The marriage of horror cinema and heavy metal -- it's a match made in heaven for me and probably hell for others, like my girlfriends who prefer pop music and romantic comedies. Either way, it's one of my favorite topics and we've definitely got some fresh blood on the matter for this week's edition of Metal Mondays.
Last year, New Times spoke with Rob Zombie, who said his movie Lords of Salem would be his last horror film for a "really long time." Apparently, it seems that a "really long time" isn't as long as you might think, since the heavy metal icon reportedly has changed his mind.
In our interview, Zombie discussed his new album Venomous Rat Regeneration, his new film and book, Lords of Salem, and his biggest creative challenges. One of those challenges happened to be the fact that he was sick of making horror movies.
"Sometimes you just want to immerse yourself in a certain type of film if you know that's where you're heading. My next movie is Broad Street Bullies," a hockey-centered movie he described as Rocky meets Boogie Nights. I asked him what he thought about the current state of horror compared to what it was when he discovered it.
"Well, when I started loving it, I don't even think I called it horror. They were monster movies -- Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman . . . they were monster movies and we loved the monster. As time has gone on, that's changed a lot; you don't even see monster movies. They barely exist. It's a bummer."
Would he ever consider creating a monster movie?
"No. I'm not really thinking of doing anything . . . Lords of Salem is my last sort of horror-genre related film for a really long time."
However, it only took less than a year for Zombie to change his mind about his next project.
Within the past week, Zombie said that for the past two years while working on Broad Street Bullies, he had been doing research on a different horror concept, and it was stewing in his brain. Recently, he decided to put the hockey flick on the backburner because something else popped up. Now such sites as Loudwire, Blabbermouth, and Metal Injection have cited our interview with Rob Zombie in excitement about what is to come. Anything to add fuel to the fire.
Zombie didn't divulge any other details about the film concept, except for the fact that it will be in the same vein as the lovably sadistic Devil's Rejects. It is exciting news for anyone who loves his horror work, which is super-influenced by the down-and-dirty chillers from the '70s and '80s. Granted, his last film, Lords of Salem, was a departure from his usual cult classics (House of 1000 Corpses), remakes (Halloween), and animated romps (El Superbeasto). It was deemed unsuccessful at the box office, pulling in only $1.1 million of its $1.5 million budget. But many fans fell in love with the flick; I personally felt impartial to it.
But Rob Zombie isn't just aiming for one new horror project -- he has a second on the line. And it's with the badass mind that came up with American Psycho and the twisted Patrick Batman.
Zombie and author Bret Easton Ellis are developing a television series based on the people and horrific events that played into one of the most awful crimes in American history -- the Manson murders. It will be told from different points of view, converging before, during and after the murder spree from the summer of 1969.
Zombie will direct; Easton will write. It's meant to be a miniseries, but nothing has been completely confirmed yet -- mainly because the production companies have not yet optioned any source material, like the book Helter Skelter. It brings me back to the White Zombie song "Real Solution #9", which samples Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel telling Diane Sawyer "I'm already dead" -- fitting, since this Manson miniseries and next film will be his ninth and 10th contributions as a director to our current state of horror.
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