ROB ZOMBIE HALLOWEEN INTERVIEW

HIM ZOMBIE: A FEW WORDS WITH ROB ZOMBIE

BY: WALTER ORSINI

You can make all the sequels, prequels, and franchise cross-overs in the world, but once you throw in the word remake, horror fans get a little overprotective. When the new Halloween is released tomorrow, hopefully fans will appreciate Rob Zombie's thought-out, layered, and impressively directed take on the original boogeyman slasher. At the very least, be thankful that the 9th addition to the franchise comes from a fresh filmmaker who genuinely loves the character, instead of being a glossy mess with Michael Myers battling Chucky or some such ridiculous thing. We caught up with Mr. Zombie in NYC, and the bearded one shared his thoughts on tackling a beloved favorite, his dream of directing a violent, 70s crime drama, and the pride of creating the filthiest animated movie of all time!    

Were you impressed with the original Halloween when it was first released?

Yeah, I saw that at the drive-in of course. I was blown away because there was nothing like that at the time. It was like, Psycho would be the other movie you would always reference I guess. I just thought that movie was amazing, and having grown up in a neighborhood that looked like that neighborhood, having babysitters that seemed like those girls at the time, you know? It was awesome.

Were you wary about remaking such a huge classic?

Yeah, I mean at first when the first opportunity to do something with Halloween came up I wasn't interested at all. It took awhile. In the first meeting it wasn't brought to me to remake Halloween, it was just, oh we have this thing called Halloween. They're talking about a sequel. Or a prequel. Literally if I had said, "I don’t know, Michael Myers in space fighting Predator," they would've said like, "Hmm, maybe." They didn't figure out what to do. They just had this thing that they didn’t know what to do with, and I kind of was not interested because to me I love Halloween, and like everyone else watched it degenerate over seven sequels into something I just didn't care about anymore. Then I thought about that, and then I thought what a rotten attitude I have, and went away and thought, well the story of Michael Myers is so cool and the character's so iconic, and the one funny thing is that he never ages. So, it's like, you have John Wayne in your movie, but he didn't get old, and you're remaking Stage Coach with young John Wayne. So that's what was cool. It's like he was the same. And I thought, let's make him the lead character instead of Laurie Strode. Make everybody else secondary to the life of Michael Myers. 

Have you met John Carpenter?

I've known John since Escape from L.A. because I did a song for that movie based only on the fact that I wanted to meet John Carpenter and hang out on set. That's why I did the song. So I went down on set and hung out with him and stuff. He was super cool, because I hung out there forever and he walked me around. We talked. He could've just kicked me out. I'm sure he had better things to be doing than dealing with me. But yeah I've always bumped into him over the years and stuff, and when this came up he was the first person I called. I wanted him to know before anybody. He was cool. You know. He didn’t care. He was like, "Oh, great. Go for it."

What did he think of the film?

He hasn't even seen it yet. I was going to show it to him a couple of days ago, but he was going out of town so he hasn't seen it yet.    

Was it surreal recreating scenes you loved as a kid?

It's totally odd. It's real strange, especially being in South Pasadena on the exact same streets that really don't look any different. We didn't use the same houses or anything because, I mean the original Myers house is still there but it's like an insurance office now or something. It's all like fixed up and it's all nice, but I threw some stuff in there like when Laurie Strode looks out the window and sees Michael on the street, the house behind her is the original Strode house from the first film. Then when the girls are walking home from school and there's that long stone wall, that's the same. I mean I kind of used bits and pieces of locations, and it is weird. It's totally surreal. 

Why do you think Michael Myers survived as a horror icon decades later?

It's funny because they try so hard to create something that'll be that. They try so hard to create a catch phrase, you know, like "I'll be back" and it never works. I think that Michael Myers  just stuck around because, I mean the movie was awesome! It was a great movie for one thing. You need that first. Then the character's so simple. Simple characters just seem timeless. They always forget that and they make these characters that are so over the top and way too over done. It seems stupid. Whereas like, even Freddy Krueger, it's so simple. It's just like this burnt guy in a striped sweater, which seems so dumb, but it's not somehow. It just seems classic and the classic ones are always very simple. That's why I didn’t want to change him or jazz him up. I mean I wanted to kind of dirty him up a little bit, so it's a little more real. It always bothered me how clean he was. He stole the world's cleanest mechanic's uniform. [laughs] 

Did you cast the actors in the cameo roles or did you write the parts specifically for them?

