Celebrating the genius of Rob Zombie
+ An interview with Dustin McNeill, author of House of Rejects: The Making of Rob Zombie's Firefly Trilogy
If you’ve read this newsletter before, you’ll know that I gravitate towards dark and macabre art. My favourite artworks leave me feeling like I’ve survived a lifechanging ordeal. I fervently believe that Rob Zombie is one of the world’s greatest directors of horror cinema, and The Devil’s Rejects is one of the greatest horror films ever made.
This week in IF YOU GO AWAY, I interview author Dustin McNeill, whose excellent book, House of Rejects: The Making of Rob Zombie's Firefly Trilogy, I finished reading last week and absolutely loved. After that I give my own account of why I so passionately love the cinema of Rob Zombie, and why so many others seem to hate it, along with a rundown of what to look out for in each of his horror films.
I’m P M Buchan, a former comic-book writer and lover of horror and dark art. I’ve written monthly columns and comic strips for Starburst and SCREAM: The Horror Magazine. I’ve collaborated with award-winning artists including John Pearson, Martin Simmonds and Ben Templesmith, and have been interviewed by Kerrang! and Rue Morgue. My work has been reviewed by Famous Monsters of Filmland, Fortean Times and Times Literary Supplement. I’ve collaborated with bands including Megadeth and Harley Poe, and written for clients including Lionsgate and Heavy Metal Magazine.
An interview with Dustin McNeill
Dustin McNeill is the author of eight books released through Harker Press. A lifelong genre fan, he began his writing career in the pages of HorrorHound Magazine before publishing his first book in 2014, Phantasm Exhumed. In 2019, he teamed with co-author Travis Mullins for the Taking Shape book series, which the pair followed up in 2022 with Reign of Chucky: The True Hollywood Story of a Not So Good Guy. In 2023, Dustin penned House of Rejects: The Making of Rob Zombie's Firefly Trilogy.
Usually for IF YOU GO AWAY I interview artists who I know personally in some capacity, but after reading House of Rejects cover to cover, I got in touch with the author to find out more. If, like me, you ever wanted to find out the truth about the missing footage and unseen cuts of House of 1000 Corpses, or just wanted to find a kindred spirit who also appreciates the beauty of Rob Zombie’s cinema, I can’t recommend the book highly enough.
I discovered your writing through House of Rejects, but what would you say you're best known for? Can you tell me a little about your background and writing career to date?
Writing-wise, I'd say I'm probably best known for being co-author and publisher of the two Taking Shape books, which exhaustively detail the creation of the Halloween movies that were made along with twenty-four "lost sequels" that were pitched but never filmed. Those books are Taking Shape: Developing Halloween From Script to Scream and Taking Shape II: The Lost Halloween Sequels. Together, they've amassed over 1,800 reviews on Amazon averaging five-stars each. They're among my best received books.
Background-wise, I'm just a lifelong lover and student of film, which is what I studied in college. I especially love horror films, hence why most of my indie publishing efforts have been genre-focused. I started Harker Press in 2014 to publish my first book, Phantasm Exhumed: The Unauthorized Companion, and the success of that initial effort compelled me to keep going. To date, Harker Press has published thirteen books, eight of which are my own, with several more books arriving later this year.
To my mind, Rob Zombie is the greatest horror director of his generation, but he's also incredibly divisive and seems to draw a disproportionate amount of criticism for his work. Do you have an opinion on what it is about Zombie's films that offends people so much?
I think his divisiveness comes primarily from the thick layer of grime that permeates his cinematic universe. Munsters aside, Rob's films all exist in this horrible, cynical, profane, and perverse world that you might like to visit but would never want to live in. For many audience members, that's a real barrier that they can't get past. It's a stylistic choice as much as anything else and as trademark as Quentin Tarantino's snappy dialogue or David Lynch's unsettling surrealism. If you can get past the outer-grime of Rob's vision, I think you'll find a lot to appreciate in his artistry, which is a point I tried to make in House of Rejects.
How close to the original creative teams were you able to get during the writing of House of Rejects?
Not nearly as close as I would ordinarily get! Typically, I'm able to speak extensively with dozens of cast, crew, producers, and so on, but I was really hampered by the SAG and WGA strikes of 2023. Per strike guidelines, a great many trilogy veterans were declining any and all interview requests during this time through their reps, which was hard. I was able to speak with a few people, however, most notably production designer Gregg Gibbs (who also played "Dr. Wolfenstein" in House), assosciate producer/editor Robert K. Lambert, co-producer Brent Morris, and cinematographer Phil Parmet. The book also features interviews with actors Jennifer Jostyn ("Mary Knowles"), Jake McKinnon ("The Professor"), Lew Temple ("Adam Banjo") and Richard Brake ("Winslow Foxworth Coltrane").
Outside of the Firefly trilogy, which is your favourite Rob Zombie film and why?
