August 31, 2007

What’s your favorite classic car? Everyone has a favorite classic car. So say you’ve spent a year learning a bit about cars, changing the brakes, fixing up scratches, maybe replace a starter or two. One day someone shows up at your house with a rusting, banged up 1967 Camaro and says, “Hey, buddy…wanna take this thing for a ride?” Sure you think, maybe, so you get in the car. “Listen buddy, this is a real classic car. I can give it to you for a week, one week. You fix it up real nice, you get it running good. Do whatever you want to it, but listen carefully: Don’t. Fuck. It. Up.” So, what are you going to do?

If you’re Rob Zombie you take the challenge, and you go for it. Intimidating as it might have seemed, and certainly not without a little hesitation Rob Zombie has taken on the seemingly impossible task of reinventing “HALLOWEEN”. Here he talks candidly with Icons of Fright about what it takes to bring new life, and a new sense of sheer terror to an aging horror series. – by Mike C. (with Mike Bacon from Friday Morning Quarterback) – 8/07

How did the opportunity to direct “HALLOWEEN” present itself for you?

You know, it came up in a weird way. After I finished “THE DEVIL’S REJECTS” I met with a lot of different people. Other remakes came my way that I didn’t have any interest in, other original stuff too, different things. Took a million meetings, kinda worked on some projects a little bit. Then they started turning into things I didn’t want to be associated with. One day I got a call asking if I wanted to meet with Bob Weinstein because he was in town, I think for the Golden Globes. Ok, I’ll have a meeting, but this is the last fucking meeting I’m doing. I’m sick of having meetings because they never amount to anything. It’s just a lot of chit-chat. So I went and met him at his hotel and we started talking and he just threw out “”HALLOWEEN””. Dimension owns the rights to “HALLOWEEN” and he wanted to know my take on “HALLOWEEN”. Not as a remake, just in any sense. They had “HALLOWEEN” and they didn’t know what to do with it essentially. I know they had tried several times to make a “HALLOWEEN” movie and it failed, so that’s basically how it came to me. Just out of the blue.

So you get “HALLOWEEN” as your project, and it must be great considering you’re a huge genre fan, but also consequently you have to reinvent “HALLOWEEN”. Did you have a moment where you thought “What have I gotten myself into?”

Well, at first I didn’t know if I really wanted to do it because I was not really keen on the idea of making a remake. I just said “I don’t know, I’ll think about it”, sort of thinking that I was going to call them back later and say no. But I left there and I thought about it for a couple of weeks. And then I kind of starting feeling like, “Wait a minute. Why am I assuming that this is a bad idea? This could be an incredible idea. I’m taking the completely wrong attitude.” And I started working on it thinking, Yeah I’m totally going to do this. I started envisioning how you could do this. I looked at it and thought Michael Myers is a great character. He’s one of the few modern day iconic monsters. There’s only about 4 or 5 modern day monsters. They very rarely pop up and present themselves in a classic way. So, I thought, “Shit I have to do this movie. This is a great thing. This could be so great.”

How much free reign was given to you to make it yours?

100%. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. That’s what they wanted. Bob Weinstein said, “We want you to take it and run with it!” If there was only one thing he kept stressing to me more and more, which became his catch phrase was, “Make it more Rob Zombie!” (Laughs) He wasn’t worried about protecting the franchise… he wasn’t worried about anything. He just wanted me to take it and run with it. Once again, it was a very rare situation so it was very difficult to say no.

Was it difficult to make it? You had a lot of time between HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. “HALLOWEEN” was announced last June (2006) and it’s now coming out August (2007)

The biggest hindrance to me was I made the mistake… Well, I had seen “HALLOWEEN” a million times, but I had never seen it with the thought that I was going to remake it. So then I watched it again and again and again, and it actually started doing more harm then it did good, it started fucking with my head because I had the same thought that fans have. How can you possibly do this? How can you change this? So, I had to stop watching it and stop thinking about it and just start spinning it off in my own direction. It wasn’t that difficult.

It was harder towards the end, because the beginning of the movie, doing young Michael Myers life was easy because it hadn’t existed before. People look at the first movie and go “Oh he was a normal kid!” We don’t really know any of that. He doesn’t say anything and we don’t really get any insight into him. That’s just people projecting that onto what they see. So, I thought, ok, that’s good, I can run with that because that’s pretty much a clean slate. And then everything with Doctor Loomis in the early days of Smiths Grove Sanitarium was also a clean slate. I could pretty much do whatever I wanted there. It was really when I got to the third act of the movie where we got to Haddonfield that I wanted to retain some classic elements. Make it different but retain classic elements. The best way I can describe it for people is that it’s like Batman Begins. You’re keeping Wayne Manor. You’re keeping Batman. You want the Batsuit. You’re probably going to have Alfred as the butler. You’re going to keep some of the classic things, but the way you want to represent it is completely different.

