Rob Zombie started in music in Boston, Massachusetts in 1984. He later formed the band White Zombie and made independent albums. He got his first big break in 1990, eventually creating six albums for Geffen as both White Zombie and as Rob Zombie, a solo act. In his musical career, he combined classic horror imagery with heavy metal and gothic elements, leading to a successful niche as a pseudo-performance artist entertainer. Zombie designed his own album art and music videos, directing over 30 videos for both his and other acts. Though he had the experience, he discussed the great leap in responsibility in setting out to direct his first feature film, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, the first of what he hopes are many feature films for him.

SCOTT: To the superficial viewer, there’s a lot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and stuff in your movie and whatever, but I sort of observed other things, like The Old Dark House, and some of the older films, too.

ZOMBIE: Yeah. I think so. Chainsaw is just a pedestrian reference. People are always going to find something to call it. Nothing in it was necessarily an homage to anything. I wasn’t looking at it that way. I just was these were all the films I’ve loved, so of course, when you go to make your first film, you’re just bursting with the influences of all the years of watching these movies.

SCOTT: What were some of those influences? How did you first get into all this stuff, and when?

ZOMBIE: I mean, I’ve been into it from such a young age, I don’t really remember first discovering it. I can remember that it was just always there. I don’t know if it’s because the age I was and the time period--that late 60’s time period when there was sort of like a monster boom. Every local channel had a Creature Double Feature show. You know? And Munsters and Addams Family and all those shows were on TV. It was just like monster craziness.

SCOTT: So you saw a lot of your stuff on TV?

ZOMBIE: Yeah. Well, there was no place else to see it at that point. I mean, every once in a while, you’d luck out and something would be playing at the movies, but for the most part, nobody had invented the VCR yet. There was no way to see these things. They were just on these local channels late at night or something. I had all these books, and I would see the pictures. And I’m like “How the fuck am I going to see this movie?” Everything was like a real challenge to track it down. Now it’s easy. Everything’s available.

SCOTT: You’ve got a good point. Back then there wasn’t tape.

ZOMBIE: Which in a way made everything back then more special. Because if something came on TV, say Bride of Frankenstein was on TV, and it was on Tuesday night at 4 a.m., you had to watch it, because if you didn’t watch it, you might not see it for another three years. So it made everything seem very eventful. Everything was a big deal. Because you knew if you missed Destroy All Monsters, it wasn’t going to be on until next summer.

SCOTT: And like you said, now the availability, now there’s a lot of magazines and fanzines that cover this stuff, but back then there really was only Famous Monsters.

ZOMBIE: Yeah, there was really nothing else. I mean, there were a couple of those knock-off magazines, like Castle Frankenstein.

SCOTT: Did they have like a horror host in Boston who showed movies?

ZOMBIE: There was the Creature Double Feature, which was on Saturday afternoons, and it really didn’t have a proper host. It had more like a voiceover host. And then there were other ones. And I remember the tail end of high school, like 1980 or ‘82, Elvira first started on TV. That was pretty cool. It was such a big deal. I remember the first movie I saw on her show, too: it was Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks.

SCOTT: What’s your all time favorite of the classic horror?

ZOMBIE: I mean, even though everybody seems to think Bride of Frankenstein is the better film, I like Frankenstein the best. It’s just really dark. Like there’s really no humor, and the lack of music. I love the way that it seems like a sound stage. Like in the opening when they’re shoveling the dirt in the cemetery? They’re throwing it. You can hear the way it is echoing in the sound stage. I always think, watching that movie, that must have really fucked some people 70 years ago.

SCOTT: Obviously the bulk of your career is in the music business; how early on did you want to make your own horror movie?

ZOMBIE: Always. I always wanted to. I used to make little movies, like a Super 8 camera and stuff. I always wanted to make movies. Things for me just sort of follow a path, and then I moved to New York and the band thing started happening, so I went with that. And I’ve been shooting music videos as a way to keep that aspect of my life alive. Just always trying to make a movie happen along the way, and it wasn’t until now I finally got it to go.

SCOTT: Was it a struggle to get this made? I heard a story about Universal backed it and then they didn’t want to release it and stuff. But I mean, even before then, was it hard for them to back you in a feature film?

ZOMBIE: It’s always a struggle. Getting it made was easier than getting it released. The struggle came after the fact. The budget was pretty small. I knew from the get-go that if you can keep the budget down, you can keep people’s involvement down, too. Because as soon as you escalate the budget, then they want a bankable star to sell the picture and all these other elements start coming into it. But I figured you water it down.

