Rob Zombie has followed up his horror hit House of 1000 Corpses with a much more brutal, ugly and sadistic film, The Devil's Rejects. Rejects keeps some of the characters such as Captain Spaulding [Sid Haig], Otis [Bill Moseley] and Baby [Sheri Moon] but now instead of them being hunters they are being stalked by Sheriff Wydell [William Forsythe] whose brother they had killed.
Check out the official website for The Devil's Rejects
Daniel Robert Epstein: Were you such a fan of the Police Academy movies and Threes Company that you had to cast Priscilla Barnes and Leslie Easterbrook?
Rob Zombie: Truthfully I dont know if Ive ever seen a Police Academy movie. I think I saw the first one, but I have watched Police Academy 6 since shooting this movie, unfortunately. With Threes Company, what kid didnt watch that show? But really it was funny because Priscilla Barnes and Leslie Easterbrook were two people I didnt actively pursue, they came in and read for the part. If someone had said their names, I wouldve been like, Oh yeah, shes cool on Threes Company. But I never saw her do anything like this. There were people on set who I had worked with on other films and they were like, Holy shit. I never knew she had this in her. So those were just lucky auditions. They came in and they were amazing. Most of the other parts were filled with people I wanted for them or I wrote it for them.
DRE: Had you always planned on doing a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses?
RZ: Well yes and no. When I finished the first film, I wrote a one-line treatment for a sequel only because I was contracted for one. They were going to make a sequel with or without me. I didnt want it to be without me, so I kind of had a little half-assed idea.
DRE: What did you learn from the experience of doing the first movie that youve brought into this one?
RZ: Everything. I mean the first movie is this calamity because you think you know whats going to happen and you think you know how movies are made, but its complete insanity from day one. The biggest thing was learning that preproduction is god because once you get on set, the time moves so fast that it seems like when you walk on set the first day youre already behind schedule. Then suddenly its lunch and everyone is lazy because they just ate lunch and then the sun goes down and youre like, Terrific. We accomplished nothing. But on this film, preproduction was very intense. The other thing was making sure your key crew members are great. On the first film, I had one cinematographer who came in and I fired him after the first week because he was just not doing his job and we were falling behind schedule every day. Then the next guy came in, who was fine, but there was no vibe whatsoever. Then he couldnt return for the reshoot, so we brought in another guy and we didnt get along at all. We spent most of the time like fighting on set and thats retarded. Literally the crew was in mutiny and walking around set like I cant work with this guy. For this movie, I met with a lot of cinematographers and then came back to Phil Parmet, who I just could tell from his personality that he would do whatever I wanted.
DRE: What was it like directing your wife?
RZ: Its really easy but you have to treat every single actor like theyre the most important person because thats the way they probably think. The whole thing about directing is you have to find a special way to manipulate each actor to do exactly what you want; yet make them think they thought of it and that you didnt do anything.
DRE: What makes you want to create such dark films?
RZ: Ive always been a fan of darker films, whether it is A Clockwork Orange or Taxi Driver where the lines of whos the good guy and the bad guy are always very blurry. You love Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange even though theres no redeeming characteristic to him whatsoever, but hes so charismatic. The same like De Niro in Taxi Driver, at the end of the movie youre like, Whoa have I been rooting for an avenging hero or a complete nutcase thats going to open fire in the Post Office tomorrow?
DRE: Do you feel like we are supposed to be rooting for these sick people?
RZ: No, I feel like youre not supposed to know what youre doing. Ill talk to different people and theyll go I was crying when they died. Then other people will be like, I hated them. I was rooting for the sheriff the whole way. Everyones got a totally different opinion, which is what I like.
DRE: How about you?
RZ: For me it goes both ways because I knew those characters were ending and I did like the characters and the actors. Ive always been a big fan as a kid of reading about the Old West and the concept of vigilante justice and that was where the Sheriff Wydell character came from. I was never rooting for anybody.
DRE: Did you have alternative endings in mind?
RZ: No, that was always the ending and every actor had a complaint about that. I wanted to do it because it seems like nobody makes a movie anymore without a sequel set up. Lions Gate was like The franchise. Its gone. But you know, thats the problem. I feel like theres never a definitive ending anymore. Every movie ends with the possibility of another one and it drives me crazy. I feel like, Why did I just invest two hours? It didnt even end.
