The Devil's Rejects Strike Back

Greta and I re-watched The Empire Strikes Back tonight and I don't know why but it got me thinking about The Devil's Rejects and the more I thought about the 2 movies I decided that they have essentially the same plot structure and that Rob Zombie was hinting at the similarity when he had the whore-house Star Wars discussion.

Bear with me here. What follows is a list of the similarities between the two films starting with elements of DR and then equating them to their Empire equivalents.

1. Tiny dragging the girl's body in the opening = The Snowbeast dragging Luke to his cave.

2. The raid on the house = The battle on Hoth

3. Otis and Baby escape through a tunnel = Han and Leia escaping through the halls of the Snow Base

4. Otis and Baby stealing a car = Han and Leia escaping Hoth on the Falcon.

5. Captain Spaulding = Luke Skywalker (on his own path from the others)

6. Spaulding's sex dream turning into the fat whore= Luke's Obi-Wan vision on Hoth turning into Han Solo on Tan-Tan.

7. Spaulding's truck running out of gas / stealing the station wagon = Luke's X-Wing crashing in the swamp / Yoda lifiting it out

8. Otis and Baby in the motel (pre-Spaulding) = Han and Leia in the Asteroid cave.

9. Sherif Wydell = the Anakin/Vader transition of the first 4 SW movies condensed in one film.

10. Wydell hiring The Terrible Duo = Vader hiring Bounty Hunters

11. Charlie Altamont (the whore house owner) = Lando Calrissian

12. Charlie's Whore House = Cloud City

13. The bald freak dude from "The Hills Have Eyes" = Lando's bald mute freak helper with the ear muffs.

14. Charlie Altamont greeting the Rejects with the "shotgun" then hugging them = Lando cursing out Han the hugging him.

15. Charlie Altamont giving the Rejects safe harbor then selling the out to save his neck and his business = Lando giving Han and Leia safe harbor and the selling them out to save his neck and his business.

16. The Reject's being tortured by Wydell = Han Solo being tortured by Vader and Luke getting his hand chopped off and being psychologically tortured by learning Vader is his dad.

Of course in DR everyone ends up dead. But other than that the two movies have essentially the same structure.

Originally posted January 11, 2006 on Myspace.