These are some of the characters from Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects.
In order of appearance.
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In House of 1000 Corpses, Captain Spaulding was introduced as a vulgar clown and the proprietor of a gas station that doubled as a museum/haunted house ride with a focus on serial killers, madmen and freaks and freaks of nature. His main purpose in the first film was to redirect a group of young adults looking for the local legend of "Dr. Satan" to the tree where he was supposedly hung, where they instead end up running into the murderous Firefly family.
Rob Zombie described Spaulding on the commentary for House of 1000 Corpses as a "lovable asshole" and wanted to make the character's motivations ambiguous as to whether or not he was in league with the family or was just a murderous vigilante unconnected to the Firefly clan (in the film's opening scene, he kills two burglars attempting to rob his store). He is described in the script for Corpses as a "crusty looking old man in a filthy clown suit and smeared make-up". He has the words "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on his knuckles, a reference to the character Reverend Harry Powell from Night of the Hunter.
The second film gave Spaulding a much more significant role, establishing him as the patriarch of the Firefly family. For The Devil's Rejects, Captain Spaulding's character was changed slightly; the director wanted him to be less cartoonish in the more realistic and gritty sequel. As such, Spaulding only has his clown makeup on in the beginning of the film.
In describing Spaulding for his review for The Devil's Rejects, film critic Roger Ebert wrote "He is a man whose teeth are so bad, they're more frightening than his clown makeup. He plays such a thoroughly disgusting person, indeed, that I was driven to discover that in real life Sid looks, well, presentable... This was a relief to me, because anyone who really looked like Captain Spaulding would send shoppers screaming from the Wal-Mart."[1]
Otis is the most depraved and violent member of the Firefly family. He is a sadist who makes the freaks for Captain Spaulding's museum. On two occasions he wore his victims skin as a costume and fights with Spaulding for control of the family. Although Otis is albino in the first film, Rob didn't think it would fit the style and realism of the sequel.
Otis is not a biological member of the Firefly family. Gloria "Mama" Firefly adopted him, but not legally. In the song "Pussy Liquor" the lyrics suggest that Otis' biological father's name is Dane. He is named after the Groucho Marx character in the film A Night At The Opera.
After narrowly escaping death at the hands of Sheriff Wydell, Otis was killed along with, "Baby", and Capt. Spaulding, in a shootout on a deserted highway. A roadblock was set for their capture, and they were shot to death by Sheriff's deputies. Rather than surrender, the surviving Firefly clan drove speeding towards the roadblock with their guns blazing in one final act of defiance.
Besides Mama Firefly, her mother, Baby is the only female member of the Firefly family. In The Devil's Rejects her father is revealed to be Captain Spaulding. In the first film, Mary Knowles describes Baby as being a "slut" and a "redneck whore", which later results in her gruesome demise. In House of 1000 Corpses she hitchhikes and lures the teenagers into visiting the farm. She shows a liking to Bill that his girlfriend Mary didn't take kindly to which prompted the four to try and leave. After they were captured, she took part in the demise of Bill that involved severing his limbs. Baby approached Jerry wearing one of the dead cheerleader's uniforms and scalped him when he failed to answer who her favorite actor was. Otis, who is the adoptive brother of Baby, was going to shoot Mary when she tried to escape at the ritual ground, but Baby insisted to go after her that resulted in Mary being stabbed to death. She escapes the police in The Devil's Rejects and goes on the rampage with her father and Otis. In the end they are shot dead by the police when trying to drive through a roadblock. In the Rob Zombie song "Pussy Liquor" it is stated that Earl (presumably Earl Firefly/"The Professor") is the biological father of both Baby and Tiny.
The younger half-brother of Baby. Suffers from gigantism and is scarred all over because the Professor doused him in lighter fluid and set him alight when he was a child. When the four teenagers tried to leave his family house, he and Otis, who is his adoptive brother, went to attack them. Tiny pulled Denise out of their car and dragged her back in the house while Otis dealt with the rest. Tiny took Denise to his room, where the family dressed her as a doll for Halloween and offered her to him, but did not take advantage of it as he had a soft spot for women. He would however, show no signs of remorse when they were to be killed at a ritual ground that he attended. In the second film, after saving Baby from being murdered, and Otis and Spaulding from the burning Firefly manor, he does not go with the rest of the clan and enters the burning house, where he presumably burns himself to death.
