A self-made icon in the American heavy-metal scene, Rob Zombie constructed an enduring persona based on creature-feature hosts, EC Comics, pro wrestling, gore movies, and other pop-culture influences. As lead singer of the metal juggernaut White Zombie and later as a solo artist, Zombie had much more in mind than just music—he created a multimedia extravaganza that included scrupulously detailed liner notes, disturbing music videos, and other conceptual ephemera. Operating under the influence of '70s drive-in cinema, Zombie also wrote and directed House Of 1000 Corpses, which tells the graphic, disquieting story of a Manson-family-like group of serial killers that terrorizes four lost travelers in backwoods Alabama. Due to the cultural climate post-Columbine, Universal decided against distributing the film, and it remained on the shelf for two years before finally finding a home at Lions Gate, which released it to a modest profit. Cult horror fans have given Corpses a healthy afterlife on DVD, and the demand has led to an unlikely semi-sequel in Zombie's latest, The Devil's Rejects, a remarkably confident and potent grindhouse throwback that owes as much to Sam Peckinpah and Don Siegel as it does to genre classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. On the eve of this summer's Ozzfest, his first musical appearance in three years, Zombie spoke to The A.V. Club about the state of studio horror, his struggles with the ratings board, and making movies where everything's not going to be okay.
The A.V. Club: When did the idea for the continuation of this story come to mind? Was it always planned that you would do two films?
Rob Zombie: No, it wasn't. I always had a vague idea for a story in mind, because I knew that if the first film was successful, they would want to do another one. So I wanted to make sure they had a logical follow-up, and I didn't want to scramble to create an idea. So when I wrote the first film, I always had this little trailing idea of the brother of that sheriff [who was killed by the Firefly clan in Corpses] coming back to avenge his brother. And basically, you know, that was all I had for an idea. And then the whole thing sorta started formulating into a real idea the day after House of 1000 Corpses came out, because Lions Gate made back all their money the first day. They were all thrilled and wanted to make another movie.
AVC: Were you trying to go anywhere with the sequel that you didn't get to in your first film?
RZ: The first film turned out a little wackier and campier than I originally intended. But as we were shooting, that's the tone that it was turning out to be. Movies sometimes dictate their own course, so I just sort of went with it. And on Devil's Rejects, I really wanted to scale it back and try to make something a lot grittier and nastier when those moments dictated. I wanted the violence to be a lot more horrific and the characters to just seem more like real people, and not cartoon characters.
AVC: You had more money and more time to shoot this time around, not to mention the experience of having shot a feature. What kind of difference did that make?
RZ: Well, unfortunately, I had less time and less money.
AVC: It certainly looks like you had more time and more money.
RZ: That's what everybody thinks. But the thing that I did have was the experience of the first film, which made having less time and less money not a problem, or not always a problem. Because on the first feature, everything's new. No matter what you're doing, it's a new experience, and you don't really have control over the budget, in a way, because you just don't know how things work. But on this film, I knew I had less time and less money, so I could be tighter with the budget and know how to break it down and make it work better. So with half as much money, I could make a movie that would look twice as big. And I had a lot less time, but it was okay. I knew how to work with actors now, and I knew I could get better performances in less time than I could before. So experience is what really made this one work.
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