August 30, 2009

Earlier this week, ICONS OF FRIGHT was invited to join in on a series of roundtable interviews for HALLOWEEN 2. (Now playing in theaters!) We’ve decided to pair up the interviews in batches and offer them to you in their entirety. (‘Tis the ICONS way!) Beware of major spoilers! We’ve done our best to mark them before you get to them, that way you can come back after you’ve seen the movie. Keep in mind that several journalists are asking questions here, so ICONS is credited when it’s us asking. This edition features the writer/director himself, ROB ZOMBIE! Enjoy!

Rob Zombie:

What’s the fun in horror movies?

That’s funny, that was the last question they just asked me in the other room. I didn’t really have a good answer. For me, it’s just movies period. Not necessarily horror movies. I just like dark, violet material.

Why?

I don’t know why? Its funny, because I’m writing this thing about CLOCKWORK ORANGE for the DGA magazine, and I was doing some research and I found that Roger Ebert gave this movie a horrible review when it came out in 1972. And everything he said which is why he hated it is exactly why I like it. So I don’t know.

Hard childhood?

I guess, yeah. I don’t know! If you’re life is weird and fucked up, you like to see things that are weird and fucked up.

What movie scared you as a kid?

Weird things are scary when you’re a kid. I think probably the scariest thing, as stupid as it sounds was THE WIZARD OF OZ with the flying monkeys and the witch. I remember seeing that when I was really little and it still seems freaky. Seems really fucked up!

ICONS: That and WILLY WONKA scared the shit out of me.

Yeah, WILLY WONKA too! Not even like, I’d watch FRANKENSTEIN and it never seemed scary yet somehow THE WIZARD OF OZ was a freak show.

ICONS: So, HALLOWEEN 2. Obviously you had quite a time restraint to get this movie in theaters by August 28th. Hope it didn’t compromise what you wanted to do. Is the movie coming out in theaters essentially what you set out to do? Will there be a longer director’s cut for the DVD? I know there’s tons of material that didn’t make it into the theatrical cut.

Um, ya know, except for THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, I feel like everything has been compromised in some way by scheduling. Because THE DEVIL’S REJECTS was the only movie I ever made that had no release date. We worked on it and worked on it until we got it right. Or at least until we felt we got it right. We sort of looked at it and thought, ya know? There’s nothing else I want to change. There’s nothing else I want to do. Whereas, I’ve never had that luxury since. And um, I don’t know what would be different. The thing is – editing is a crucial time and when you get rushed through that process, you’re never 100 percent sure that you’ve got exactly the perfect take of every actor, or the perfect moment because there’s so much footage to go through and so you do your best to do it with the time that you have. As far as a longer cut for the director’s cut, there is another version of the movie that’s very, very different that will probably be the director’s cut. There were 2 ways we could cut the movie. The way we cut it for the theatrical, Laurie Strode’s character is the main difference in the two. (In the theatrical) She’s holding it together, getting her life together and it starts spiraling downward. In the other version, she’s an incredible mess and gets worse. She never has any good moments, she’s just messed up, she’s lashing out at everyone, she’s horrible. Messed up on drugs, she’s just completely spun out through the whole movie. It makes for a real challenging movie to watch and I feel like I don’t know if fans would’ve embraced so much darkness.

Is there still a white horse motif in that version?

Yeah, everything’s the same in that version except for her. There’s other scenes with her, and mostly with Annie. Her relationship with Annie is horrible and they’re at each other’s throats through the whole movie. They are not in the theatrical version.

What’s the story with the leaked unused trailer?

The trailer that got leaked I remember really, really liking.

What was the inspiration for the white horse motif?

Well, I wanted – the horse thing, I was just trying to find some significant thing that could be a through line. It could’ve been anything, it’s not so much that that’s so significant. It had to be some minor event from young Michael Myer’s life that he has stuck in his brain. That I could then tie through to Laurie. And that just seemed like – the white horse is such a great visual image. And then when I started researching these meaning of dream type books, even though it’s a bunch of bullshit to me. They all reference this great significance with the white horse. And I put the definition at the beginning of the movie. It seemed like the perfect childlike image to carry through.

For your characters, is there an urge to get behind the violence and anger?

Well, I like making everything a bit wishy-washy in the sense that, we don’t want people to feel bad for Michael Myers necessarily, but I don’t want him to just be the “villain”. That’s why I like giving him something he didn’t have much of in the other movies is making him a character. It’s a little bit like you might feel a little bit bad because he’s this big hulking monster that’s basically still got the brain of a 10 year old boy. And who’s been locked away his whole life. Like I was saying, it’s like the FRANKENSTEIN scenario. No matter what he does, it’s still sort of this misunderstood monster scenario and I always find that more interesting. I guess with growing up with all those old movies that always had that motif to it.

This one’s more your feel. How’d the 2 differ for you?

