After the success of Rob Zombie's debut horror film House of 1000 Corpses, Zombie got the chance to make a sequel, but he didn't want to, at least at first. Nevertheless, when he was offered the money to make one, he saw an opportunity.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003) is a psychedelic horror-scape that is shot in a jerky, handheld camera style. It features cool blues, sharp contrasts, and truly psychotic characters. Most of the movie's action takes place inside a single house (or at least close by, such as in Dr. Satan's underground lair), as unwitting teenagers are cruelly kidnapped, tortured, and killed. When Rob Zombie was approached about making a sequel, the natural storyline would be to have a new group come to the house, or something similar, thus repeating much of the same mayhem as the first film. However, Zombie was not interested in doing this and he had his own plans.

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The Devil's Rejects was released in 2005, two years after House of 1000 Corpses.  Although it is a sequel to the first film, it feels like a completely different movie. It follows several members from the psychotic Firefly family, who were featured in the first film, now on the run from the authorities. Other than that, however, The Devil's Rejects is more of a grindhouse road movie, very different from the flashy, sinister horror in House of 1000 Corpses. This is because when Rob Zombie was offered the chance to make House of 1000 Corpses Part II, he didn't want to make a direct sequel. Instead, he wanted to do something different, and found a way to do what he wanted while still creating a series of movies.

Why Rob Zombie Didn't Make House Of 1000 Corpses Part 2

The Devil's Rejects: Captain Spaulding in a store.

Where House of 1000 Corpses is inspired by films like The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Devil's Rejects is inspired more by Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch. In an interview with Coming Soon, Rob Zombie says he didn't want to make another movie like House of 1000 Corpses. In his mind, he'd already done that and wanted to move on to other things. Describing his thought process, he goes on to say, "What I’ll do is take the characters that I really like and eliminate some of the others and continue the story on as a different movie more in the style of what I want to do." In this way, Zombie was able to avoid the repetitive rut that producers wanted and really flip the script for viewers.

Overall, The Devil's Rejects is one of Rob Zombie's most well-received films. With House of 1000 Corpses, Zombie overwhelms his audience with flash after flash of horrific imagery, culminating in a film that is interesting but also feels a bit too thrown together. It's sort of an homage to horror, but little else. The Devil's Rejects, on the other hand, has more to say. It's brutal, violent, and filled with questionable morality. The Fireflys, both as a whole and individually, do despicable and horrible things, but the law enforcement officers who are chasing them exhibit bad behaviors as well.

As a viewer, it's hard to know who one is supposed to root for in the movie, and that's the point. Even though Rob Zombie didn't want to make a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, the movie that he did make, The Devil's Rejects, turned out to be one of his best, and even became a trilogy upon the release of 3 From Hell.

Next: Why Rob Zombie Almost Quit Making Horror Movies