Sometimes both. Like certainly people that had cameos I knew I wanted to put in there. What was great is that the guy who plays Michael Myers is so big, but Ken's [Foree] huge too, so I was like, "Well he's going to have to steal his clothes from someone huge, or he's going to be walking around in high waters." So yeah, most people I think I wrote for them. 

What about Malcolm McDowell?

Malcolm McDowell is one of the reasons I thought it would work, because early on people were like, "Well there's nobody who could possibly replace Donald Pleasance." And you know, it wasn't really a matter of replacing him, but I mean there's a lot of great actors. And then Malcolm McDowell is the first person I thought brought that same kind of quality. Donald Pleasance brought that thing to Halloween that like Peter Cushing brought to Star Wars. You know you get one of those guys that bring a certain thing, and Malcolm had that vibe. He was the only person on the list actually.

Being a huge fan of Clockwork Orange, what was it like meeting him?

He's so friendly and so good. I was leaving the production office and suddenly my phone rang and it was Malcolm, and I didn’t even know he had my phone number. Two seconds later, "Rob! It's Malcolm!" He talks to you like he's known you his whole life. You're like, okay, now so much for that breaking the ice. By the time we got to the restaurant he's like hugging me like we're best friends. Now it's like…I'm surprised he hasn't called while we've been sitting here. 

Is it tough directing your wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, in your movies?

No, actually it's really easy. I means the days with her on set are the easiest days because I know that, at least there's going to be one person who's very prepared, because I'll know what she's done. You never know if people are going to show up knowing their lines or not, and I always know she's ready to go. So, she makes my life easy.  

Do you annoy her with constant rehearsals at home?

No, I'm the one who gets sick of going over it. She's like, "Let's go over this one more time. And I'm like [sighs exasperation]

What movies had an impact on you growing up?

The first film that I ever saw was King Kong. So that was the first thing that made me go like, "Holy Crap! Movies!" You know I think I was probably in like kindergarten or something. And then the first movie I ever saw in an actual theater, because you know it's funny when you're a little kid thinking like you don't even know movie theaters exist, and then some day you go to a movie theater and you're like why are we sitting in these seats with all these other people, and that was Willy Wonka, the first movie that I ever saw that I was like, "Oh my God!" Then from there we always went to the drive-in for some reason. My parents. Then I remember everything was at the drive-in. Blazing Saddles. French Connection. So it's a big blur, I mean I would watch movies all day long on TV. TV was better when there was no channels. You know? Because there was always good stuff on TV, and now there's just nothing. Then once VCRs popped, then I just watched everything constantly. It's just a big blur.

Do you think the critics are going to favor your film?

I don't know, I mean I don’t know what critics like or don’t like. It's really weird because with Devil's Rejects, it's so unpredictable because the person you thinks going to love it goes, eh, and then the person you think for sure is going to hate it, like, Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper, love it! And they still talk about it, like they're reviewing something else and, "Well I really like Devil's Rejects more!" They keep quoting this, I thought they would hate this movie. Totally unpredictable. 

Do you care about reviews?

You care about some, but I try not to pay attention because you kind of have to draw your own conclusion. Do you like your movie? You see it before anybody and you have to go, "Look, I like it." I don't believe the bad stuff, and I don't believe the good stuff either. If I have a problem with something and someone tells me they like it, I go, "Well, you're wrong."

In your film, would you say Michael Myers is more a product of his upbringing, or simply born evil?

You know the way I looked at it was, I tried to base it as much on real things as I could. I was researching kids that have killed other kids. What would be their motivation? Whatever came out of it? I set him with kind of a lousy back story. I thought, oh, good kid from nice family goes bad is just a big snooze. You know? With a nice dad. I figured that's Laurie Strode's life. But I didn't want to play it as if that mattered. He's just born bad. That was essentially the thing with these kids when I was researching psychopaths. It was like they're born that way, and can you help them? The answer always seems to be no. There's kids, we probably all know. You want to pet the dog, this kid wants to shove a firecracker up its ass and kill it. Psychopaths was basically how they always described Michael Myers. No sense of other people. No feelings. No emotions. Just dead. They're like robots. On the other hand, sometimes they're strangely charming, friendly, and very manipulative all the time. They'll suck you in. 

Any interest in directing possible sequels?

This is it for me. I mean the next one he'll probably be in space.