This film to me is more like a logical follow-up to THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. Whereas HALLOWEEN the first one seemed like a weird side step, where I think because it was someone else’s material, it kinda of messed with me. I made the first half of the movie my thing, and the second half I felt well I should bring in more John Carpenter beats because that’s what people are going to be expecting. But as soon as I started doing that, I don’t think I had quite the enthusiasm for the film as I did with the new stuff, because the fun of it is creating your world and when you go ‘oh ok’, Annie Bracket and Lynda and Laurie. These are someone else’s characters. That’s why in this movie, I tried to flip them all upside down and make them my characters.

Any interest in moving away from horror?

Yeah, totally. Even after my first movie I wanted to move on. The thing is, it’s hard to get movies made. It’s virtually impossible. It’s hard to get people to green light projects, so you just sort of take them as they come and try to deal with them. I didn’t want to make HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES PART 2. So I thought I’m going to make this movie called THE DEVIL’S REJECTS and make it totally different and make it like this post-modern Western. Technically it’s a follow-up, it’s the same characters, but I had no interest in re-visiting what I’d already done. It’s sort of the same thing with HALLOWEEN II. I tried to push it away from what I had done. People come into something called HALLOWEEN expecting something.

Also coming to expect something from you as well.

Yeah, so there’s expectations on something like this.

What’s next? THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO?

EL SUPERBEASTO is done. That comes out September 22nd. And that’s an animated movie that’s a comedy. It’s totally different then anything I’ve ever done. It’s sort of like X-Rated SCOOBY DOO. And it’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. It’s part musical, part comedy. It’s crazy.

What scary movies do you go to see?

I don’t know. I tend to avoid horror movies at the theater, because I always think they’re going to be lousy. And my friends work on them so they’ll tell me in advance, oh man this movie’s terrible. Don’t waste your time! So it kills your excitement factor. (Laughs)

So you haven’t seen the big horror movies of the last few years like HOSTEL or SAW?

I saw HOSTEL and I saw HOSTEL PART 2. It gets weird because you’re friends with these people, so I really want to go see Eli’s movies and support Eli. SAW, I saw the first one, I haven’t seen any of the other ones. Um – It’s not really my type of thing. Even if they’re awesome. It’s just not my type of thing. I don’t know. Even if it’s 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. Everyone loves that, so I went to see that and it’s just not my thing. I thought it might be my type of thing.

But you’re often paired up with those filmmakers as part of the “Splat Pack.”

I don’t relate to that. I don’t want to be part of any group that’ll have me as a member. So as soon as I heard “The Splat Pack”, I was like please, kick me out of that group. If there’s one thing as a director that you don’t want to be, it’s part of a “group”. I just have an aversion to that. Same thing with music, whenever there’s a “scene”, I just don’t want to be part of a scene. Just leave me alone! That’s just my nature. It’s nothing against the people that are in that group. They’re all friends of mine & I know all of them and they’re all great. I just like to be left alone.

Is TYRANNOSAURUS REX next?

It’s a boxing movie, actually. Yeah, it’s about this guy named Rex. His nickname is “Tyrannosaurus Rex” and it’s about this washed up prize fighter who goes to prison for assaulting these guys in a bar because he’s kind of this born to loose out of control personality. And when he gets out of prison, he’s too old to box so he gets caught up in underground fighting. Because he’s so filled with rage that he can’t control himself in normal society. It’s pretty dark. That’d be a darker movie then HALLOWEEN. That might be my next movie and that’s not a horror movie.

Given your tight schedule on editing, was this movie tougher then the first HALLOWEEN?

Yeah, I will not make another movie under these circumstances, it’s just not the way to do it. When you lock into a release date and then you move the release date up by 2 months, it’s just not good. It’s good for everything but the cast, crew and people who are creatively trying to make a film. (Laughs)

Post is always the part that is rushed and the most crucial.

That’s where you make or break a film. With DEVIL’S REJECTS, we didn’t reshoot anything on that, we had limited time, that was the cheapest movie we made. But we had the time to craft it afterwards. For this one, luckily I always use the same editor and we have a really good short hand, usually he immediately gravitates towards the takes I like best so he knows & we can work really fast. But I don’t know. The problem is and everybody says it, nobody makes movies anymore, they just make schedules and budgets. They don’t make movies anymore. Unfortunately it’s so true.

A lot of filmmakers for these types of films say making these movies is very therapeutic. Is that how it is for you?

I think so. Everybody’s just so repressed, that if they could get more sex and violence into their life, they might feel happier. Not necessarily at the same time!

Can you talk about the kills in HALLOWEEN 2?

The killing I always try to keep very basic and brutal, because that’s the thing about some of these movies, they get really into concocting elaborate scenarios which make sense if that’s the movie, but for this movie it doesn’t.

Is this more intense then the first HALLOWEEN?

It might be. It’s definitely more violent I think. It’s nastier. It’s uglier and grosser.