I wasn't that thrilled with Rob's first Halloween, but I was blown away by his Halloween II, which I feel is a nightmarish masterpiece. No longer constrained by what John Carpenter did in the original, Rob's second Halloween does its own thing and wonderfully so. It's such a dark musing on subjects like trauma, grief and loss, addiction, and inescapable fate. It's haunting and beautiful while managing to blow up every norm we've come to expect from a Halloween. Laurie is a mess, Loomis is a douche, and Michael is hallucinating his dead mother. There are absolutely no rules in this Halloween.
What are your earliest memories of horror as a genre? Can you remember the moment when you first felt drawn to it?
My earliest memories of horror as a young kid are of the Universal Monsters, which are still so near and dear to me. I love all those films from Dracula and Frankenstein to The Mummy and the Creature. I think that kind of magic is timeless. As for feeling drawn to horror, I definitely remember those moments. They happened in the horror aisle of my local mom and pop video store. I remember being in elementary school and absolutely studying the front and back covers of the horror videotapes for rent. I wasn't nearly old enough to see most of them, but I still pored over the text, artwork, and photos.
Can you name some works of art that have most inspired you in your life? What was it that made you connect with them and what influence have they had on you?
Ooof, I'm going to get real cheesy here, but sticking with film, I've always loved movies of any genre where a proverbial everyman is pitted against superhuman or almost superhuman evil. Sure, it's fun to see Van Helsing battle Dracula or Superman take on General Zod, but it's even more fun for me personally to root on characters like Chief Brody in Jaws or Laurie Strode in Halloween. We all like to think we have what it takes to measure up and, to that end, we're able to live vicariously a little bit through those kinds of stories.
A lot of your work documents the creative process behind popular horror films, which inevitably includes the films that were never made, the ideas not pursued, and the footage lost in the edit suite. If you could watch any completed film or scene that was lost to history or planned but never filmed, what would it be and why?
Let's stick in the Rob Zombie-verse for a bit with this one. In Taking Shape II, my co-author and I detail two proposed sequels to his Halloween II, which would've been directed by other filmmakers as Rob had publicly announced his (second) Halloween retirement. The better known of these was Halloween 3D by Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier, which would've brought back Scout Taylor Compton as Laurie Strode. This one got pretty far along and was into casting, location scouting, and effects-planning before being shut down.
The lesser known follow-up idea, however, was Halloween 3D by Stef Hutchinson, who wrote many of the great Halloween comics some years back. His story alternately would've focused on Brad Dourif's Sheriff Brackett with Michael Myers returning to absolutely destroy this man in every sense. You might wonder what else he could meaningfully lose beyond Annie in Rob's Halloween II, but Stef's script suggested he had a lot more to lose. Just brilliance all around. You can read a summary of the script and hear direct from Stef in Taking Shape II.
Celebrating the creative genius of Rob Zombie
Barely a week goes by when I don’t wax lyrical one way or another about my love for the films of Rob Zombie. My love affair with Rob Zombie began in the early 1990s when I bought The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience album, featuring White Zombie’s I Am Hell. Just as I was hitting growing my hair to rebel, hitting puberty and realising how angry I was at the world (original, I know) I discovered White Zombie and never looked back. Later, in 1998 I paid a friend to shoplift Rob Zombie’s first solo album, Hellbilly Deluxe, from HMV for me.
Something about Zombie’s horror imagery, use of horror samples, and chaotic amalgamation of horror and metal, appealed to me on a deep, primal level. Everything I’ve learned about Rob Zombie since then paints the picture of an artist of integrity who cares more about achieving his creative vision than he does commercial pressures or expectations. Commercially successful in many ways but fearlessly independent in others, I feel like Rob Zombie’s career and creative output, in many ways, exemplifies the very best that a successful artist could hope to achieve in the modern era.
It was Rob Zombie’s music that led me to his first film, House of 1000 Corpses, which was built up in my mind to almost legendary status after all the rumours about its extreme content and being too horrific for any studio to release it. I don’t remember falling in love with it immediately when I first watched it, but when the sequel, Devil’s Rejects, came around, it was love at first sight, and I’ve never looked back.
House of 1000 Corpses
House of 1000 Corpses is an amazing movie, like a neon tribute to Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween haunts, thrown in a blender and cranked up to 11. The cacophony of pieces and inspired performances come together to create bona fide horror icons out of the Firefly family. It has taken me time to learn to truly appreciate House of 1000 Corpses but, anchored by Sid Haig’s career best performance, and enriched by everything I now know about the making of, House represents everything that I love about the horror genre.
The Devil’s Rejects
This is clearly Rob Zombie’s best work and one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Devil’s Rejects takes the template from gritty exploitation films and shows us what it really means to root for a family of anti-heroes, to the extent that we’re taught to empathise and identify with a group of absolute sadists. Zombie’s more-is-more approach eschews irony and goes straight for the throat in a way that few other directors can compete with.
Devil’s Rejects is a work of grim, nihilistic genius. For me, this is the film that rubs the audience’s face in what they ask of horror – you want to see people tortured by serial killers, watch this, this is what you asked for. Uncomfortable verging on traumatic, Devil’s Rejects reminds us that horror should be uncomfortable and that art should not be safe. There are no moral lessons to learn here, just a confrontational worldview that shows you exactly what it is to root for an antihero.