SCOTT: More than the casting, what about physically conceiving the movie and putting it together? How difficult a process was that? Or did you know off the bat what you wanted to do?

ZOMBIE: It was difficult being a first film. I wasn’t really surrounded by experienced people. You know, we had a lot of first timers in a lot of departments. Which was good in a way, and bad. It was always difficult. It was always fun, and I was always having a great time. But it was a challenge. The budget restraints made it a challenge to begin with. We only had a 25-day shooting schedule, which was pretty tight considering what we were trying to do. Had I known what 25 days meant now--had I known then, I would have tried to get more days or simplify the script or something.

SCOTT: Where did you guys shoot this movie?

ZOMBIE: Most of it, like the house and all the stuff surrounding area, that was all shot on the Universal backlot. I thought it was amazing, because, they had catering set up at the Psycho house. And you sit there eating your lunch on the steps of the Munsters house.

SCOTT: What about the location stuff?

ZOMBIE: A lot of that was shot at this place called Valley Fay Ranch, which--I have a feeling they shoot a lot of porno movies out there. The day we were location scouting, they were shooting a porno movie. But I think there’s some Friday the Thirteenth movie that was shot out there. I didn’t know that at the time, just I saw a piece of it and “Oh, my God, that’s the same barn.” I’d recognize these sets all the time, you know.

SCOTT: They’re used over and over again?

ZOMBIE: Yeah. I mean, we redressed them--Dan Silva did--so it’s not probably recognizable to anyone but me, but....

SCOTT: One of the real strengths of the movie, I thought, was the look. You’ve got a real neat visual style for the film.

ZOMBIE: Yeah, I wanted the movie to be visually very dense, so on repeated viewings, you’d keep noticing stuff. When you can see it on a big screen, there’s so much detail. Especially in the Captain Spalding’s. A lot of it never reads. It was fun being there, like it never felt like you were on a set. Because the house we shot it in is an actual set, but it’s a physical house, and the rooms are all inside the house. The entire house was dressed and the surroundings. It always felt like a real location. Which is cool.

SCOTT: How about the Captain Spalding place?

ZOMBIE: Well, it was just a bare place. That’s just like this generic gas station set that’s out somewhere in the desert, that everyone shoots at. We changed it quite a bit. All the interior of the murder ride and stuff, that was all done on a sound stage. That was actually built, sort of as a place like you could get on it and ride through it. Like it wasn’t broken up sets. It was one long thing that you could actually go on it like a ride. It was pretty fun.

SCOTT: What was the concept of the film?

ZOMBIE: It kind of started in a weird sort of way. Universal used to do this thing called Halloween Horror Nights. For two years, they’d turn the park into a horror theme thing, before they gave up on it. I worked there the first year, building this maze called The Thrilling, Chilling World of Rob Zombie. It was this big haunted maze thing, based on one of my records. And the second year, they wanted me to come back and do another one. And I just came up with this thought in my head, I go “Oh, what should I call it? I’ll call it House of a Thousand Corpses. That sounds like a really good haunted maze.” I just had the title.

SCOTT: So the attraction became the movie?

ZOMBIE: Well, I pitched it to the Universal executives. Like only having sort of a half assed idea in my head. And they liked it. And then I went home and knocked out like a 12-page treatment, gave them that. They liked it. And then I just wrote the script right away.

SCOTT: And you were attached to direct the whole way through?

ZOMBIE: Oh, yeah. It was my script and my everything.

SCOTT: Did you ever plan to be in the film?

ZOMBIE: .No, I knew that I needed actors, not me goofing around.

ZOMBIE: Some of them are people I just like. Like Karen Black, obviously. And Sid Haig, who plays Captain Spalding.. Bill Mosely, who plays Otis, is someone I had just met a few months earlier. He was in Chainsaw II--Choptop--and I always thought he stole the picture as that character. And just when I was writing it, I thought, “God, he’d be perfect.” And knowing him as a normal person, I knew he could do it. He had the chops to do it. And he was great. And then, just some of the people I just cast from a casting session. Mostly just the four normal kids, they were the people I didn’t have in mind. One of them is Chris Hardwick, who is a friend of mine. He used to host that show, Singled Out. And Shipmates. So I knew I wanted him, because he’s like a stand-up comic and he’s really funny. I didn’t know he could act, but I figured he could, because he’s been on stage and had good comic timing. And then, the girl who plays Baby: it was my girlfriend at the time. Now she’s my wife. And then the older cop, the two--Tom Tolls, he was in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. He played Otis, Henry’s friend. Michael J. Pollard, of course, who I always loved. So I just tried to go for people that were a lot of like cool, character actors that I’d always enjoyed. But weren’t obvious choices. Because I didn’t want anyone to stand out bigger than the concept of the movie. Because it kind of--what I always thought was amazing about Chainsaw Massacre was you don’t recognize anybody.

