Rob Zombie Talks Unrated "Halloween," Says a Western Flick, Not "C.H.U.D." Is On the Horizon

Rob Zombie has become adept at balancing two careers, so we put his multitasking to the test yesterday by questioning him about his career as a director from Oklahoma City, where his joint tour with Ozzy Osbourne had temporarily docked. So, just how does he balance rock and film? "Working on Halloween was intense," he admits. "I was burnt out, so to be on tour and be doing something completely different is great. I get to use a different part of my brain."

On December 18th, the unrated version of Zombie's Halloween comes out on DVD, and while "unrated" has become synonymous with copious amounts of T&A and gore, Zombie's disc out adds ten minutes of footage in the form of -- gasp -- character development, something Zombie says is essential to the story. Thankfully, Zombie is not planning on making any additional Halloweens, saying he'll end his Michael Myers saga where the original 1978 version should have: after the first installment. "One is all I need," says Zombie. Talking about his influences, while Zombie's musical and cinematic output are deeply indebted to the horror films of decades past, as a director he finds inspiration in some of the great filmmakers. "The realist directors of the Seventies," he cites as pivotal for him. "Scorsese, Spielberg, their bodies of work," Zombie says, "I prefer Altman's McCabe and Ms Miller than Nightmare on Elm Street."

Musically, Zombie just wrapped up the score for The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, an animated film based on a comic he wrote. He's also writing songs for his next album while on the road. As for that long-overdue White Zombie box set, don't start holding your breath. "I'm not real big on going back and repackaging the past," Zombie said. For his next film, Zombie told us that the Internet rumor that he was remaking 1984's C.H.U.D. is "a joke" and admits that while he'd love to make a feature-length Werewolf Women of the S.S., the short film he directed as a mock trailer for Grindhouse, he doesn't think that'll happen. Instead, Zombie is considering working on another genre: the Western. Zombie, who loved this year's 3:10 to Yuma and is aching to see No Country for Old Men, says, "It's one of my favorite genres. I love John Ford, Howard Hawks." Don't worry, horror fans, he name-checked George A. Romero and John Carpenter too.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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