What did you want from your cast? What did you want for your Loomis, and for your Jaime and for your Michael Myers?

The main thing I wanted from everyone at all times was to be real and to take it seriously. Because one of the problems you have sometimes… You know… Horror fans love horror. But there’s a whole section of the population that not only don’t love horror, they don’t even care about it at all. Sometimes that’s an actor you have, so they come into it thinking “Oh I know what these movies are like. You know, it’s going to be kind of campy.” You know, they have a preconceived idea of what kind of acting you want for a horror movie. But no, I don’t want that. I want you guys to play this as if it’s a true story. Dead serious. A real thing. This whole movie’s going to live and die on the acting. It’s not about bad acting and the special FX. I want this whole movie to be compelling because you guys are giving amazing performances. Not because there’s a guy in a big mask walking around.

How beneficial was it for you that some of the main cast members had never seen “HALLOWEEN”? I know Malcolm McDowell had never seen the original.

It was great that they hadn’t seen it, because I didn’t want them to imitate what had come before them, because well… the people in the original didn’t imitate anything. That was just their fresh take on what they should do. If people start imitating, then it would get weird. You don’t want to watch someone do a Donald Pleasence imitation or something. And there’s no reason that they should, because someone like Malcolm McDowell is a great actor. I wanted Malcolm McDowell to be Malcolm McDowell, not to be imitating someone else. For the most part, the cast had either not seen the movie, or had seen it so long ago that their memories of it were so vague. So, it was never really a factor.

What about for someone like Danielle Harris, who not only had seen (the original) but had been in other “HALLOWEEN” sequels?

Casting Danielle was a different case. A lot of people had approached me to be in the movie that had been in the other movies. And I said “No offense, I think you’re great and I’d love to work with you, but I don’t want you in “HALLOWEEN”” because if you start seeing people that are in cameos, the movie does not play as a serious movie. It plays as a joke, and I didn’t want that.
Danielle Harris came in and read, I wasn’t there that day, but I really was thinking I wasn’t going to cast her because she had been in HALLOWEEN 4 and 5 and I didn’t see that as a plus, I saw that as a minus. Yeah, the fans would love her, but I didn’t want to devalue this movie by saying “Hey look. It’s a wink-wink nudge- nudge homage to another movie.” I didn’t want to play it that way. It had to live and die as its own movie. But, you know, to her credit, and this is the greatest compliment I can give is that she was so great that I cast her even though I didn’t want to cast her. So, she knew that. I’ve told her that many times.

From outside looking in, the casting is excellent. Did you have some of the cast in mind going in? Or cast from auditions?

It was a little of both. I mean, all the older actors I wanted. I knew I wanted Tyler (Mane) for Michael Myers. I knew I wanted Malcolm McDowell. I knew I wanted William Forsythe and Dee Wallace. Really, the only people that I cast in casting sessions were the 3 girls, Laurie, Annie, Linda and the 3 kids, young Michael Myers, Tommy Doyle and Lindsay Wallace. Those are the only people that came in and read. But everybody else, I knew who I wanted but I didn’t have… a 10 year old in mind. Young Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, I knew I needed fresh faces that were not identifiable to any other films.

Scout Taylor-Compton’s performance from what I’m hearing is supposed to be really, really strong.

It’s phenomenal. She’s amazing. And that was the greatest thing, because she was the only person that I wanted. Tons of people came in. People that were recognizable from other things, people that weren’t, but Scout was always my number one choice. So, I always fought for her. I wanted her to be Laurie Strode, I knew that she would be perfect.

Going back to Malcolm McDowell, I was just wondering what he brought to the table considering what a great actor he is?

Malcolm’s a strange actor because he always has that vibe to him. Even when he’s the good guy, he seems like he’s the bad guy. I don’t know. He’s got that innate sinisterness about him. But in a very likable way. Like in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, no matter how bad he is, you think “I kinda like that guy!” What was great about “HALLOWEEN” is we created more of a character arc where younger Loomis is more idealistic. He’s a child psychologist who starts working with this kid. And I kind of took the approach with it, I tried to pull from real life, Vincent Bugliosi is just a prosecutor, but then he gets the Manson case.

