10 Horror Characters You Really Wanted To Live (But Knew They Were Doomed)

What’s this, I hear you cry? Rooting not only for villains, but a group of truly reprehensible people?! Let me explain.

Rob Zombie’s sequel to his bizarre carnival ride, House of 1000 Corpses, is a more straightforward affair. It’s more grim and gritty, but the central family of monsters remain.

Baby (the queen of hillbilly horror Sheri Moon Zombie), Otis Driftwood (the ever-brilliant and criminally underrated Bill Moseley) and Captain Spaulding (the late, great Sig Haig) all return as the film’s antagonists.

Or should I say protagonists?

It’s a bold move to make the villains of the last film the stars of this one, but Zombie oddly makes it work. The family do utterly repugnant things, but somehow… you can’t help but want them to win. It’s a very strange place to put a viewer, without hitting them over the head with deep moral questions about humanising monsters and all that heavy stuff, but you just can’t help but like this trio of terror.

By the end of The Devil's Rejects, as Free Bird plays out and the Firefly clan drive into gunfire, many an audience member were surprised to find themselves almost shedding a tear. We all knew the trio's road trip of bloodshed couldn’t end well for them, and we hoped it wouldn’t, but a teeny tiny little part of us wanted to watch them head off into the sunset.