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Director Zombie adds human touch to 'Rejects' film

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 14:28 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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