Even though this film recycles the common horror theme of “backwoods country redneck deviants” without ever doing anything new, the actors somehow manage to put some real character into their parts, which makes them stand out from the usual morass of backwoods horror victims. Captain Spaulding has a sharp wit and a larger than life attitude and has some of the best scenes in the film despite his being seemingly unrelated to the film’s main antagonists. The Fireflies are the star villains, a clan of rednecks living in an isolated area where they can literally get away with murder. They are led by the anarchist Otis, who practices nonconformity in the extreme; to the point that he enjoys terrorizing and murdering and playing with the corpses of those who don’t agree with him. His behavior is tolerated by the rest of the family, although his sister “Baby” is equally as sadistic. A bombshell with a killer body and a cheerful, bubbly personality, she isn’t afraid to test the boundaries of decency and enjoys playfully murdering folks from time to time. The third is the horribly scarred and silent “Tiny”, a hulking monster who is actually seemingly passive when left to his own devices. They are rounded out by their mother, who seems practical yet enabling of their darker habits, and their foul grandfather, who couldn’t seem to care less about anything.  It is quite obvious that the Fireflys were inspired by the Mansons, and there are several in-film allusions to this that are anything but subtle. However, the actors still manage to pull off their parts with loads of originality, which helps elevate this film somewhat despite its lack of real substance.

Another good thing about this film is the presentation, which is the only aspect of the film in which Zombie does what you would expect of him. He pulls out a lot of old-school artistic techniques while putting together the film, such as rendering some scenes in negative, using split panels, showing brief flashbacks and flash-forwards in the place of scene transitions, using “home footage” diary videos of members of the Firefly clan for the same effects (another homage to the Manson murderers)…All the techniques of filming that hearken back to true old-school horror flicks. The costuming is another part of the film that was done right. Everyone looks fantastic in each of the scenes; though some plot points may be out of place, it never looks as though any of the characters are.

To be quite honest, watching this film made me feel like Rob Zombie fell into the trap of trying to tie together too many ideas and then retroactively going back and trying to get them to mesh. This being his first outing as a director, I suppose he can be forgiven, as there are plenty of worse films out there than this one. It is still an entertaining film, it just isn’t what one would expect from a guy who really loves horror films…or maybe it is, as it has the feel of a fan-made video hidden behind the veneer of a professional production.