ROB ZOMBIE Calls Next Movie His 'Bleakest'

According to The Pulse Of Radio, Rob Zombie told Empire magazine that his upcoming film, "The Lords Of Salem", will be his "bleakest" outing yet — this from the man whose four previous directorial efforts include the ultra-violent "The Devil's Rejects" and two grim "Halloween" movies. As for the plot of "Salem", Zombie gave a more detailed outline than before, saying, "There were twenty people that everyone knows about — obviously all innocent — executed as witches in Salem . . . there were a further four who actually were witches, who were killed secretly, and vowed one day to return to wreak havoc on Salem's descendants. That's when the movie jumps ahead to the present day and things start to go wrong."

"The Lords Of Salem" is scheduled to go into production later this spring. Zombie said he's had the idea for the movie for years, even before he recorded the song of the same name.

Zombie also revealed that he's no longer involved with a remake of "The Blob", saying, "If it's too similar to the original, everybody wonders what the point was, but if it's too different, everybody complains that it's too different! . . . It's like people have a set of rules in their minds about how these things should function, and you can't work like that."

Zombie told Empire that he still would like to make his biker film, "Tyrannosaurus Rex", someday, and also hopes to make a Western. He also told The Pulse Of Radio not long ago what kind of horror movie he'd like to see Hollywood make again. "It would be so cool to do, like, 'The Return Of Frankenstein', but you do it like Frankenstein looked in all the original Universal films," he said. "That would be so cool to go back and make a totally classic horror movie. Don't jazz it all up like Van Helsing, but make something really classic. I think people would go for it."

Zombie, who directed all his own music videos, made his debut as a feature film writer and director with 2003's "House Of 1000 Corpses".

He's currently on the road behind his 2010 album, "Hellbilly Deluxe 2", and will play a few more shows in England and Australia before returning home to begin work on "The Lords Of Salem".