SCOTT: Was there pressure by the studio to make it a commercial movie?

ZOMBIE: Well, to me the best moments in the movies are the ones that are really specific. And they have the chance of completely not working. Either it’s going to work or it’s going to not. And I don’t think they like to make movies like that. Things always have to be really safe. And safe is boring. You have to think commercially on some level, because you’ve got a studio going, “Oh, here’s five million dollars. Go do something.” So you have to take that into account. I would always try to satisfy their suggestions without actually doing anything! Keep them happy without changing anything. It’s sort of a weird game you have to constantly play. It’s like I was making a record. I mean, you can’t write a song, going, “Oh, I’m writing this hit song right now.” You just kind of write songs and the general public decides which one’s the hit.

SCOTT: How did you select makeup effects designer Wayne Toth?

ZOMBIE: Well, he’s been a friend for a while. He’s done a lot of work in a lot of movies. But recently he hasn’t been really doing movies. He runs his own Halloween company. Makes a lot of Halloween props. They have a web site, Ex Mortis. I just knew he would be easy to work with. And he’s a cool guy, and he got everything I was going for. I wanted everything to look pretty old school, and simple. Because since the film’s supposed to be 1977, I wanted to put some kind of the same limitations on what we could do. I didn’t want to do any effects that you couldn’t really do in 1977. That’s why there’s no computer stuff, or anything too over the top. Besides I always like stuff to be simple. It’s scarier anyway.

SCOTT: Was there a specific choice in setting it in ‘77?

ZOMBIE: I think that’s just a good time period. Something about that year. I don’t know. I guess as a kid, ‘75 to ‘77 were my favorite years for music and movies and everything, so I just thought that was a good time period. Before you get into that weird ‘80s look, where everything looks hideous. You know how everything looks bad in the ‘80s? And it’s cool, because it kind of helps keep the movie primitive, because if it was modern day.... Like everybody in the movie would have a cell phone. There would be computers. But back then things could slip through the cracks, because the whole police internet is not on some kind of computerized database. So that’s why it’s conceivable these crimes could happen and exist.

SCOTT: What were your favorite music and films from those years?

ZOMBIE: Kiss, Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult. Jaws, Close Encounters, Star Wars. It seemed like every time you entered the movies, it was like a religious experience.

SCOTT: Does any of that stuff make it into House of a Thousand Corpses? You know, like in art direction with your production designer?

ZOMBIE: Yeah. I sketched out how I wanted Captain Spalding’s to look, and I did all the character designs and the costume designs. And I have all the original drawings for that. I did some of the sets, the main ones, like Captain Spalding’s, and then things like the Murder Ride. But the costumes were a big thing. I wanted them to be exact. Like, you know, pretty exact. It’s funny, too, because I did the drawings before I cast it or anything, so it’s pretty cool to look at the sketches and then see the final guy because there were some characters, like Tiny, that I drew, and I’m “How am I going to cast this guy?” And then, I found him!

SCOTT: Was that the most challenging thing in making the film?

ZOMBIE: .It was all challenging and now I appreciate it about a thousand times more. Especially good movies, because people just don’t understand the insane amount of work, even to just make a crappy movie. So, yeah, I did have a good experience. The main thing, I think, work doing music videos taught me was working with a big budget, and a pretty big crew, and a really strict time element, and having to deliver a product on time. Sometimes, if you’re making your own films for yourself, you don’t have that pressure. Like you’ve been hired by Ozzy Osbourne to do this video, and it’s got to be done by this day, and it’s got to be perfect, or you’re fucked.

SCOTT: What do you think it is about our country that breeds these psychos? I mean, your movie’s about this group that totally could be real.

ZOMBIE: Well, that’s weird, because part of it is inspired by real things. Especially the character of Otis. Because I was talking to a friend of mine, and he lives in Arkansas, out in the Ozarks--like way out. And he was telling me about this family of albinos that lives out in the woods. And like there’s all these woods around him, and he says, “They’re real. They’re real kids. And they have long fingernails, and long, white hair, and they run around naked sometimes.” And I’m like “That is so fucked up.” And I actually was thinking, I remember some kids like that from school. When you’re a little kid, you don’t think. Like there’s weird kids, but you don’t think they’re weird. You’re just a kid, and you just accept stuff. And there was this one family of kids, and they were albinos. And they all had this super white skin, really super thin stringy hair, these pink eyes and it was just like the character in the movie. It was so bizarre.