Mama Firefly (whose real name was Gloria Firefly) was a prostitute, and the mother of Rufus, Tiny, and Baby. Baby's father is Captain Spaulding, and the father of Rufus is a man named Rufus (which is why his family calls him R.J for Rufus Junior) and the father of Tiny was Earl Firefly. It is revealed in the sequel, that Mother Firefly has a long criminal record, including several cases of prositution and theft. She is killed by Wydell in the second film, after she attempts to seduce him.
A member of the Firefly family, namely Tiny's older brother. Rufus was abnormally tall, and often shot down nearby cars so their drivers would have to stop by the Firefly house for help. He was a fairly minor character in House Of 1000 Corpses. In The Devil's Rejects, Rufus defended the house from police covered in homemade steel body armor. In the end of the assault, Rufus fought alone while the others retreated and was shot to death by Wydell and his men. He is named after the Groucho Marx character in the film Duck Soup.
Grandpa Hugo is arguably one of the more harmless members of the Firefly family. It assumed he is the father of Gloria "Mama" Firefly and the grandfather of Rufus, Tiny, and Baby. He does not engage in any acts of sadism or cruelty. Rather, he just seems to be a harmless (albeit dirty) old man.
Grandpa Hugo has a penchant for crude, sexual humor and loves telling dirty jokes. He is usually seen watching TV and yelling at the screen.
Fimple died not long after House Of 1000 Corpses was completed. Zombie omitted his role from the sequel, The Devil's Rejects, out of respect.
In an early cut of the film, Grandpa Hugo was revealed to be none other than Dr. Satan himself. Supposedly, the whole legend of Dr. Satan was to be a ruse concocted by the Firefly family to attract more victims, and Grandpa Hugo played the role of the sinister physician. Zombie later scrapped this idea, saying it would be too anticlimactic, and rather had the real Dr. Satan show up in the film's climax instead.
Investigating the disappearance of four missing teenagers, he interrogated Captain Spaulding, the owner of the gas station and freak show museum where the kids were seen last. Spaulding directed him to the site of the infamous Doctor Satan murders. Spaulding, who was later established as a member of the Firefly family, would later admit that he deliberately sent them to their doom.
With fellow police officer Deputy Steve Nash and Don Willis, one the teens' fathers and a former officer himself, he sought out the Firefly House. Nash and Willis went out back to investigate, but Wydell himself went to talk to a hesitant Mother Firefly for questioning.
He showed several pictures of the missing teenagers, but Mother Firefly claimed to know nothing about them. He was about to leave, when Nash called him on his walkie talkie. He and Ellis had discovered a small shack outside the house where some of the teens were being locked up, right before Otis B. Driftwood killed them both.
Before Wydell could do anything, Mother Firefly pulled out a gun and shot him in the neck, killing him.
In Rejects, his brother Sheriff John Wydell discovers that George was killed by the Firefly family and is hellbent on revenge. Tom Towles reprises his role as George Wydell in a cameo appearance in one of his brother's dreams. In it, Sheriff Wydell goes to the basement of the Firefly House where George is waiting for him. He tells him he has to stay there and cannot rest until his brother kills the Firefly family.
Local legend of Ruggsville Texas, Captain Spaulding tells the legend of Dr. Satan - S. Quentin Quale, an intern at the "Willows County Mental Hospital". Through primitive brain surgery he believed he could create a race of "super-humans" from the mentally ill. When the locals discovered what he had been doing, they formed a mob and hanged him, the next day his body was missing, never to be found. From then on he had been living in the catacombs under the Firefly farm, continuing operations on people the family would lure to their home.
In Otis B. Driftwood's biography on The Devil's Rejects official site, a different tale is told. Here we find that Baby and he were drawn into a cult led by Dr. Satan. Otis and Baby, were expelled by the leader of this cult, after they murdered one of the cult's leaders with an axe following a dispute over a bottle of whiskey.
In an early cut of the film, Grandpa Hugo was revealed to be none other than Dr. Satan himself. Supposedly, the whole legend of Dr. Satan was to be a ruse concocted by the Firefly family to attract more victims, and Grandpa Hugo played the role of the sinister physician. Zombie later scrapped this idea, saying it would be too anticlimactic, and rather had the real Dr. Satan show up in the film's climax instead.
