I watched 3 From Hell and I hated it. 1/5
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Rob Zombie’s 3 from Hell, the long-awaited third installment in his trilogy following House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, is a disappointing attempt to resurrect a story that should have stayed dead. The film trudges through a slog of recycled ideas, lackluster performances, and excessive, gratuitous violence that lacks any real narrative drive or purpose. What was once a promising grindhouse-inspired saga is reduced to an uninspired and tired display of sadism without the underlying substance that even Zombie’s earlier films managed to offer. Simply put, 3 from Hell feels like a desperate and unnecessary revival of characters who had run their course long ago.
First off, the narrative itself is a complete mess. Picking up where The Devil’s Rejects left off, Otis (Bill Moseley), Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), and their half-brother Winslow (Richard Brake) miraculously survive the shootout at the end of the last film—something that already stretches the boundaries of believability. From there, Zombie cobbles together a plot that feels like it’s grasping at straws: the trio escapes prison, goes on another murderous rampage, and then… not much happens. The film feels more like a series of disconnected, violent vignettes rather than a coherent story. There’s no real narrative tension or character development to justify its existence.
Sheri Moon Zombie’s performance as Baby is one of the weakest elements in the film. While Baby’s psychotic energy might have felt novel or even unsettling in The Devil’s Rejects, here it feels painfully overdone. Her antics, which might have once walked the fine line between disturbing and darkly humorous, have devolved into cartoonish absurdity. It’s as if the character has become a parody of herself, with little depth or nuance to be found. There’s no evolution, no new angle to explore—just the same old shtick, repeated to diminishing returns.
Bill Moseley’s Otis fares slightly better, but even he can’t save the film from its dullness. Moseley tries to bring some of the twisted charisma that made Otis a standout in the previous films, but the script doesn’t give him much to work with. Otis, once a sadistic figure who oozed menace, now feels like he’s going through the motions, delivering half-hearted monologues about death and destruction without any real bite. Richard Brake’s Winslow is little more than a placeholder character, filling the gap left by the late Sid Haig’s Captain Spaulding, whose brief appearance at the beginning of the film serves as a reminder of how much this story is missing in his absence.
Visually, the film sticks to Zombie’s trademark style: grimy, gritty, and soaked in blood. But even the aesthetic that worked so well in his earlier works feels tired here. It’s as if Zombie is going through the motions, leaning on shock value without offering any deeper commentary or thematic resonance. The violence in 3 from Hell feels excessive for the sake of excess, without the raw, unfiltered tension that made The Devil’s Rejects a more compelling and intense experience. By the time the film moves to its third-act standoff in Mexico, it’s hard to muster up any real investment in the outcome. It’s just another excuse for more bloodshed, more chaos, without any purpose.
Ultimately, 3 from Hell suffers from the classic sequel problem: it brings nothing new to the table. Instead of offering a fresh perspective on the Firefly family or pushing their story in a new direction, it’s content to retread old ground, hoping that fans of the first two films will be satisfied with more of the same. Unfortunately, the result is a film that feels unnecessary at best, and at worst, a cynical cash grab. For a movie that had the potential to explore the final chapter of these characters in a meaningful way, Three from Hell feels like a hollow, empty imitation of what came before.
For fans of the franchise, there might be some moments of nostalgic recognition, but for anyone hoping for a satisfying or innovative conclusion, 3 from Hell is a massive disappointment. It’s a film that doesn’t seem to know why it exists, and by the end, neither will the audience.