Rob Zombie's 3 From Hell Gets Gory First Trailer

Hell didn't want them — but horror fans are ready to welcome back Rob Zombie's murderous Firefly family with open arms.

The first full-length trailer for 3 From Hell, the follow-up to 2003's House of 1000 Corpses and 2005's The Devil's Rejects, made its way online this morning. It is grim, gritty, and decidedly NSFW — in other words, everything Zombie's fans could have hoped for.

The spot features a heaping helping of disturbing imagery, and its opening moments do at least partially answer a question that's been burning in the minds of fans since 3 From Hell was announced: how on Earth are the Fireflys even still alive? After brutalizing a gang of aspiring writers at the old family home in House of 1000 Corpses, three of the family members — Baby (Sherri Moon Zombie), Otis (Bill Moseley), and Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) — spent the entirety of The Devil's Rejects on the run from law enforcement, with whom they had a hot lead-filled encounter at that film's conclusion. After apparently having been blown to bits by the fuzz, it was a mystery as to how exactly the killer trio could return — but the trailer for the new flick addresses the issue right off the bat.

As it opens, we see a news anchor filling in his viewers on the "search for the fugitives known as the Devil's rejects," which "resulted in a violent clash with police." Cue the grainy footage of an emergency room hallway, as the bloodied bodies of the Fireflys are wheeled in on stretchers. "Chances for survival," the anchor's voiceover informs us, "are less than a million to one" — but some static shots of newspaper headlines clue us in to the fact that those steep odds were definitively overcome. "STILL ALIVE" screams one headline, next to a picture of Baby; "EXCLUSIVE: SPAULDING REMAINS IN COMA" blares another. Finally, above a picture of Otis, see see a headline that reads simply, "SATANIC RECOVERY."

"There's no justice in this world," we hear Otis say in voiceover; "I am justice!" We then see Baby speaking with a throng of reporters, a giddy grin on her face, proclaiming, "They're trying to blame us, but we didn't do it!" A series of shots reveal that the trio have indeed been thrown into the Big House, but that they have their supporters, such a longhaired dude sporting a shirt which reads "Free the Three."

We then see Otis, who apparently has been freed, promising "a real Day of the Dead." From here, the trailer pours on the gas with lightning-fast edits: we see plenty of blades, guns, and screaming victims, a wild-eyed Spaulding claiming to be "just a clown who dances for the sins of mankind," Baby in full Native American headdress letting loose an arrow, and a couple scenes of brutal violence that can't rightly be described here. There's also one of those cymbal-clapping monkey toys, for some reason (probably just for the sake of pure creepiness); a giant fire which the three killers appear to have had a hand in starting; Danny Trejo, who automatically makes everything he's in twice as cool as it was before just by showing up; and, for good measure, more blades, bullets, and screaming.

The spot certainly gives us more of an idea what Zombie has in store for us than the teaser trailer which was released last month. Like that spot, however, this new one has a distinctive '70s grindhouse aesthetic that's a perfect match for the material. One thing it doesn't give us, though: an actual release date. The teaser promised that 3 From Hell is coming our way sometime this year, but apparently, Zombie still doesn't feel the need (or isn't in a position) to be any more specific yet.

The adventures of the Firefly clan have so far been pretty freakin' extreme by the standards of mainstream horror; House of 1000 Corpses famously took years to find a distributor due to its over-the-top violence, and Zombie responded to the complaints of the film's critics by dialing the mayhem up to 11 for The Devil's Rejects. As crazy as this spot is, we're going to go out on a limb to say that it probably doesn't even represent the tip of the iceberg as to the level of craziness 3 From Hell will offer.

But, seeing as how fans of the series have waited 14 years for the third chapter, it seems only right that Zombie should give them a double (or triple) dose of what they paid for. Personally, we can hardly wait to put ourselves back in his singularly demented hands; we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for 3 From Hell's release date announcement, and we'll keep you up to speed.