Rob Zombie’s unasked for threequel 3 From Hell will be available to watch on horror streaming service Shudder next month, with the film landing on the platform on February 13th.
For those who haven’t seen it yet, the pic’s a follow-up to grindhouse throwbacks House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, retconning the finale of the latter that saw the three surviving members of the murderous Firefly clan die in a hail of bullets, after Zombie changed his mind about unequivocally killing them off to avoid any possibility of a sequel.
They survive their multiple gunshot wounds and a “million to one” chance of making it through surgery, with the film missing an opportunity to truly embrace the connotations of its title by having them survive on account of being so evil that the underworld itself spat them back out. After Captain Spaulding is executed, Otis and Baby end up escaping from jail and with the help of Otis’ hitherto unmentioned half-brother Foxy, the trio embark upon another rampage across the countryside spouting nihilistic cod philosophy and killing on meaningless whims. This sees them stalk and murder people because that’s all they’re good for, despite the antiestablishment heroes that Zombie continually tries to paint them as, due to his having always found psychopaths and murderers far more interesting than those whose lives they want only to destroy.
The film itself is a generic orgy of meaningless violence, and is only notable for being one of the final on-screen performances of horror legend Sig Haig, who sadly died last year at the age of 80, with his deteriorating health being the reason for his lack of screen time in the movie.
Of course, Shudder is also home to a wide assortment of other independent horrors if you’re not into 3 From Hell, such as Lao ghost story Dearest Sister, nasty French vengeance movie Revenge, Japanese found footage horror comedy zombie flick One Cut of the Dead, and punk slasher The Ranger, and to be frank, you’d probably be better off watching any of those rather than the aforementioned threequel.