Heavy metal rocker-turned-horror-director Rob Zombie admits he has become a recognizable force in Hollywood with his 2007 Halloween remake scaring up a record-breaking showing at the Labor Day box office.
His previous movies were 2003's House Of 1000 Corpses and 2005's The Devil's Rejects.
"I think, if anything, people take me seriously," Zombie says during a recent teleconference interview.
"With House of 1000 Corpses, people were like, 'Oh, this rock guy is goofing around.' With Devil's Reject, everybody really liked it, so (they were) like, 'He's serious.' And, now, with Halloween, it's totally rock-solid serious. I think people get it now. It's not a joke. Now I've made a movie that came in at No. 1 and it made a lot of money, so I guess you're perceived as a guy who can make (studios) money. I mean everything changes when you have a No. 1 movie. It's not like some fringe thing you're doing anymore, especially with Halloween coming in at No. 1 and breaking the record for that Labor Day weekend box office. I think that kind of shocked everybody. So, I really don't know the exact fallout of what that would be until the next movie."
So what's next cinematically for Zombie?
A remake of the 1984 B-movie horror flick C.H.U.D. has been in the rumour mill, but right now Zombie's not saying.
"I can't because it's not 100% (sure) yet but it's not a horror movie," he says.
He did say he wouldn't mind tackling sci-fi in the future.
"I love science-fiction movies to death. That was one of my favourite things as a kid except they sort of just evaporated. Post Star Wars, it was just like action movies in space. But I always loved Blade Runner, Silent Running, 2001 -- all those movies are just fantastic. But you just don't really get that anymore. Everything became like Total Recall or something. But, yes, I'd love to do something such as Alien again."
Among Zombie's all-time favourite horror films are classics such as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Dawn of the Dead, but he'll admit he hasn't really been scared since he was a teenager.
"The main film, I think, that freaked me out ... is Jaws," he says. "I was never scared by monster stuff so much. First, it was the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz and then Jaws, and that's it. No, other movies ever bothered me since."
The next Zombie-related film in theatres will be The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, an animated version of his comic book, The Adventures of El Superbeasto. It stars the voice talent of Paul Giamatti as Dr. Satan, and executive-produced by the hard rocker.
