Horror worthy of rejection

For anyone familiar with Rob Zombie, the ex-front man of rock band White Zombie, you will know that he is a devout fan of horror movies. His music videos always had a creepy style to them, his stage presence was always elaborate and his 2003 directed horror film "House of a 1000 Corpses" was packed with personal odes to the genre he loves. His recent opus, "The Devil's Rejects" is a continuation of "Corpses"' vicious story. But does this already mediocre story really need a follow up?\nWhile it's safe to say that "Corpses" was a direct homage to 1974's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Rejects" seems to be Zombie's homage to 70s horror/revenge films and is quite different to its predecessor. \nThe film opens with a police raid on the Firefly (murdering family) home, which ends with a bloody shoot out. The leader of the raid, a disgruntled religious sheriff named Wydell (a surprisingly good William Forsythe) sets out on a revenge-driven mission to find the remaining family members who murdered his brother.\nWhile on the run the family encounters more victims to kill and eventually end up at a whorehouse in the middle of the desert where they party. Of course this leads to a showdown. \nThere are a number of visually horrifying scenes in "Rejects," which are highly stylized, and are more believable and realistic than "Corpses," however, they're all pretty random. We are never given a clear motive for what drives the killers, besides the fact that the family is insane, and really, the characters show zero emotion during the mayhem they cause.\nThe cast of this film, like "Corpses," is full of cult heroes from 70s and 80s horror films. Bill Moseley ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre II") is effective as crazy brother Otis, and there are a number of smaller roles by actors like Ken Foree (original "Dawn of the Dead") and the creepy Michael Berryman ("The Hills Have Eyes"). \nThe two-disc DVD is actually a nice package, featuring tons of extras to dive into. There are some fun deleted scenes, two different commentary tracks from Zombie and the cast and an extremely interesting and detailed day-by-day documentary on the making of the film, which in many ways is superior to the film itself.\nThe bottom line is "Devil's Rejects" shows slight maturity in Zombie, who has potential to be a master horror filmmaker, and will no doubt please fans of the genre; however, ultimately, like "Corpses," the film relies too heavily on visuals and less on story and character development.