DRE: Did you have any problems licensing those southern rock tracks?
RZ: Yeah there were always problems, but what I did this time thats very different and what people never ever do, is that I licensed all the songs in advance. I knew I was going to do that whole Freebird thing but I couldnt possibly risk shooting it, being in editing and then Lynyrd Skynyrd goes I dont think so. I cleared up all those problem in advance so I wouldnt run into that.
DRE: Did you have various directorial homages in mind?
RZ: Yeah but there was no specific moments. There was certain key things like a lot of the extreme close-ups and things are very like Once Upon a Time in the West and the ending is like Bonnie & Clyde and the general vibe to the violence is very Peckinpah.
DRE: I read about a lot of cameos like Natasha Lyonne and Rosario Dawson and Mary Woronov that I didnt notice in the actual film.
RZ: Well Natasha Lyonne never came to set and that became like a whole other thing. So she was replaced by E.G. Daily on the day of shooting and Rosarios scene got cut unfortunately. Marys just in the credit sequence.
DRE: How did you come to cast Ginger Lynn?
RZ: I needed an older actress who was going to be very free with nudity. I never wanted to get young girls that are all like plastic surgery damaged because that would be horrendous. So someone was like, Well, why dont we try casting old porn stars? We went through a bunch of different ones and Ginger was just the best actress even though unbeknownst to me, until two seconds before she got to the set, she was on crutches and couldnt walk.
DRE: I saw you on Henry Rollins show the other night on IFC.
RZ: Henry is one of those people who goes, I rooted for the sheriff the whole way.
DRE: You mentioned something that was very interesting about how you feel a lot of the horror movies are watered down to PG-13.
RZ: That doesnt mean that I wouldnt want to make a G-rated movie for kids thats totally super nice. But if this was PG-13 and then what we would be watching would be totally ridiculous. None of those decisions are made based on whats best for the movie. Its just whats best for the marketing.
DRE: Did Lions Gate let you do whatever you wanted?
RZ: Lions Gate is great. They have to be the most artist friendly people Ive ever met in my life. I gave them the script. They read it and were like, Okay. Fine. Lets do it. We have no changes. They would come down to the set every once in awhile and go, Okay we saw the dailies. Were happy. Then theyd disappear for a month. We did a preview screening in front of an audience. That went great and they were so happy afterwards.
DRE: Did you have any trouble getting the R rating?
RZ: Yeah, that was tough. The strange thing was that the R rating was mostly based on tone. It took about eight tries and it all came down to the motel scene with Bill Moseley and Priscilla Barnes. We cut about two minutes out of that. Still I was like, Well theres no real nudity. Theres no violence. Theres no language. But they were like Yeah, but its too dark. Basically it was like telling me, Your comedy is too funny. Itll be back on the DVD.
DRE: Do you see Devils Rejects as a grindhouse movie?
RZ: Its kept the spirit of that. The funny thing is I was talking to someone else and they were like, Are you a big fan of bad movies? I went, No, Im a fan of good movies. In that world there are a lot of great films. Russ Meyers films are better than 99 percent of the great films we have to celebrate every year. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is an incredible movie.
DRE: Do you think you can learn more from watching a bad movie than a good one?
RZ: No you really can only learn how to make a good movie from watching good movies. You can learn what not to do maybe.
DRE: Has doing this movie work affected your music at all?
RZ: Nothing really affects my music but what I took away from this is that great actors make great things happen. William Forsythe is a good example. If I had cast the wrong guy it wouldnt work on any level. Thats where you make or break the movie.
DRE: What are you doing musically now?
RZ: I have a record more or less finished before I started shooting Rejects and Im actually on tour right now. I played last night and Ozzfest starts on Friday so Ill be doing that all summer and then Ill come back to finish the record and then start another movie.
DRE: Will the next film be a horror film?
RZ: Ive got two movies Im working on simultaneously and neither are horror movies.
DRE: Isnt one an animated movie?