So now he’s the world’s most famous prosecutor and that’s going to change your life. Now, he’s forever linked to Charles Manson. Forever. And that’s kind of the way I wanted to take it here. Doctor Loomis crosses paths with Michael before he ever does anything. And then he becomes part of Michael’s life, and they become so intertwined that Malcolm starts one way and ends up another way. He starts out very idealistic and sort of becomes this cynical guy that knows that everything he did was basically a failure. It’s interesting to watch his character evolve.

Donald (Pleasence) often said he loved the character of Loomis and would keep playing him. How’d Malcolm feel about the character?

I think Malcolm would do it again. Probably. Malcolm seemed to have a blast. He was enjoying every minute of it. I loved Malcolm. That was one of the greatest things about this movie. I’ve always loved Malcolm, weather it was CLOCKWORK or IF or O LUCKY MAN or CALIGOLA or TIME AFTER TIME, I was always a big Malcolm fan. And to get to work with him, and to have him be the coolest fucking guy you’re ever going to meet was just great. What more could you ask for?

Speaking of innately sinister actors, what about Brad Dourif? You see him on screen for 5 minutes and he’s innately sinister.

That’s the funny thing. I like casting people like that. I cast Brad as the Sheriff, he’s the good guy. I cast Danny Trejo as kind of like the sympathetic kind of guy, not as a tough guy. I cast Clint Howard as the serious doctor. I was trying to cast people opposite what they normally are.

And Brad’s great, what I love about Brad is he comes across so earnest in his performance. He really sinks in and he really, really thinks about it. He doesn’t just show up and say his lines, he really thinks about it and you can see it in his eyes. It’s something that you may not even notice on set sometimes, and it’s sorta like that X factor that only certain actors have, but there’s just a whole other level to the look in their eye and you really buy into it. That’s Brad. Brad’s really brilliant. I really enjoyed working with him. Dee Wallace was another one who was a pleasure to work with.

She’s a sweetheart, met her a couple of times at the conventions.

I never wanted her to leave! (Laughs) Ya know, I just wanted to keep sticking her in scenes because she’s just so great. She’s another one, she’s made a million movies, but she’s just incredible. It’s just a big love fest going on. (Laughs)

You’ve got Sybil Danning in this too!

I met Sybil for GRINDHOUSE. Because my original plan for the three Nazis was to have Sheri, Sybil and Diane Thorn (Ilsa) as the three Nazi women. But Diane didn’t want to do it, for some reason. That was kinda a bummer. Um, but that’s where I met Cybil. And I was already in production on “HALLOWEEN” at that time when I stopped to do the WEREWOLF WOMAN thing. And she said, “Oh if there’s anything in “HALLOWEEN”, I’d love to do it. Anything. Anything!” And there really was only one kind of part left, she plays a nurse in the sanitarium. It’s one brief scene. But she came in and rocked it. (Laughs)

Considering how active you were with your blog on My Space, it seems like we were all getting our news and information from your My Space blog. Was any of the feedback you were getting on the internet influential while you were making the film?

It was not influential in any way whatsoever. It really can’t be, because the people that are commenting have no idea what they’re commenting on. They’re commenting on a movie that they haven’t seen, or a movie that isn’t even been made yet!

So, it’s completely useless information unfortunately. And um, when I was working on the film, in pre-production on making the film, I didn’t look at anything on line or anywhere, because I didn’t care. Because you’re so focused on what you’re trying to do, that it just doesn’t matter. The only way to make your movie is you have to have a vision for what you want, and you have to be so single-minded that you don’t give a fucking shit what any one thinks. It’s the same thing with casting. Certain people in the movie, nobody wanted me to cast them, and I had to fight to cast them. It went on for months sometimes, but I wouldn’t let go of it. And now, that it’s done, it’s like “Wow, that person’s fucking amazing. Thank God we cast them!” Because that’s the way it goes. That’s the director’s job, you have to be put on the blinders and get ready to fucking fight the fight.

Expanding upon your My Space blog, there was a lot of concern from fans that telling the backstory might take away from the mystique of Michael Myers. But as a fan, I always craved for more of that story to be told.

Yeah, and I mean, truthfully all that kind of talk to me is meaningless, because people’s only frame of reference is that (original) movie. So, that’s why they think it’s that way.

