Otis in The Devils Rejects
Backstory[]
Otis was born December 23rd, 1929. He was horribly neglected and abused by his parents who didn't even give him a name. He committed his first murder at the age of 14, presumably his parents. Otis was a drifter for much of his life, traveling over the country from Wilmington, Delaware to Hurst, Texas. In the small town of Ruggsville, Texas, he met Cutter (later to be known as Captain Spaulding), and was soon living with his new friend's family, whom he had renamed "the Fireflies". This family consisted of Cutter's girlfriend, who was then called Eve Wilson, whom Driftwood nicknamed "Mama Firefly"; Eve's two sons, Rufus and Tiny; and the daughter of Captain Spaulding/Cutter Vera-Ellen, with whom Otis formed an immediate bond and nicknamed “Baby”.
A few years after Otis joined the family, Otis and Baby roamed the roads, killing anyone in their path. These murders were referred to as the "Son of Satan Murder". Later, in the winter of 1976, Baby returned to Ruggsville alone and resumed her life on the Firefly farm while Driftwood continued his murderous rampage. He travelled over the country stealing and selling cars to survive, but eventually returned to Ruggsville to reunite with the Firefly family again.
At some point in the mid to late 1970s, Otis and Baby allegedly became involved in a Satanic cult led by a local urban legend who called himself Doctor Satan. They were eventually told to leave, and shunned by the cult following an incident wherein Otis stabbed a fellow cult member to death.
House of 1000 Corpses[]
This film confirms that Driftwood is by far the most aggressive member of the Firefly family. Though he bickers with the family, he is shown to be quite loyal to them. When four young adults are at his house, due to their tire being shot by Rufus, he came down to join their Halloween Eve dinner. Although it’s unknown if he only came to disturb the wandering couples or to please Mama Firefly. During the dinner, he brought Mama Firefly’s jar-stored stillborn child, “Little Wolf,” to make her happy.
Often considering himself a revolutionary and an artist, he makes sculptures out of his victims or skins them to wear as a suit. In this film, he is interpreted as an albino. In the film, he also tortures the four young adults physically and emotionally, even going as far to show one of the couples her boyfriend, whom he turned into a sculpture dubbed “Fish Boy”. Otis also wears the skin suit of one of his victims father, before taking her and the other two young adults, whom he dressed as rabbits, to what can be considered a place of a Satanic ritual. One of the girls gets loose, but Otis allows Baby to go after her to kill her instead. Toward the end, another protagonist escapes, but Spaulding picks her up, and while they’re driving, Otis appears in the back seat.
The Devil’s Rejects[]
Driftwood's character was altered somewhat for The Devil's Rejects. In the 1st film, for example, he is an albino, but he is of average Caucasian color in the sequel. Rob Zombie did this because he felt the albino look was too 'cartoonish' and was out of place in the grittier sequel. In spite of this, the film still has a line spoken by Spaulding in which he refers to Otis as "Whitey." This implies he may have still been an albino in some draft of the script, or perhaps they forgot to change the line as it no longer makes sense in the context of the re-worked character's portrayal. By the second film, he had become far less over-the-top, but was also more depraved and sadistic, and he looks older than in the first. At one point he tells a victim that he is the Devil, and is "here to do the Devil's work." He often rapes his victims, something that is only implied in the first film; a special feature on the DVD shows Otis hitting one of the women he kidnapped in "House of 1000 Corpses", then using his teeth to rip her tongue out of her mouth (not shown in close-up detail but it's clear that's what he is doing) before he begins sexually assaulting her. When Sheriff Wydell captures Otis along with Captain Spaulding and Baby the film's end, he shows them a picture of her ravaged corpse, and Otis smugly says that she was still "good" for him, and he skins the face of a man and then forces the man's wife to wear it as a mask. The only time Otis was calm or even remotely nice was to one of Charlie's prostitutes Candy and was actually shown to be upset by her death.
Memorable Quotes[]
- “Run rabbit, run!”
- “Forget it, there is no f**kin’ ice cream in your f**kin’ future.”
- "Boy, the next word that comes out of your mouth better be some brilliant f**kin’ Mark Twain sh*t. Cause it’s definitely getting chiseled on your tombstone.”
- ”I am the Devil, and I am here to do the Devil’s work.”