RZ: Well, theres an animated movie that Ive been working on for about a year. Thats called The Haunted World of El Superbeasto and Im doing that with Film Roman. Its an adult animated comedy and its basically if Austin Powers was actually an over the hill alcoholic Mexican wrestler living in a world populated by people like the Munsters.
DRE: Is it going to look like your animated sequence in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America?
RZ: No, its very stylized. The look was to make it look like its a cocktail napkin from 1968. That style of illustration.
DRE: There was an article on CNN.com that pointed to House of 1000 Corpses as the film that started this new wave of horror. When I spoke to [Fangoria editor] Tony Timpone, he said, Maybe not all horror, but at least Lions Gate horror.
RZ: I think its really hard to judge the effects of something, but it is funny that the movie was dropped by Universal and now Universal is like the house of horror once again. It definitely kickstarted horror for Lions Gate because I know the movie they followed mine with was Cabin Fever and I talked to [Eli Roth] the director and he was like, Oh man I thought my movie was dead in the water and then your movie came out and was like this huge hit so suddenly mine jumped up to be this priority project. So it did do something. I dont know what but you can never judge.
DRE: Gary Panter remembers you from Pee-Wees Playhouse.
RZ: Thats funny because when Paul Reubens first showed up, he had really long hair and a beard and he stepped off the elevator with Gary Panter and I think half the people thought Gary Panter was Pee-Wee because theyd go Well, hes certainly not the other guy.
DRE: What do you think of all the horror remakes?
RZ: Im not really a fan of them because I liked the movies the first time. No matter how good it is, its never as good as the original and I would like to see something new. Its kind of boring to sit there and watch a movie where you know how its going to end. Its kind of a bummer and with some of the original movies there was just something about the time they were made and the way they were made that works.
DRE: But you liked the Dawn of the Dead remake enough to hire [music composer] Tyler Bates.
RZ: I thought his music was great. Its not that theyre bad movies. Maybe theyre better for a new wave of kids who havent seen the original. But Id already seen the original Dawn of the Dead like a hundred times.
DRE: What if you got offered a horror remake with carte blanche?
RZ: Ive gotten offers to do things and I always say no. Maybe if there was a certain movie where I felt like the original idea was great but the movie was bad, but I dont understand remaking great films.
DRE: Do you ever think about stopping doing music and just working on movies instead?
RZ: Yeah because I definitely cant do both. Doing both is impossible and I dont want to have years between films.
DRE: What should fans expect from the tour this time?
RZ: Well the tour this time is very stripped down because Ozzfest is outside in a summer festival and there are like a million bands so there is no production. You can only take production so far where the best thing you can do is scale it all back to nothing and then that becomes interesting. Whenever Ive seen huge acts, whether it be Alice Cooper or KISS, in a situation with nothing, its ten times more interesting.
DRE: Are there any comic books or books youre reading lately?
RZ: No, Im sort of burnt out on comic books right now. Steve Niles and I did Bigfoot together. We were starting another one called Giant Monster that was going to be like a twelve part series but I just said, Steve, I dont have time.
DRE: Are you involved with that deal that Steve and Thomas Jane have with Lions Gate?
RZ: No, they asked me to be involved. We met a couple times to talk about it but since Im so busy I knew I would be of no use to it whatsoever.
DRE: Do you mourn the state of rock and roll today?
RZ: I felt the music industry making this horrible shift maybe like five or six years ago when it started becoming like the movie industry in the sense that it became about the opening week with a record. All the best records took a year or two years before anyone would go Oh? Whats this band? Guns N Roses? I wonder who they are. But now if it doesnt hit the first week, theyre like, Oh. I told you that wouldnt work. Thats not the way music functions. Thats not really the way movies should function either. With Halloween, it was months before it caught on and every week it would grow and grow and grow until suddenly it was this phenomenon called Halloween. Also the labels have no artist development. The Ramones would never have a record deal. Theyd get dropped after their first record, as would Cheap Trick and AC/DC and everybody. The Ramones stayed on a major label for 22 years and they never sold more than 150,000 records. Now a million records, a platinum record is considered a failure. Labels have nothing but mega artists and total failures and no artist development. They have a bunch of stuff we wont be talking about in six months.
DRE: What are you listening to now?
