Rob Zombie: The Mr. Skin Interview

The Devil's Rejects sharpens your personal vision from House of 1000 Corpses. Where the first film is an homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and other horror classics, what were your influences filming the sequel?
The influences weren't horror movies at all. It was more '70s road pictures like Two-Lane Blacktop and even things like The Wild Bunch, Electra Guide in Blue, Bonnie and Clyde. More like wide-open, violent road things.

You've also plucked some great cult actors out of obscurity by casting them in your movies. Were there any who didn't answer your call who you'd love to work with?
Yeah, there are tons of people. Clint Howard was somebody I really wanted to get involved with. I never really talked with him, but the message came back saying he thought it was too violent or something. I find that hard to believe. The agent may have never told him. And John Saxon was another person that I wanted to use. But basically that was it. I got everybody. I tracked down everybody from P.J. Soles to Mary Woronov, everybody came out for it.

When you approached Sid Haig was it because of his work with Pam Grier (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3), the movie Spider Baby, or TV show Jason of Star Command?
Well, Jason of Star Command was the first time I was conscious of Sid. That was, what, 1977 or something? I was a kid. I remember thinking, "Wow, that guy's a freak." Then Spider Baby, I loved him in that. And then all the Jack Hill stuff, Foxy Brown and Coffy.

But he always drove me crazy because he was one of those actors, I'd say, "That guy is so compelling, but they never give him anything to do!" I'd fast forward through Coffy and he'd have his cool, tiny moments, but he'd never really ...

Right, like throwing Lana Wood out of a window ...
Yeah, in Diamonds are Forever (Picture: 1).

You've given him a meaty role, even better than House of 1000 Corpses.
I wished I had given him more to do. And I actually re-shot the ending of the movie differently to end with him. This time I wanted to make him more integrated.

Is this the last we'll be seeing of the Firefly family?
It's pretty much gone, because I want to do something different. It's a real weird thing. You come up with the characters, you deal with the actors over the years, and you love them and want to keep it going, but you know that it's only going to go downhill until there's a point in which you really should have stopped. They were really cool in this movie and now it's really stupid. And then you want to create new characters and find other cool actors that you've always loved that you want to work with.

Beyond the kick-ass '70s soundtrack, your movie feels like a '70s movie. What is it about that decade's filmmaking that inspires you?
I love the '70s on every level. That was the time when I was the perfect age to love everything. I thought the movies were the best, the music was the best, the girls looked the hottest. And then the '80s I thought were just horrible and tacky and disgusting and I don't care about anything then. But the '70s seem like that last bit of time before the corporate thing took over everything, movies and music.

In the '70s, crazy stuff was still happening. I love it. You watch movies like The Getaway and you're like twenty minutes into the movie and you're like, "What the fuck is going on? Who is this character? Oh, he's getting out of prison." It was great. But now you know everything from the trailer. The director was still god; and then in the '80s the actors become god and started calling the shots. The director was nobody and then Schwarzenegger was god! And that's when everything became really basic and just feeding actors' egos.

What's your take on the state of today's horror movies?
There's good stuff coming out, but when there's good stuff and it makes money then suddenly every studio is saying, "What can we remake, what can we remake?" It's so disgusting. You get a film like House of Wax. Any reason to see that--probably not. The Dawn of the Dead remake, even though the original is one of my favorite movies, I went in thinking this is going to be horrendous, but it was pretty cool. They stuck to the plan as much as they possibly can, even though I hate the idea of remakes.

The character of Baby was written specifically for your wife, Sheri Moon. In both movies her rear end is often the focus of your camera. Are you an ass man?
I figured that was the best special effect we had going. Yeah, people keep pointing that out and I say, "Really? Is it that much?" And then the other day I watched it and, yeah, I guess it's that much.

There is a scene in The Devil's Rejects where she taunts one of her victims to shoot her naked ass.
That was pretty funny. Can't go much further than that.

Thanks to you, Sheri has been elevated to iconic status, somewhere between the stars of '70s sexploitation and the Manson Girls.
That was always sort of the goal.

Mission accomplished. But who are your favorite sexy ladies of exploitation?
I think that probably A-number-one is Pam Grier. I mean anyone would pale in comparison. After you watch Coffy, she's so over the top. As a kid--this is not really exploitation--but Farrah Fawcett scarred everyone of my age for life. You know, you can't get past it. That's what every woman's supposed to look like.

Remember the Time magazine cover with Charlie's Angels, and the big controversy as to whether Farrah's nipple was poking through her mesh top?
There are a lot of great controversies concerning that. Before that it would be anything with Raquel Welch, Myra Breckinridge (Picture: 1 - 2) or Bedazzled. And when I was a kid, before Farrah hit, I was obsessed with Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (Picture: 1 - 2). Hot chicks with guns.

Growing up, what were the horror classics that pulled you to the dark side?
All the original wave of '30s and '40s stuff, [John] Zacherle didn't exist where I grew up, but there were those Saturday creature double-feature horror hosts.

What will kids do today without all those local affiliates playing old horror movies, crazy '70s exploitation, and those European mod flicks? How will they become damaged goods?
It's all gone. The funny thing is you had like twelve TV channels and at least two channels were always showing amazing movies. Now, I literally have nine hundred channels and I flip through them all like, "Dog shit, dog shit, dog shit, crap, crap," there's nothing on. All the catalogues are bought up and no one can show anything. You can go buy the DVD and see anything you want. The problem is I would discover things. Oh, there's a W.C. Fields movie on and you'd start watching because there was nothing else on TV to watch at that time, and you'd go like, "Oh my God, this is amazing!" But now, unless you're some fourteen-year-old who's obsessed with Turner Classic Movies, which maybe there are, but for the most part they're just not there for kids to find.

How about the sexy side. You upped the nudity ante in your sequel. Do you remember the first sex scene you saw in a mainstream movie?
It wasn't a sex scene, but I remember the first nude scene. I think my parents took us to see Hair, the Treat Williams film, where Beverly D'Angelo strips down, jumps in the water (Picture: 1 - 2). That was the first nudity in the movies.

You saw that with your folks? Did it make you uncomfortable?
I don't think I was sitting with them, because they'd always say, "I don't want to sit that close to the screen." Then HBO came into being and it was all over at that point.

Speaking of sex, is it true you used to work for adult publications?
That was about 1986. I got a job at one little studio, it was about this big [gesturing to the hotel room], and they did about ten different magazines, the main one, similar to what you do, [was] Celebrity Sleuth.

You worked for Sleuth!
Yeah, for several years, I had to do all the paste-up and design. It was a one-man operation. I'd do the whole issue one day and then the next day Over 40, Legs, Fat Ass, everything else.

I'm glad we finally shed some light on that. That'll be the item that'll stop the presses.
At Mr. Skin, anyway.

All Rob Zombie photos and illustrations courtesy of RobZombie.com