Even (John) Carpenter put in a few extra scenes in “HALLOWEEN” 2. Such as him carving “sister” in the wall of his room at Smiths Grove…

I think it’s totally fascinating. I don’t think it demystifies the character. First of all, nobody knows what I did. (Laughs) People say I don’t want all that explained. Who ever said I was explaining anything? The funniest thing about the internet… is one person will say, “Well I heard this…” and then that sends 100 other people off on a tangents about why that would be a bad idea. Well, that’s not true to begin with, so I don’t know why they’re all getting bent out of shape. I mean, the thing with Michael Myers, I didn’t want to explain anything. Because that is sort of the great thing about him. I wanted to get glimpses of his life, but everything that would make him that person is completely unexplainable. You can’t go “Oh this happened, so he’s like that.” No, the whole point was I wanted to set him in a more lower class situation because it doesn’t matter if he grew up in a rich family or a poor family, he’s still fucking psycho! The environment doesn’t matter. Friends don’t matter, because he’s a fucking psychopath and I just found that interesting. Good boy from nice house goes bad – it just didn’t interest me to do the same stuff that had been done before.
Anyway, that stuff people have created. In the first “HALLOWEEN” movie, all we know is that through the POV of a clown mask, a kid goes in and kills his sister. He walks outside, two people drive up, one guy pulls off the mask and says “Michael?” That’s all we know! Maybe they’re the next door neighbors? Maybe he was beaten by his father? We don’t know anything! Anything from that movie is pure speculation put on by the fans. I mean, we don’t know anything. It was my job to fill in the blanks as I saw fit.

Retelling the story to satisfy both purists and fans who wanted more, and your own vision.

Yeah, and what I thought was fascinating, or what’s fascinating to me is we get to see Doctor Loomis in the original after the shit’s hit the fan. He’s worked with this young boy, he’s failed, and now all he wants to do is keep him locked up. Well, I thought, how great to see Doctor Loomis while he’s still optimistic about Michael Myers. And slowly he realizes this is hopeless. That’s what I thought was great. Donald Pleasence would hint at these things but we never got to see them.

I know, and I always wanted to see that stuff.

A crazy guy in a nightgown jumps out into the rain and drives the car away. That’s all we got. The other thing that drives me crazy, I’m always comparing and contrasting the films, but I fucking LOVE John Carpenter’s film. But the problem is when I compare and contrast, people think I’m insulting the movie. No, I’m not. I’m just telling you how mine’s different.

Has he (John Carpenter) seen the final product yet?

No, as of now no one’s seen the final product except me. Well, and the editor.

What was the dialogue like with Carpenter when you started working on “HALLOWEEN”?

Oh it was pretty simple. I called him the day before the news was breaking, because I knew the next day it was going to be in Variety or something. I had known John for about 10 years, so I called him up “Hey, just wanted to tell you I’m doing this “HALLOWEEN” remake”. And he said, “Hey, great! That’s cool. Go for it. Anything else?” (Laughs) He’s a mellow dude. He was just like “Cool!”

The music in “HALLOWEEN” is almost as iconic as Michael Myers himself. What were you looking for from Tyler Bates’ new score?

Tyler was in the same boat as me essentially. Because the music is just as iconic as anything else. And we weren’t really sure, because as I was shooting, he didn’t really start the music. He kind of dabbled with it, but he didn’t start until late in the process, because we weren’t even sure if the John Carpenter themes would work. You know, because they’re so familiar and they’re so associated with the movies you’ve already seen. I don’t know.

I thought maybe when you’re watching this movie, they’ll seem out of place. Who knows? I mean, we eventually did use all of them. All the classic stuff. He went back and rescored them, but played them pretty straight. We didn’t want to make it big and bombastic and rocking and techno-ey or any horseshit like that. We did it on purpose so it kind of sounded old. If anything had a weird synth thing, we’d use some old junk. We wanted it to sound authentic. And when he composed new music, it was the same thing. We wanted to make it sound like maybe there was a piece of score we never heard from back then. The score is pretty cool.

How’d you decide on the songs? And how integral to the film are they?

Well, the songs that I picked that I used, they don’t play as score. It’s not like DEVIL’S REJECTS where “Freebird” plays as a score element. The songs are all pretty much background things on the radio and things like that. What I like about putting songs like that in the movie is it just grounds the world in reality. And also, what was nice is that there’s almost no sound in Smiths Grove Sanitarium. It’s so sterile.

And when Michael gets out the first place he goes to is this huge truck wash where they wash 18 wheelers and that’s when he has his altercation with Ken Foree’s character. The guys are washing the trucks and blasting music. And it was just like, from the world he had been trapped in to for 15 years, he steps outside and just explodes in this world of sound. It was just a way to contrast the isolation that he’d been living in for all those years.