RZ: Ive been listening to a lot of Terry Reid during making of this movie and those have to be the great lost records of all time.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official website for The Devil's Rejects
Daniel Robert Epstein: Were you such a fan of the Police Academy movies and Threes Company that you had to cast Priscilla Barnes and Leslie Easterbrook?
Rob Zombie: Truthfully I dont know if Ive ever seen a Police Academy movie. I think I saw the first one, but I have watched Police Academy 6 since shooting this movie, unfortunately. With Threes Company, what kid didnt watch that show? But really it was funny because Priscilla Barnes and Leslie Easterbrook were two people I didnt actively pursue, they came in and read for the part. If someone had said their names, I wouldve been like, Oh yeah, shes cool on Threes Company. But I never saw her do anything like this. There were people on set who I had worked with on other films and they were like, Holy shit. I never knew she had this in her. So those were just lucky auditions. They came in and they were amazing. Most of the other parts were filled with people I wanted for them or I wrote it for them.
DRE: Had you always planned on doing a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses?
RZ: Well yes and no. When I finished the first film, I wrote a one-line treatment for a sequel only because I was contracted for one. They were going to make a sequel with or without me. I didnt want it to be without me, so I kind of had a little half-assed idea.
DRE: What did you learn from the experience of doing the first movie that youve brought into this one?
RZ: Everything. I mean the first movie is this calamity because you think you know whats going to happen and you think you know how movies are made, but its complete insanity from day one. The biggest thing was learning that preproduction is god because once you get on set, the time moves so fast that it seems like when you walk on set the first day youre already behind schedule. Then suddenly its lunch and everyone is lazy because they just ate lunch and then the sun goes down and youre like, Terrific. We accomplished nothing. But on this film, preproduction was very intense. The other thing was making sure your key crew members are great. On the first film, I had one cinematographer who came in and I fired him after the first week because he was just not doing his job and we were falling behind schedule every day. Then the next guy came in, who was fine, but there was no vibe whatsoever. Then he couldnt return for the reshoot, so we brought in another guy and we didnt get along at all. We spent most of the time like fighting on set and thats retarded. Literally the crew was in mutiny and walking around set like I cant work with this guy. For this movie, I met with a lot of cinematographers and then came back to Phil Parmet, who I just could tell from his personality that he would do whatever I wanted.
DRE: What was it like directing your wife?
RZ: Its really easy but you have to treat every single actor like theyre the most important person because thats the way they probably think. The whole thing about directing is you have to find a special way to manipulate each actor to do exactly what you want; yet make them think they thought of it and that you didnt do anything.
DRE: What makes you want to create such dark films?
RZ: Ive always been a fan of darker films, whether it is A Clockwork Orange or Taxi Driver where the lines of whos the good guy and the bad guy are always very blurry. You love Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange even though theres no redeeming characteristic to him whatsoever, but hes so charismatic. The same like De Niro in Taxi Driver, at the end of the movie youre like, Whoa have I been rooting for an avenging hero or a complete nutcase thats going to open fire in the Post Office tomorrow?
DRE: Do you feel like we are supposed to be rooting for these sick people?
RZ: No, I feel like youre not supposed to know what youre doing. Ill talk to different people and theyll go I was crying when they died. Then other people will be like, I hated them. I was rooting for the sheriff the whole way. Everyones got a totally different opinion, which is what I like.
DRE: How about you?
RZ: For me it goes both ways because I knew those characters were ending and I did like the characters and the actors. Ive always been a big fan as a kid of reading about the Old West and the concept of vigilante justice and that was where the Sheriff Wydell character came from. I was never rooting for anybody.
DRE: Did you have alternative endings in mind?
RZ: No, that was always the ending and every actor had a complaint about that. I wanted to do it because it seems like nobody makes a movie anymore without a sequel set up. Lions Gate was like The franchise. Its gone. But you know, thats the problem. I feel like theres never a definitive ending anymore. Every movie ends with the possibility of another one and it drives me crazy. I feel like, Why did I just invest two hours? It didnt even end.
DRE: Did you have any problems licensing those southern rock tracks?
