Director Rod Zombie in Michael Myers' cell on the set of Halloween.
The way some horror movie devotees see it, remaking John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween is akin to, oh, rewriting Gone With the Wind as if the South won, or recording a hip-hop version of the Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”—it’s just one in a long list of Things You Should Not Mess With.
If there’s anyone up to the task, though, it would be musician/director Rob Zombie, he of the brutally deranged (yet somehow mordantly funny), retro-style horror flicks House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. As you’d expect, the director—an avid fan of all things 1970s who grew up in a family of carney folk and who likes to cast people like Adrienne Barbeau (once married to Carpenter) and Karen Black in his films—is giving this re-imagining a twisted, ultra-violent spin all his own, revealing Michael Myers’s formative years. We had a chance to talk to the intense, no-nonsense Mr. Zombie and ask, what really gives with this boogeyman?
Fandango: Halloween is the 800-pound gorilla of horror movies. Why tackle this one?
Rob Zombie: It never crossed my mind to do anything with Michael Myers or Halloween, but then the opportunity came up, which I found exciting. It's not often that you get to make a movie with an iconic monster. Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy -- these are the classic iconic monsters. But there are very few modern-day ones that have popped up in that last 20 years or so: Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger, maybe, Leatherface, but there's not a lot. So that was the big attraction. Of all the modern monsters, Michael Myers is probably the most famous, I suppose.
Fandango: Can you compare your take on Halloween to the original?
Rob Zombie: I hope you can't compare it to the original. Because this film is so different that I think that as soon as people watch the first five minutes, they'll be like, “Okay, done comparing.” I set out to make a completely different film; that was what was exciting to me. I kept the classic icon of Michael Myers intact, of course, but my real goal was to make something that was so different from John Carpenter's original film that comparing and contrasting would be completely pointless.
Fandango: Did you get Carpenter’s blessing on the movie?
Rob Zombie: I talked to John right before I started. I wanted him to know about it before the news came out. He was like, “Hey, great, go for it.”
Fandango: Your two previous movies, House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects had a pitch-black humor about them. Did you bring any of that to Halloween?
Rob Zombie: Not really. I wanted this film to be different in approach. That sort of vibe that I had with The Devil's Rejects is not prevalent here, because I didn't think it was appropriate. This is a more somber, serious movie.
Fandango: You go back to Michael’s childhood — what was the motivation for revealing his back story?
Rob Zombie: I didn't want to make a sequel — forget about it, that's ridiculous. And a prequel is, to me, not that interesting either. So what I wanted to do was just start from scratch.
I’ve always loved John Carpenter's film, but it leaves open all kinds of great things that you could explore, because Dr. Loomis just alludes to things, but we never see any of it. So I thought, how great? Now this time, we see it all. We get a glimpse into young Michael, and his background at Smith's Grove [Sanitarium]. A lot of people think there was some story line where he was created by his environment; that's not true at all. I took the approach as if it was a true story. The reality is that psychotic people who have no sense of emotion and no sense of connection to other humans are just born that way.
Fandango: Did you study any real-life serial killers for this?
Rob Zombie: Well, not so much serial killers, but I studied real-life psychotics because that's essentially what Michael Myers is. He's psychotic. It's just that sense of having no understanding of human emotion or connection whatsoever, no conscience.
Fandango: Tell me about the casting. Jamie Lee Curtis left some pretty big shoes to fill.
Rob Zombie: Well, it's not like we're trying to find someone who looks like her and acts like her. We're not trying to mimic what she did. Scout Taylor-Compton came in and read, and there was something about her right away. I think, once again, that nobody's going to be comparing her to Jamie Lee Curtis by the time this movie ends, because it's so different, that you're going to go, “Wow, she's f***ing amazing.”
Fandango: And you have supremely creepy Malcolm MacDowell as Dr. Loomis.
Rob Zombie: Malcolm's great, and what Malcolm brings to it is the same thing that Donald Pleasence [as Dr. Loomis in the 1978 film] brought to the original. You bring someone in of that stature, and it's great. Malcolm comes in with his own completely unique vibe. His character goes through a much more severe character arc. With Pleasence, we only see him after it's all gone bad, but he speaks about the time in Smith's Grove when he was trying to reach Michael. Well, that would have been a very different character. If you're that doctor, you're going to be very different from when you think you can help a patient to when you think the patient is beyond help and you just want to keep him locked up.
Fandango: The subject matter is so grim, what was it like on the shoot? Serious, or was there some levity on set?
Rob Zombie: Well, I think that the best way to work is to be serious. Obviously there're light moments here and there, but you've got to have respect for actors. I don't think it's ever to the actor's benefit to break the tension of what you're trying to do. You can't yell, “Cut,” and have everybody goof around. It's not about having fun, it's about making a great movie, you know.
Fandango: Some hardcore horror fans have questioned why remake a classic. What would you say to them?
Rob Zombie: I wouldn't say anything. Would you rather a part nine? Did you enjoy Part Eight so much that Part Nine was something that you were hoping for?
Fandango: Is the door open for a sequel?
Rob Zombie: Not that I know of. My only goal was to make a great movie with a beginning, middle, and an end. I have no desire to do anything else ever with Halloween, but I'm sure they'll find a way to make [a follow-up]. With horror movies it doesn't matter what you do, they'll find a way. We could have shot Michael Myers into space, and he'd somehow return. I don't leave it open for a sequel because I like movies that have an end, but that doesn't mean that six months from now you'll hear Halloween 2 being announced, everybody knows that scam.
Fandango: At the same time they're making Halloween 25. [Laughs]
Rob Zombie: Yeah. I don't know what the hell they're doing; I just know that I'm done.
Fandango: To you, what makes a good horror movie?
Rob Zombie: The same thing that makes any movie good: a good story, with good actors, and compelling characters that you want to watch, because if you don't care about the characters and you don't want to follow the journey of the movie, you don't f***ing care. I think sometimes what f***s up a lot of horror movies is people think there are different rules.
The best movies are ones where you're there; it's real because the characters and the actors have made it real. And it doesn't matter how much blood or special effects you throw in there.
A great example is The Shining, it's very slow, but it becomes real, and you're so sucked in. By the time you're watching Scatman Crothers driving to the hotel, you're freaked out. The simplest thing needs to become real in the audience's mind.
Fandango: The lack of that seems to be one thing that is hurting the genre lately.
Rob Zombie: That's what everyone forgets. They make them campy, they make them wacky, they don't bother even putting good actors in them who can give you a performance. Even actors think, “Oh it's a horror movie, I know what you want,” and I go, “No, you don't.” Approach it like it's a serious drama, because that's the only way you're going to get that real feeling of dread that will bother people, and get under their skin.
Rob Zombie's Halloween is in theaters nationwide Friday, Aug. 31.
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