Can you talk a little bit about the recent reshoots?

Basically that’s been blown out of proportion. Basically every movie on the planet Earth has addition shooting. Sometimes you hear about it, sometimes you go back and shoot for 2 days. Sometimes people go back and shoot for 8 weeks. Reshoot half the movie. We shot for about 6 days. We weren’t done with the movie.

We had a rough cut and we screened it in New York and it did really well, and Bob Weinstein came up to me after the movie and said “Rob, the movies scored great. It did great. I really believe in this film. If there’s any stuff that you felt you didn’t get the first time, or that you feel you want to go back to get to add into the movie, I will give you the money to go back and do that.” And that was it. He never told me what to shoot. He never even suggested anything. He just said “If there’s anything that you feel you can do to make this movie better, I will support you in that.” And truthfully, there were things. Making a movie is like a crazy jigsaw puzzle. And it’s not until it’s done that you get to see it and say, “Shit. I wish I had that piece. And that piece there.”

For THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, I didn’t have that opportunity to go back and do that, but luckily on here, I did, so I took it. One thing I wanted to do was restructure the time line of the movie. So I actually went back and reshot some scenes that were played in the daytime, and I reshot them at night time. Different things that I had to restructure. There were a couple of new things, certain characters to me felt like they didn’t resolve themselves. One of them in particular was Danny Trejo’s character. And that was it.

How’s your editing process coming along? I know you’re on a tight schedule to make the August 31st release.

We’re basically done. I screened the final print today. (8/9/07) And um… there’s one little thing we’re fixing, but the movie is 100% finished. And just sitting in a can waiting to show someone now.

What an amazing thing as a horror fan, as a horror aficionado to take a crack at remaking one of the greatest horror films ever made…

Oh, it’s totally surreal. Totally surreal. I’ve had a bunch of surreal moments in my life like that. One of them was about a year ago when I was on stage playing God Of Thunder with Ace Frehley.

I was thinking “This is so weird! I was like this goofy kid that worshiped KISS in the 70’s and I’m on stage doing this song.” Ace Frehley’s on stage with me doing this song, and the other KISS guys are standing off stage and I’m thinking “This is fucking weird! This is like some bizarre dream.” “HALLOWEEN” was the same thing. You’re on set… shooting “HALLOWEEN”. And I’m in Pasadena, shooting a lot of it on the same streets that Carpenter shot on. This seemed like I had a weird “HALLOWEEN” dream. I never lose that feeling of how insanely cool it is.

People are touchy about “HALLOWEEN”. But what can you say to sway fans of yours that this is OK. Because remakes have a long tradition in horror. You’re a horror fan, so you know that. The Universal monster movies were remade by Hammer in the 50’s. And THE FLY was remade in the 80’s. There’s good stuff there…

I think so… To me, remakes are sort of about passion and intent. I mean, obviously. When someone goes “Who do you like better as Dracula? Lugosi or Christopher Lee?” I was always like “Fuck, man. I love them both. They’re both fucking awesome.” You know, but you can tell when something is quickly remade for a buck. This was not that case. I really believed in this. And being such a big fan of the original, and like many people, just watching Michael Myers degenerate through 7 sequels until you’re like “What? That’s what it’s come down to?” I really wanted to take that character and when he comes on screen have people go, “Wow. Michael Myers never looked so fucking bad-ass! In 30 fucking years.” It really mattered to me. I really wanted it to be great. I took it totally serious. People thought I was only doing it for money. No. I could’ve went on tour and made 10 times the money I made making this movie. It wasn’t about money. It was just about really wanting to do it, and I think that’s when movie’s work. I mean, you can tell! You can tell.

You love these movies. I think it’s the first time in a long time that a remake has been in the hands of someone who loves these movies!

The thing with remakes is, no matter how good the remake is, nothing… NOTHING can make you love something more then the original because it’s something special to you. I mean, same for me. No matter how great the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD was, it’s never going to be as special to me as the experience of seeing the original DAWN OF THE DEAD in a packed theater at Midnight while I was in high school. That was a mind-blowing experience. And that’s no insult to the movie, it’s just there’s so much emotional baggage attached to these films for some people. And I totally get it. You know, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. If that was the case, Nosferatu would be our only version of Dracula that we would have seen for the rest of our lives. There’s nothing wrong with doing it, you just have to do it with the right intent and not just to make a quick buck. Which obviously is what goes on a lot. We don’t have to bullshit each other. Even if 100 remakes are bad… you still have to always… I always liked the guys with the hope… “Well, maybe this is the one that fucking everyone’s happy about.” I don’t care about everyone else’s movies. I tried to make this awesome.