RZ: Yeah there were always problems, but what I did this time thats very different and what people never ever do, is that I licensed all the songs in advance. I knew I was going to do that whole Freebird thing but I couldnt possibly risk shooting it, being in editing and then Lynyrd Skynyrd goes I dont think so. I cleared up all those problem in advance so I wouldnt run into that.
DRE: Did you have various directorial homages in mind?
RZ: Yeah but there was no specific moments. There was certain key things like a lot of the extreme close-ups and things are very like Once Upon a Time in the West and the ending is like Bonnie & Clyde and the general vibe to the violence is very Peckinpah.
DRE: I read about a lot of cameos like Natasha Lyonne and Rosario Dawson and Mary Woronov that I didnt notice in the actual film.
RZ: Well Natasha Lyonne never came to set and that became like a whole other thing. So she was replaced by E.G. Daily on the day of shooting and Rosarios scene got cut unfortunately. Marys just in the credit sequence.
DRE: How did you come to cast Ginger Lynn?
RZ: I needed an older actress who was going to be very free with nudity. I never wanted to get young girls that are all like plastic surgery damaged because that would be horrendous. So someone was like, Well, why dont we try casting old porn stars? We went through a bunch of different ones and Ginger was just the best actress even though unbeknownst to me, until two seconds before she got to the set, she was on crutches and couldnt walk.
DRE: I saw you on Henry Rollins show the other night on IFC.
RZ: Henry is one of those people who goes, I rooted for the sheriff the whole way.
DRE: You mentioned something that was very interesting about how you feel a lot of the horror movies are watered down to PG-13.
RZ: That doesnt mean that I wouldnt want to make a G-rated movie for kids thats totally super nice. But if this was PG-13 and then what we would be watching would be totally ridiculous. None of those decisions are made based on whats best for the movie. Its just whats best for the marketing.
DRE: Did Lions Gate let you do whatever you wanted?
RZ: Lions Gate is great. They have to be the most artist friendly people Ive ever met in my life. I gave them the script. They read it and were like, Okay. Fine. Lets do it. We have no changes. They would come down to the set every once in awhile and go, Okay we saw the dailies. Were happy. Then theyd disappear for a month. We did a preview screening in front of an audience. That went great and they were so happy afterwards.
DRE: Did you have any trouble getting the R rating?
RZ: Yeah, that was tough. The strange thing was that the R rating was mostly based on tone. It took about eight tries and it all came down to the motel scene with Bill Moseley and Priscilla Barnes. We cut about two minutes out of that. Still I was like, Well theres no real nudity. Theres no violence. Theres no language. But they were like Yeah, but its too dark. Basically it was like telling me, Your comedy is too funny. Itll be back on the DVD.
DRE: Do you see Devils Rejects as a grindhouse movie?
RZ: Its kept the spirit of that. The funny thing is I was talking to someone else and they were like, Are you a big fan of bad movies? I went, No, Im a fan of good movies. In that world there are a lot of great films. Russ Meyers films are better than 99 percent of the great films we have to celebrate every year. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is an incredible movie.
DRE: Do you think you can learn more from watching a bad movie than a good one?
RZ: No you really can only learn how to make a good movie from watching good movies. You can learn what not to do maybe.
DRE: Has doing this movie work affected your music at all?
RZ: Nothing really affects my music but what I took away from this is that great actors make great things happen. William Forsythe is a good example. If I had cast the wrong guy it wouldnt work on any level. Thats where you make or break the movie.
DRE: What are you doing musically now?
RZ: I have a record more or less finished before I started shooting Rejects and Im actually on tour right now. I played last night and Ozzfest starts on Friday so Ill be doing that all summer and then Ill come back to finish the record and then start another movie.
DRE: Will the next film be a horror film?
RZ: Ive got two movies Im working on simultaneously and neither are horror movies.
DRE: Isnt one an animated movie?
RZ: Well, theres an animated movie that Ive been working on for about a year. Thats called The Haunted World of El Superbeasto and Im doing that with Film Roman. Its an adult animated comedy and its basically if Austin Powers was actually an over the hill alcoholic Mexican wrestler living in a world populated by people like the Munsters.
DRE: Is it going to look like your animated sequence in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America?