Halloween & Halloween II
Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake was a real turning point in his career, a moment when many horror fans turned their backs on him, and I find that baffling. The whole original series of Halloween films left me cold, I wouldn’t watch one again if you paid me, so I couldn’t understand the backlash against an auteur approach that revitalised a tired concept that in my opinion lasted so long mostly because of an iconic mask and John Carpenter’s seminal score. Yes, Zombie brought in his familiar cast, and yes, before giving us the predicted slasher (including all the sex and violence any slasher fan could reasonably demand) he insisted on showing us how a monster is made, but in a franchise plagued by diminishing returns, I was ready for something new.
Then came Halloween II, which is completely unhinged, a raw, and because of studio interference, at times unpolished, representation of the maturation of Rob Zombie’s approach, themes, character development and interests. That he made such an impactful, novel film after so many Halloween sequels is testament to his skills as a filmmaker. Halloween II is a film about trauma, following that brutal line of investigation to its natural end point, and I absolutely adore it.
Lords of Salem
Lords of Salem is a flawed but visionary film with a haunting soundtrack, an exceptional performance by Sheri Moon Zombie, and an atmosphere of melancholy that’s unlike anything else Rob Zombie has created. Reading the novel that Zombie developed based on his original script, I wasn’t convinced this film would have benefited from more budget or more time to complete historical flashback sequences that didn’t make the final cut. In my opinion, those historic witch trial scenes detracted from the longer narrative and didn’t add anything to the sense of dread that came out in the final mix.
Lords of Salem was Rob Zombie doing something new, paying tribute to horror directors like Dario Argento, Roman Polanski and Stanley Kubrick. Exploring themes of addiction and free will versus destiny, packed with nightmarish imagery, Satanic rites and baroque dream sequences, Lords of Salem is definitely ready for reappraisal.
31
Eschewing traditional funding models after the headfuck of making Halloweens under the Weinsteins, 31 was a crowdfunded gorefest that plays out like Texas Chainsaw Running Man. In many ways, 31 is the perfect distillation of Rob Zombie’s cinematic output, but in others it plays like the natural end result of giving his audience what they ask for, like the Marvel approach to Rob Zombie films.
31 is probably my least favourite of Rob Zombie’s films. Apart from Richard Brake’s Doomhead, you don’t spend enough time with any of the other villains to root for them, and the victims are overwhelmingly unlikeable, which leaves me with no one I wanted to spend time with on screen. Still, Doomhead’s performance is exceptional and this was the film that first united Zombie and Richard Brake, which is reason enough to watch it. There’s even an argument that Brake’s performance here might never be bettered in terms of sadistic horror villains.
Three from Hell
The third entry in Rob Zombie’s Firefly trilogy, Three from Hell is a sequel to one of the most perfect, self-contained horror films ever made, one of the only films in the world that never needed a sequel. What it does do, however, is bring together Sherry Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, and Sid Haig in a swan song for his Captain Spaulding character.
Devil’s Rejects was a work of genius because it took the best parts of House of 1000 Corpses and reinvented them for another genre, doing the unexpected. Three from Hell takes the approach that Devil’s Rejects was close to perfection, so gives us more of what we loved. I could basically watch a new film with these characters every year and not get bored.
Creating art of integrity
It makes me laugh that Zombie’s insistence on offering good roles to ageing character actors, in an overwhelmingly ageist industry, and repeatedly working with people he trusts, drives some horror fans away. I’m sure that was partly what turned people away from his Halloween, seeing the Devil’s Rejects cast again in a franchise where they didn’t belong. To me, however, paying to see those incredible actors on screen is one of the best things about Zombie’s films. He finds actors that he trusts, who he knows can bring exactly the intensity he wants on screen, and he keeps collaborating with them to get reliable results.
Bill Moseley, forever associated with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (which I’ve only seen once, as a teenager, and HATED at the time), found an entirely new legacy as the sadistic Otis Driftwood in Zombie’s films. Sid Haig, already a legend in exploitation cinema, became immortalised as Captain Spaulding. Then there’s Richard Brake, possibly best known as the Night King on Game of Thrones (!), who stole every scene in 31 and has since become one of the most menacing actors in Zombie’s later works. Jeff Daniel Phillips, who excelled in Halloween II, gives the impression of a man who was born to collaborate with Rob Zombie. And Sheri Moon Zombie has been at the centre of nearly all his films, evolving from Baby Firefly’s manic energy into the haunted melancholy of Lords of Salem. Who wouldn’t want to put the muse and love of their live into every creative project if they could get away with it?
That unwavering loyalty, combined with his distaste for studio interference, is why I admire Rob Zombie so much. Zombie’s films are a statement of personal vision. He’s overwhelmingly interested in creating art of integrity, and as a result, he doesn’t compromise. Of course, that means you’re going to get a very particular style from him, one that’s unapologetically gruesome, profane, and confrontational. But as far as I’m concerned, Rob Zombie and his collaborators represent everything that’s good about horror.
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