SCOTT: What else inspired the ideas in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES?

ZOMBIE: Way back in the day, in the ‘80s, touring in a van, you’d be driving, and it would be like “Next Rest Area: 200 miles”. You’re out in the middle of this farmland on this dirt road. You’re like, “What’s going on in these houses?” That’s why an Ed Gein can get away with that crap for so long. Because when you just get off out in the boonies, man, there’s nothing there. You’re like “What’s to stop someone from kidnapping us and killing us? Who the hell would ever, ever know?” You’d never be able to figure it out. Especially when it’s random. And I think that’s why Henry Lee Lucas and a lot of serial killers get away with something, because they didn’t have a motive, because they were so randomly killing people that there was nothing to connect them to the crime. It was just like, “Oh, here’s a hitchhiker. Whoops, you’re dead.”

SCOTT: That just reminded me of Ted Bundy.

ZOMBIE: Yeah. The movie becomes more bizarre at the end. And that’s why you don’t know what’s real or what’s a dream at the end; where she’s dead, and where she’s still hallucinating. But I wanted it to start off very real.

SCOTT: Are you fascinated by the morbid?

ZOMBIE: Oh yeah! It goes back to being a little kid and I just remember going to Disneyland, and only being fascinated with The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Didn’t care about anything else. If a horror movie was on TV, that’s all I cared about. I didn’t care about baseball or anything. Or like being a little kid and reading Helter Skelter, like “Oh, my God. This is so cool.” Not being repulsed by it…I don’t know what makes kids do something and some kids do others. Something about your brain that attracts you.

SCOTT: What about from here on in? Do you plan to direct more films? The experience with Universal must have been kind of unseemly relation. They shelved the movie for what about a year? Then Lion’s Gate picked it up.

ZOMBIE: The hell that the movie’s gone through to get released is a drag, but it’s like anything else. Nothing’s easy. Yeah, I mean, I’m fully geeked and want to do it again without a doubt.

SCOTT: Seriously?

ZOMBIE: Oh, yeah. I mean, I didn’t want to do this as some fun, one off project. This is what I want to do. I would give up everything else to do this.

SCOTT: The music and the albums?

ZOMBIE: Yeah. That’s how I’ve always felt. It just wasn’t until now that I could get in there and get going, you know.

SCOTT: How many other kinds of projects do you have in mind? Or will they all be similarly kind of on the dark side?

ZOMBIE: Well, I’m finishing up a script right now that’s not a horror movie. It’s sort of a weird, black comedy, and it’s set sort of against a horror background in the sense that--the best way I can describe it without describing it is like Tim Burton’s Ed Wood.

SCOTT: When do you hope to shoot that?

ZOMBIE: I don’t have a deal for it yet, because I haven’t finished the script. But I’m almost done. I’m probably about ten pages away from finishing it. And then I’ll start giving it to people and seeing if I can get that set up somewhere.

SCOTT: Do you have, somewhere in the back of your mind, other kinds of movies that you want to do too?

ZOMBIE: Yes. I just love movies. I would love to make a Western. I grew up watching them, you know, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and For A Few Dollars More. They have influenced me.

SCOTT: Yeah. It sounds like you’re a total buff.

ZOMBIE: No, just like crazy. That’s all I care about. I hope people won’t look at HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES as “Oh, a jackass rock and roll guy wants to make a movie.” Because I live and die for movies. I don’t really give a shit about music. It’s not to belittle music. I’ve just been obsessed with movies my entire life. I’ve been trying for a long time to make this happen. It just hasn’t happened until now.

SCOTT: What do you hope audiences come away from the movie feeling? Or thinking?

ZOMBIE: The best compliment that I have received with what few people that have seen it--they just walked out going “Man, that was fucked up.” You know? That always makes me feel like I did my job.

SCOTT: Well, I wish you a lot of luck with it, and appreciate all your--you know, interest in the genre kind of keeps the whole thing alive, you know?

ZOMBIE: Yeah. I mean, hopefully. The biggest thing I hate sometimes, like reading these weird quotes from me that aren’t from me, that people just make stuff up on the Internet. That I think I’m going to reinvent horror with this movie, you know? And that’s just such a weird, pompous thing that I would never say. It’s such a weird thing. I just love horror movies, and here’s another one. And hopefully it makes somebody feel--you know, for the person who never got to go see Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a drive-in in the ‘70s, you know, maybe it’ll give them a little bit of that experience.