3 FROM HELL (2019)
a review by Evan Landon
For my first review on this wondeful, glorious webpage, I chose to write a review on Rob Zombie’s 3 FROM HELL, the third movie in the Firefly Family Trilogy which has just came out on Blue-Ray, October 15th, 2019. It also made enough profit for Fathom Events to re-release it to theaters a second time on this date only, which is odd, but I’ll get into that later.
Now, I have only read the few reviews I could find for this film only because I don’t think anyone except for hardcore Rob Zombie fans would wish to go see it, but none of them were good. I don’t usually jump on bandwagons, so that should say something about this film and how much it sucks. When I realized that this and our other article that we have just put out are both “Zombie” movies, I left an imprint of my forehead permanently etched into the work desk. I can already hear the keyboard warriors in the comment section wondering how this film is a “Zombie” movie, so I will merely direct you to the name of the writer/director’s name. Do you now have the same imprint on your table?
Some harrowing news does accompany this review, however, so you may dismiss it right after this next sentence: I could not watch any more of this movie after 20 minutes. In the world of cinematic critics, I understand this would mean that my review should be disregarded and thrown out with the trash. That being said, you would find my opinion right next to a copy of this movie that had been stepped on, run over, lit on fire, and thrown into the trash heap right next to it.
Considering that I have seen both films that precede this, I am somewhat familiar with the characters, but nothing in any of these films has made me feel anything at all for any of the characters; I do not care about the victims, the Firefly Family themselves, nor any of the cops or innocent human barriers that stand in their way. To me, they might as well be the same as any extras walking by in the background, but they sure as Hell (no pun intended) don’t get paid the same.
I make this post fully aware that Sid Haig has recently passed away at the ripe old age of 80 this September, so I want to make it perfectly clear that in no way do I diminish what an accomplished and profoundly remarkable character actor he was. His prominence was on full blast in his later years highlighted most of all by his portrayal of Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s movies. I take nothing away from the other actors who have worked with the writer/director/producer as well: Danny Trejo, Chris Hardwick, William Forsythe, Rainn Wilson, etc. whom have all had accounts of having improved a good portion of their lines due to lack of script and on set changes. What does make me a little sick to my weak ass stomach is how he flagrantly throws his wife around in his films like a maniacal stripper for the whole world to see and them to screw to at home. It’s not quite porn for the viewer though; it’s more like a softcore snuff film for adolescents.
I could go on and on about the cinematography, the art design, special effects, blah blah blah… But like I said, I only watched 20 minutes of this god-awful movie. So I’ll just stop now and leave you with some of the numbers: With a budget of $3 million (from Hell, apparently), the movie pulled in a measly $2.24 million which most likely barely covered advertisement costs, making this a solid bomb and begs the question as to why entertainment content provider, Fathom Events, would open it again for one night only. In comparison, Devil’s Rejects came in at $19.4 million to a $7 million budget and House Of 1000 Corpses bringing in similar numbers. We can all only hope that this is the final nail in the coffin of this franchise, much less Rob Zombie’s moviemaking career. But, as we all know, some poor idiot will give Rob Zombie more money to make another film despite how hard this one underperformed, so we can unfortunately expect another sequel.
1.5 out of 5