Rob Zombie

Rob Zombie (born Rob Cummings on January 12, 1966 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA) is a solo singer and formerly the lead singer of the heavy metal group, White Zombie. With his dreadlocks, gruff vocal style and fascination with B-movies, he has become a distinctive element in American heavy metal. He is probably best known as founder, lead singer and songwriter for White Zombie, as well as being a solo artist in his own right. However, in recent years he began directing movies and videos, including his debut horror exploitation feature, House of 1000 Corpses, and its sequel, The Devil's Rejects, released July 22nd, 2005.

Movie Director

As a successful video director with a strong interest in movies, the shift to cinema seemed inevitable. However, it was not to be painless. In the mid-90s, Zombie was approached to direct the third in the successful comic-inspired The Crow franchise, but his script was rejected. He was hired to animate the psychedelic trip sequence from 1997’s Beavis and Butt-head Do America, a sequence which drew increased attention to his skills as a designer.

Related Topics:
The Crow - Beavis and Butt-head Do America

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Zombie’s cinematic interests finally reached fruition with the production of his debut feature as a director, House of 1000 Corpses. The timing seemed perfect: in 2000 the film industry was considering a whole swathe of traditional horror movies and remakes that resulted in such pictures as Michael Bay’s version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Freddy vs. Jason. Zombie was hired by Universal after he created a maze for Universal Studios' Halloween Horrors Night in 1999 and began production in April 2000 of his self-penned script, for delivery for the Halloween season. Shooting ran from 14 May to 20 August 2000 and he even designed a second Halloween maze for Universal, expecting their working relationship to continue smoothly.

Related Topics:
House of 1000 Corpses - Michael Bay - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Freddy vs. Jason - Universal - Universal Studios - 14 May - 20 August - 2000

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A mixture of Alice in Wonderland, slapstick comedy, psychedelia and extreme graphic violence, HO1KC (as it is known amongst its fans) centres upon the traditional two teenage couples who go on a road trip in America’s heartland. There they stumble across the legend of Dr Satan, a mythical surgeon who practiced horrific experiments on psychiatric patients. While attempting to find the tree upon which Satan was hung by a lynch mob, they run into the Firefly family, a band of sociopaths and mutants who butcher them in intriguing and bizarre fashions.

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What Universal expected is unknown: what they got was incredibly controversial. Rather than the slick MTV-style horror some may have expected, Zombie reached straight back into the grindhouse and gore influences that had always pervaded his art. Hiring schlock icons such as Karen Black, Bill Moseley, Sid Haig and his long-time muse Sheri Moon, Zombie produced a movie that owed far more to underground, exploitation and drive-in cinema than to modern tastes. The result split horror fans into two camps: those that adored its shlocky, shocking style and those that despised it as cheesy and amateurish. Universal rejected the movie outright and Rob became engaged in a lengthy process of finding a new home for the picture. It would take another three years for House of 1000 Corpses to finally be released, this time through Lion’s Gate pictures. In the mean time, Zombie finally married Sherri Moon in late 2002.

Related Topics:
Karen Black - Bill Moseley - Sid Haig - Sheri Moon - Exploitation - Drive-in cinema - House of 1000 Corpses

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However, great controversy still surrounds the picture. Finally released in the US with an R rating, the picture ran at 88 minutes. However, a 105 minute cut has been seen at various film festivals, including Mar del Plata in Argentina and Leeds in the United Kingdom. Though Zombie says that he is much more pleased with the 88 minute cut and that the 105 minute cut will probably never be released, he does go into detail describing the longer version on the HO1KC DVD director's commentary. A script of this version is also readily available at many webpages.

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In July 2005, Zombie released his sequel to HO1KC, The Devil's Rejects. While the first film only took $12,000,000 at the US box office, Zombie’s tiny budget and a good DVD market ensured a profit, opening the door for a sequel. Described by Zombie as being less of a straight horror movie and far closer to a 1970’s revenge western, in the vein of Sam Peckinpah, he has also hinted that this will be the last in the series. He managed to re-unite most of the cast of the original film, with Moseley, Haig and Moon returning to their roles, as well as the world's tallest actor, Matthew McGrory. Rufus Firefly, originally played by Robert Alan Mukes, is recast as wrestler Tyler Mane, while Leslie Easterbrook replaces Karen Black as Mother Firefly: it has been suggested by Zombie that they asked for pay rises that would be impossible with his tight budget. Danny Trejo and wrestler Diamond Dallas Page join the cast as bounty hunters The Unholy Duo, while cult horror actor Ken Foree plays pimp and Firefly ally Charlie Altamont.

Related Topics:
The Devil's Rejects - Sam Peckinpah - Matthew McGrory - Robert Alan Mukes - Tyler Mane - Leslie Easterbrook - Karen Black - Danny Trejo - Diamond Dallas Page - Ken Foree

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The film takes the story of the Firefly family in a less lurid and far more brutal new direction. Several months after the first movie, the Texas police raid the Firefly ranch, forcing the surviving members of the family on the run. While the first film was a haunted house picture, one that was fired by Zombie's psychedelic artistic vision, this is a road trip, in the mode of the seminal Vanishing Point, combined with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Shot on super-16 stock, it is an unflinching movie in which the inhumane Fireflies find themselves on the receiving end of brutality equal to that which they inflicted on their own victims, courtesy of William Forsythe's deranged Sherriff Wydell. While few critics have called it a likeable movie, praise has been almost universal for Zombie as an auteur and modern maverick.

Related Topics:
Vanishing Point - Texas Chainsaw Massacre - William Forsythe

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He is currently working as writer and executive producer on an animated feature of his comic creation El Superbeasto. The rumoured plot sees the eponymous masked wrestler going toe-to-toe with Dr Satan, one of the characters from House of 1000 Corpses. The director, Doug Lawrence, was creator of minor cult show Rocko's Modern Life and the voice of Plankton in SpongeBob SquarePants.

Related Topics:
El Superbeasto - House of 1000 Corpses - Doug Lawrence - Rocko's Modern Life - SpongeBob SquarePants

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