RZ: No, its very stylized. The look was to make it look like its a cocktail napkin from 1968. That style of illustration.
DRE: There was an article on CNN.com that pointed to House of 1000 Corpses as the film that started this new wave of horror. When I spoke to [Fangoria editor] Tony Timpone, he said, Maybe not all horror, but at least Lions Gate horror.
RZ: I think its really hard to judge the effects of something, but it is funny that the movie was dropped by Universal and now Universal is like the house of horror once again. It definitely kickstarted horror for Lions Gate because I know the movie they followed mine with was Cabin Fever and I talked to [Eli Roth] the director and he was like, Oh man I thought my movie was dead in the water and then your movie came out and was like this huge hit so suddenly mine jumped up to be this priority project. So it did do something. I dont know what but you can never judge.
DRE: Gary Panter remembers you from Pee-Wees Playhouse.
RZ: Thats funny because when Paul Reubens first showed up, he had really long hair and a beard and he stepped off the elevator with Gary Panter and I think half the people thought Gary Panter was Pee-Wee because theyd go Well, hes certainly not the other guy.
DRE: What do you think of all the horror remakes?
RZ: Im not really a fan of them because I liked the movies the first time. No matter how good it is, its never as good as the original and I would like to see something new. Its kind of boring to sit there and watch a movie where you know how its going to end. Its kind of a bummer and with some of the original movies there was just something about the time they were made and the way they were made that works.
DRE: But you liked the Dawn of the Dead remake enough to hire [music composer] Tyler Bates.
RZ: I thought his music was great. Its not that theyre bad movies. Maybe theyre better for a new wave of kids who havent seen the original. But Id already seen the original Dawn of the Dead like a hundred times.
DRE: What if you got offered a horror remake with carte blanche?
RZ: Ive gotten offers to do things and I always say no. Maybe if there was a certain movie where I felt like the original idea was great but the movie was bad, but I dont understand remaking great films.
DRE: Do you ever think about stopping doing music and just working on movies instead?
RZ: Yeah because I definitely cant do both. Doing both is impossible and I dont want to have years between films.
DRE: What should fans expect from the tour this time?
RZ: Well the tour this time is very stripped down because Ozzfest is outside in a summer festival and there are like a million bands so there is no production. You can only take production so far where the best thing you can do is scale it all back to nothing and then that becomes interesting. Whenever Ive seen huge acts, whether it be Alice Cooper or KISS, in a situation with nothing, its ten times more interesting.
DRE: Are there any comic books or books youre reading lately?
RZ: No, Im sort of burnt out on comic books right now. Steve Niles and I did Bigfoot together. We were starting another one called Giant Monster that was going to be like a twelve part series but I just said, Steve, I dont have time.
DRE: Are you involved with that deal that Steve and Thomas Jane have with Lions Gate?
RZ: No, they asked me to be involved. We met a couple times to talk about it but since Im so busy I knew I would be of no use to it whatsoever.
DRE: Do you mourn the state of rock and roll today?
RZ: I felt the music industry making this horrible shift maybe like five or six years ago when it started becoming like the movie industry in the sense that it became about the opening week with a record. All the best records took a year or two years before anyone would go Oh? Whats this band? Guns N Roses? I wonder who they are. But now if it doesnt hit the first week, theyre like, Oh. I told you that wouldnt work. Thats not the way music functions. Thats not really the way movies should function either. With Halloween, it was months before it caught on and every week it would grow and grow and grow until suddenly it was this phenomenon called Halloween. Also the labels have no artist development. The Ramones would never have a record deal. Theyd get dropped after their first record, as would Cheap Trick and AC/DC and everybody. The Ramones stayed on a major label for 22 years and they never sold more than 150,000 records. Now a million records, a platinum record is considered a failure. Labels have nothing but mega artists and total failures and no artist development. They have a bunch of stuff we wont be talking about in six months.
DRE: What are you listening to now?
RZ: Ive been listening to a lot of Terry Reid during making of this movie and those have to be the great lost records of all time.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 25 of 47 COMMENTS
mattaaaah:
I wonder how he reconciled his feelings about re-makes when he decided to re-make Halloween only a couple years after this interview.
mckenzie:
I want to audition for his next movie!