Director Zombie adds human touch to ‘Rejects’ film

By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Leave it to rock star turned film
director Rob Zombie to put a human face on a family of serial
killers.

Zombie is the creative force behind two decades of hard
rock albums with titles like “La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol.
1″ and 2003 independent film hit “House of 1,000 Corpses.”

“Corpses,” which Zombie wrote and directed, helped kick off
the current wave of horror films flooding U.S. cinemas, and he
returns on Friday with slasher flick, “The Devil’s Rejects.”

His first film scared audiences, yet also made them laugh
with a mix of frights and campy comedy. Zombie has headed in a
slightly new direction with the more stylized and cinematic
“Rejects,” which he likens to a road movie of misfits.

“I wanted to create compelling characters and a story that
people get swept up in. I think the main thing, you know, is
serial killers are human, too,” Zombie told Reuters.

With “Rejects,” he combined plot elements of classic movies
like 1967s “Bonnie and Clyde,” which humanized Depression-era
gangsters, with the filmmaking style of bloody 1970s horror
flicks such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

In this new film, which is being billed as a follow-up to
“Corpses” but not a sequel, a family of killers known as the
Fireflys is on the run from Sheriff Wydell. “Rejects” begins
with a shoot-out, ends with a shoot-out, and in between,
there’s a lot of shooting by the sheriff and the Fireflys.

Zombie reckons the way the family pulls together in the
face of blazing guns will make audiences want to root for them.
He could be right, for it’s hard to argue with his success.

BLOODY GOOD BUSINESS

In the 1980s and 1990s, Zombie, now 39, wrote songs filled
with violent lyrics for his rock band White Zombie, which is
named after the title of a 1932 Bela Lugosi movie.

White Zombie sold millions of CDs, and when he turned to
moviemaking for 2003s “Corpses,” Zombie brought his loyal fans
to theaters.

“Corpses” could have been a box office disaster. It was
made with the backing of Universal Pictures, but the studio
balked at releasing the violent film and, instead, sold it to
scrappy independent label Lions Gate Films. Such a turn is
often considered a box office kiss of death.

But Zombie’s fans and horror buffs turned out in support,
and “Corpses” brought in $16 million at global box offices — a
solid showing for a low-budget, independent film. It sold over
a million copies on DVD.

“It’s like a roller coaster,” Zombie said of audience
attraction to horror movies. “It’s the thrill of it. Some
people really do get a thrill out of being scared.”

Horror films, of course, are a Hollywood standard dating to
silent movies and stars like Lugosi and Lon Chaney. Zombie has
been a fan of the genre since he was young.

“What really attracted me was the monsters were the
misunderstood freaks. As a kid, you identify with that on some
level,” he said.