A reboot of the series was really the only way to go and to be put in the hands of someone who cares about it like yourself was a great move.

I would never have done a Part 9. Part 9 probably would’ve went direct to video anyway. What are you going to do? I felt like by Part 8 it was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. A once great character had become a punch line for someone. Abbott and Costello make a joke about Frankenstein or Dracula. That’s what Michael Myers felt like to me in Part 8. Then Hammer does it with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and you’re like “Fuck yeah, man.” (Laughs) Those are things that made me think this is totally the way to go.

Were you a fan at all of the whole “Thorn” story line?

I couldn’t give a shit about that. No. They ran out of things to do. It was almost, well let’s shoot him into space. Let’s have him fight someone else. (Laughs) It becomes ridiculous after a while! It happens with everything. Ok JAWS. I love it. JAWS 2. I can deal with it. JAWS 3. JAWS …4? What’s happening here? (Laughs)

Have you made your peace with Michael Myers, or would you take it further when this movie does well? Or would you leave it the way Carpenter did?

I’m done with it. No matter what this movie does. If this movie was the biggest movie of all time, I still wouldn’t come back. Because I wanted to make a single great film and that’s all I was concerned with. And the way the horror genre works, it doesn’t matter what I did, they would find a way to make Part 2. Ya know? If we exploded Michael Myers into a millions pieces, for Part 2 he would regenerate himself maybe. He’d be living in an underground laboratory as a secret government project and they would reassemble him! (Laughs) The thing I didn’t want to do – I didn’t care about restarting a franchise, because that’s how you get into trouble. That’s how you make crap. You just really have to be concerned with making a great film for everybody, because really that’s all anyone really cares about. You don’t want it to end and set it up for Part 2. That’s a cheat.

Well, let’s hope there’s not too many sequels and that this can stand on its own.

They’re not even talking about it. That’s what I really liked about Bob Weinstein. He wanted to reinvent it and do something different and wasn’t ever talking about firing up a franchise. He was always focused on making one solid movie. Because already by now, they’d be planning Part 2, if they were thinking that. And they’re not. That’s what I like about this. The intentions all around were really in the right place.

Is this theatrical version going to be your final version? Will there be a double disc DVD with an alternate version? Director’s cut or something?

You know, what was really funny about this movie is that we did not get into any trouble with the MPAA. We got an R rating super easy. And I was totally baffled by it. And I don’t know if it’s because there’s been such an onslaught of harsh films, that this didn’t seem so harsh. I have a feeling it’s because, I actually think we got away with more because it was Michael Myers, and it was like… a monster. As opposed to a human hurting another human. You can blow a zombie’s head off, but if you blow off a normal guys head off it’s a problem. They make these weird rules. So, I think we got away with a lot because they thought of Michael Myers as “Oh, well he’s like a monster”. You know?

What are your thoughts on these recent “harsh” movies, like SAW, HOSTEL?

I haven’t seen a lot of them, so I don’t really have much thoughts on them. I don’t get to the movies enough. (Laughs) I’ll see everything on DVD eventually and then I’ll tell ya.

Are you taking time off after this?

I’m going to take a little bit of time off and then go back on tour in October. And then once the tours done, start another movie. Right now I’m just trying to figure out what that exactly will be.

You have a live record and box set coming out…

The live record comes out in September, the box set is…God knows when, by the time I get it done they won’t even make box-sets anymore. (Laughs) People will be like “What’s this I got for Christmas?! This strange box with these discs in it.” (Laughs)

How many DVD’s do you have now?

Oh I don’t know. I must have over 10,000 at this point. I just finally saw HOT FUZZ. Finally just saw PAN’S LABYRINTH. When I was working on “HALLOWEEN”, I didn’t see anything.

Do you not want to see other movies while you’re making a movie?

Sometimes you might do it… usually you’re watching something because you’re trying to express an idea to someone else. Like going “You see this scene in this movie? That’s the kind of lighting I’m talking about.” Usually you’re just using it as a tool to express an idea to someone else. But after working 8 hours all day, or 12 or 14 or 16 hours all day, you certainly don’t come home and watch movies. You’re just too burnt out. If I should be watching anything, I should be watching The Dailies.

Thanks Rob for your time!