How to Interview: Rob Zombie

Be, like, totally laid back about it, ’cause this dude in tats, dreadlocks and full beard is one cool customer. You’ve got to admire Zombie for sticking to what he knows and likes, rather then trying to please the masses. His take on Halloween II is completely different from the original 1981 sequel – and unlike his feelings about the Halloween remake he did in 2007, this horror flick, in which Michael Myers continues to slash his way through life, feels much closer to Zombie’s own sort of messed up sensibilities.

Step 1: Appeal to the dark side

“For me it’s movies period, not just horror movies. I just like dark, violent material, and I don’t know why. It’s funny, I’m writing this thing on Clockwork Orange for the DGA magazine and I was doing research. Roger Ebert gave this movie a horrible review in 1972, and everything he said he hated about the movie is exactly why I like it. So, I don’t know. Everyone’s life is weird and fucked up, so you like to see things that are weird and fucked up, I guess. Also, everyone’s so repressed [in this country]. And if they could just get more sex and violence in their life, they might be happier.”

Step 2: Make the Halloween sequel entirely your own

“[Halloween II] is a more logical follow-up to The Devil’s Rejects for me. The first Halloween [that Zombie directed] seemed like a weird sidestep because it was someone’s else material. The first half was more my thing but then the second half was like, well, maybe I should put in more John Carpenter’s beats because that’s what people would expect. But as soon as I started doing that, I don’t think I had quite the same enthusiasm for the film. The fun of it is creating your own world, so that’s why in [Halloween II], I flipped them upside down to make them more my characters.”

Step 3: Care about your knife-wielding psychopath

“I don’t want you to feel bad about Michael Myers necessarily, but I also don’t want you think, ‘Oh, he’s the villain, he’s scary’ blah, blah, blah. That’s why I like making him more of a character, more so than he had in the other movies. You MIGHT feel a little bit bad because he’s this big, hulking monster whose basically still got the brain of a 10-year-old boy, been locked away his whole life. It’s like the Frankenstein scenario, the misunderstood monster, which I’ve always found more fascinating.”

Step 4: Try not to be a slave to the release date

“You know, besides The Devil’s Rejects, I think everything I’ve done has been compromised by scheduling because The Devil’s Rejects was the only movie I ever made that had no release date. We worked on it and worked on it until we got it right. At least we felt like we got it right. I looked at it and thought ‘There’s nothing else I want to change, nothing else I want to do.’ I’ve never had that luxury since. Editing is a crucial time and when you’re rushed through that process, you’re never 100 percent sure you’ve got exactly the perfect take of an actor or moment. There’s so much footage, it’s very time consuming. Luckily, I use the same editor, and he and I have a real shorthand. He always gravitates towards the takes I like, so we can work really fast. I mean, the problem is nobody makes movies anymore. They just make schedules, and they make budgets. Wah, wah, wah.”

Step 5: Secretly make a director’s cut for DVD

“There’s another version of [Halloween II] that’s very, very different that will probably be the director’s cut. In the theatrical cut, Laurie Strode’s character is holding it together, getting her life together and it starts spiraling downward. But in the other version, she’s an incredible mess and gets worse. She never has any good moments, she’s messed up, lashing out at everybody. She’s horrible, strung out on drugs and spun out through the whole movie, which makes for a really challenging movie to watch. That’s really the difference between the two. I’m not sure if fans wanted to embrace so much darkness.”

Step 6: Put a white horse motif in your horror flick?

“I was trying to find one significant thing, one minor event from young Michael Myers’ life that is stuck in his brain. That I could then tie through to Laurie. A white horse is such a great visual image, and when I started researching, the meaning of dreams, which I think is pretty much bullshit, they all had a lot of significance with the white horse. So it just seemed like the perfect childlike image to carry through.”

Step 7: How to scare Rob Zombie as a kid

“Weird things are scary when you’re a kid. I think probably – and this might sound stupid – but for me, The Wizard of Oz. The flying monkeys and the witch. I remember seeing that when I was really little. I mean, Frankenstein never seemed scary to me but The Wizard of Oz … still seems freaky.”

Step 8: But don’t put a label on the man

“I definitely don’t want to be part of a group that would have me as a member. As soon as I hear ‘The Splat Pack,’ I’m like, please. Kick me out of that group immediately. If there’s one thing as a director you don’t want to be is part of a group. There’s nothing against the people that are in that group, they are all friends of mine, and they’re all great. I just want to be left alone.”

Step 9: Ever think about comedy, Rob?

“[The Haunted World of] El Superbeasto is coming out Sept. 22. It’s animated, it’s a comedy. It’s totally different from anything I’ve done. It’s kind of like X-Rated Scooby Doo. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

OK, maybe not fluffy bunnies, but it will have to do.