Dr. Satan did not appear in the sequel. Rob Zombie said he felt uncomfortable having him in the film, saying that the character would seem too out of place given the drastically different tone of the two movies. However Dr. Satan did appear in deleted scenes. According to Rob Zombie's commentary on the DVD, he was wounded in the opening shootout and was taken away to a hospital. (Doctor Satan is apparently in the ambulance during the opening scenes.) A nurse (played by Rosario Dawson) checks the doctor, now in a coma, when suddenly he awakes, grabs her throat and brutally tears it open before collapsing back onto the bed and possibly dying.
The actor who portrayed Dr. Satan (Walter Phalen) also makes an appearance as Tiny in a flashback sequence to when The Professor sets him on fire.
The Professor is a large hulking mutant that worked with Dr. Satan. "The Professor" is a Harpo Marx character, fitting in with the rest of the Firefly family. He is never seen in The Devil's Rejects, and it is never clarified why he, or any of Dr. Satan's other mutants for that matter, are not, though there is a possibility they either died out or went into hiding. It is a fair assumption to believe that The Professor is one of Dr. Satan's brainwashed mentally ill creations. He is apparently the father of both Tiny and Rufus, and was responsible for the former's burns. He was referred to in House of 1000 Corpses by Mother Firefly as "Earl".
Sheriff Wydell led a siege on the Firefly house, hoping to arrest the serial killer family that lived inside. After a brutal shootout, he managed to kill Rufus and capture Mother Firefly, but two of the most dangerous members of the family, Otis B. Driftwood and Baby managed to escape, who later reunited with Baby's father, Captain Spaulding.
He interrogated Mother Firefly for whereabouts of her kin, but the family matriarch refused. Instead, she revealed to him that she had killed his brother, Lieutenant George Wydell, taunting him by saying "I felt contrite about blowin' his brains out". Furious, Wydell promised to her that he would kill every member of her family.
After hiring two amoral bounty hunters called the 'Unholy Two' to track down the Devil's Rejects, he became witness to the aftermath of the brutal murders of Banjo and Sullivan, a traveling country band.
After a dream about his dead brother telling him to kill the Firefly family, Wydell revisited Mother Firefly again, only this time to stab her to death.
Upon finding out that the escaped killers had taken shelter at a whorehouse, he tracked down the owner, Captain Spaulding's pimp brother Charlie Altamont and told him to keep the family there so he could ambush them.
With the help of the Unholy Two, he managed to capture the Rejects and bring them to their house. Becoming increasingly disturbed by his vengeance, the Sheriff brought them to their basement and tied them to a bunch of chairs. There, he proceeded to sadistically torture them like they had done to their victims throughout the night. He nailed Otis's hands to his chair, he electrocuted and beat Spaulding with a cattle prod, and he taunted Baby over the death of her mother after stapling a picture of one of her victims to her chest.
After dousing the room with gasoline and leaving Spaulding and Otis to burn, Wydell let Baby escape so he could track her down and kill her. Charlie returned to save his family but Wydell killed him with an axe.
Wydell proceeded to shoot Baby, flog her, and then tried to strangle her to death. It was only the return of Tiny that finally stopped Wydell. The mute giant picked up the Sheriff and snapped his neck, ultimately killing him.
Charlie Altamont (alias 'Wolf J. Flywheel') is Captain Spaulding's African American brother. He is also a pimp.
Charlie had run a brothel and strip club and was a pimp by profession, and he also was revealed by Zombie as a "coke-head." To emphasize his style as a pimp, he was given a large amount of valuable and suggestive paraphernalia; it was not on camera, but in a scene where he was sharing his cocaine with Cutter, he had a necklace that was a cocaine spoon in the shape of a naked woman.
When the Firefly family are on the run from the police, they come to Charlie for refuge. But when Sheriff Wydell tracks him down, Charlie is pressured to give his family up.
Charlie Altamont returns later in one last moment of redemption to save his family, but Wydell kills him with an axe.
Two amoral bounty hunters hired to track down the Rejects. Rondo is a Mexican man and the more business savvy of the two, he describes Wydell's situation with the rejects as cockroaches in a house and they are the exterminators. Billy Ray Snapper is the more quick to action type guy whose main pleasure is a good fight, he and Wydell do not get along. Though some may be fooled by their biker persona's and unfashionable lifestyle, the Unholy Two are tactical and relentless when on a hunt and will gladly kill whoever gets in their way and even some who are not.