Caffeinated Clint
Musician Rob Zombie has no idea how his first film “House of 1000 Corpses” will go in Australia – after all he didn’t even know whether the film would see the light of day at one stage. “Universal owned the rights to it, and they didn’t want to release it. What that meant was that I couldn’t sell the rights to anyone else, so in turn, it just wasn’t going to come out”, says the famed rocker. Eventually, the studio sold it to Lions Gate Films.
Inspired by Tobe Hooper’s original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “House of 1000 Corpses” is a bloody, fizzy and ultimately freakish horror film about a group of teenagers that knock on the wrong door for help one night. It was met with a favourable reception stateside, but initially, some folks couldn’t rap their heads around a musician wanting to be a film director. “That probably put some people off. Dee Snider had the same thing when he did (his film) Strangeland”, says Zombie. “It was a hard enough transition for me to make, let anyone outsiders. When you do the same thing for many years (music) it’s tough to make the transition to do other things. It’s a difficult switch. I guess there’s probably someone resistance from others to see you succeed too”.
Zombie has been aiding film soundtracks for years, but his first taste of the film world came with a short-lived deal he had at Miramax. He was asked to pen the third “Crow” movie. “I worked on it for a while. It ended up being, what they say, stuck in development hell. They ended up making a third one but it wasn’t the one I was working on”.
He had a much more favourable experience working on the “Beavis and Butthead” movie. “I did one sequence, the hallucination sequence at the desert. It was the same as everything, as a Kid I always wanted to do animation. And I got to. It was good”.
Three years ago, Zombie decided it was time to make his own film – something he, a self-confessed horror fan would like to see. “I wanted to get back to those 70’s horror films, the nasty ones. They weren’t so nice back then. In the eighties and nineties, especially the nineties, it was all about the victim. I wanted to get away from all the nice victims and get back to the killers, the monsters.”
“Casting was easy. I was certain I wanted all these particular actors for the major roles – I’m lucky that I got them all. Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon”, he says. “Sid, especially, was fantastic. And he’s not that different in real life, he’s just a very big jolly guy”.
The rocker says he’s glad the genre’s made a bit of a comeback in recent years. “It’s great having horror back. There’s still a lot of crap, but there’s some good films out there too. But I’d rather have the horror genre around, then not around”, he says. “I saw 28 Days Later recently. A lot of people say it’s a rip-off of Dawn of the Dead, but at least it’s a return to some good horror”.
And what do the horror fans think of “House of 1000 Corpses”? “It did really, really well. The reaction has been great. Captain Spadling, especially, has this huge following. They even have Halloween masks of him now!”
Zombie says the fact that the movie was made three years ago caused a bit of a problem when it was time to make the DVD. “I didn’t have a ton of extra stuff because we made it three years ago. So I had no Documentaries or anything”, he says. “But, I wanted it to be worth it, so we crammed it with new stuff, including the new menus”.
Next up, says Zombie, is a sequel to “House”. “I’d like to do other things, away from horror, but at the moment we’re doing a sequel. The script’s done, and we’re about to get to work on it. There’ll be some interesting new people involved and some new characters to look out for. After that, I’ll be making a film with a guy I run a Production Company with, Steve Niles. We’ve got like three films in development, one of them is called The Nail and its like Rocky meets Race with the Devil. Hopefully, we will get some of the House cast back for it”.
Finally, is Australia ready for “House of 1000 Corpses”? “You never know what to expect. I think it’ll do well. The feedback has been positive. Hopefully, you guys will like it”.
HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES commences March 11th across Australia
CLINT MORRIS
