ROB ZOMBIE Talks Horror Movies, Touring In New Video Interview

retroCRUSH recently conducted an interview with rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow.

retroCRUSH: A lot of movies lately, it seems that they scare you while you're watching them but when they're over, it really was more of an amusement park ride type of scare.

Rob: Yeah, they don't really haveyou know I never really know what scary means sometimes. Like I remember when "The Devil's Rejects" came out, everyone was like, "It wasn't scary but I can't stop thinking about it. I've been thinking about it for weeks." To me that's better. "A Clockwork Orange" wasn't scary, but I couldn't stop thinking about it, literally forever, and that's what I like. A lot of movies are scary, but as soon as it's over it's like, "Eh, I really don't need to see that again." Studios equate people jumping as being scared. They're not really scared, they're just startled because something loud just took place.

retroCRUSH: A cat jumped out of the closet

Rob: That's a cheap scare. It's not even really a scare it's just a startling moment. I think audiences have the patience for it. The "Paranormal" films kind of prove that people will literally watch nothing happen for two hours but then they'll be like, "I'm so terrified I can't move!" So it works out.

retroCRUSH: So when you're looking at a movie like that with a blank slate for the cast, how do you go about the whole wish-list thing? I mean you obviously put some people that you admire and grew up loving in your movies, those great cult stars. How do you go about building that cast for your film?

Rob: That's what I do. I think about the people that I like and, that's all I do. I go, "Who do I like?" and people go, "Oh this person is really hot," and that means nothing to me. Because I'll get excited about working with people that I've always been a fan of that was in a movie nobody's ever heard of, because that's all that matters to me. Right now I haven't cast anybody, because I'm trying to reach a little further and see if I have a great group of actors that I work with, but I want to keep adding people to the mix. And this movie is different, too, so there's certain people that aren't appropriate, necessarily. Not that I don't like them, because I'm going to get phone calls from anyone that's not in the movie (laughs) "You don't like me anymore?"

retroCRUSH: How do you balance it all? You've got so many creative outlets where you're working on music, the movies, and the comics. Is it just whatever's burning in you at the moment?

Rob: It's pretty scheduled out in a weird way. Like we're doing this little warm-up thing, then we're going to go to Europe. Then we have two weeks off, then I'm going to do a U.S./Canadian run with SLAYER. Then I know we're done touring for a while, because I'll go right into production with "Lords Of Salem". And that'll be a year of just that. When I'm doing a movie I won't do anything else. I won't even think about anything else. But when I'm tour, when I'm done I'll go back an mess around with the script, make phone calls and do things. But once you're in full production, you can't do anything. Sometimes they'll clash. Like I'll get an email from the people doing that comic that, "We really need the script for the next issue." And I'll be, "Why did I ever start that project?" So yeahit's kind of like that.

retroCRUSH: Do you find it odd, being relatively young, but having multiple generations of fans?

Rob: It's pretty weird sometimes. I mean, it's great. What I like about it is that it doesn't seem like an oldies thing to me. I think because of the type of music we do, it's slightly ageless in a weird sort of way. Take someone like Tim Burton, he's pretty old for a director, but since he's kooky and weird he remains sort of ageless. He's obviously an A-level director, but sometimes once people hit that age. It seems like when things are weird, everything's fine, people will always be in to it.

Check out the entire interview in text format at retroCRUSH.