains are rarely viewed as idols to be admired, with some possible exceptions being the wise-cracking Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the moralistic John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, from Saw. Ultimately, audiences are always given a way to root against these villains—but not as much with the Firefly family.

Throughout the Firefly Trilogy, most of the Fireflys are portrayed as charismatic, leading the audience to root for them. They are relatable, even admirable, despite their bizarre lifestyle and its horrific evils. The Fireflys are attractive in a dirty-hillbilly, trashy-chic way. There is a certain allure to their sexy '70s style, even though it's stained with massive amounts of blood, gore, and sexual assault. The scary thing isn't just their likeability—because even Alien's Xenomorph can be considered to have likeability—it's how their evil acts are accepted by audiences at large as being a lifestyle choice instead of the heinous acts that they are. Because the Fireflys mostly interact with other villains, audiences are enabled to see them as regular people. They seem like fun people to hang out with, even if they'll probably kill you.

Related: Rob Zombie's Firefly Trilogy Has A Major Plot Hole

What really makes the Fireflys scarier than slasher villains—especially Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding in The Devil's Rejects and 3 From Hell—is that they are portrayed as cool in many ways; they are rebels, misfits, and badasses. They get things done and know how to have fun. The audience is given reasons to make excuses for their evil acts and even admire them. Again, rooting for villains is nothing new; however, the Fireflys transcend the highest levels of admiration. Rob Zombie's portrayal of the Fireflys as fun-loving hipsters from hell is truly scary, because it allows audiences to root for them as "regular people" while they simultaneously imagine that one of those regular people could be sitting beside them in the movie theater, or worse—on the couch at home.

Firefly Family House of 1000 Corpses

It's important to note that the Fireflys were eventually cast as the protagonists (aka, the main characters, or in one sense, the heroes) of the franchise. This creates a confusing situation for most audiences, because with a villain as the protagonist, the audience must put themselves in the shoes of a villain to follow the story. This then creates the impulse to incorrectly view the remaining Firefly family members as heroes in the sense of being "good guys," which they are not.

Ultimately, the Fireflys are and always have been villains, even if they happen to be the main characters of the story. Main characters don't have to be heroes in the sense of "good guy"; they can also be villains. In a story where everyone is a villain, i.e. a "bad guy," there still must be one or more main characters (i.e. protagonists or heroes) for it to work as a story. Only in this sense are the Fireflys heroes. In fact, the Fireflys are simultaneously antiheroes as well as sympathetic villains. One could say that the Firefly family did for slashers what The Sopranos did for the Mafia—minimize and even trivialize their evil acts as a lifestyle choice.

One minor reason the Firefly family is scarier than any single slasher villain is because they are an extended family working as a team to maximize their gruesome efforts, giving them more scare power as a group than single villains. While this doesn't make the Firefly family scarier than villainous groups like those in Wrong Turn and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rob Zombie's portrayal of them as salt-of-the-Earth evildoers definitely does.

Next: 3 From Hell Fails To Explain The Most Obvious Firefly Family Plot Hole