Frankenstein vs. Bride

SD Comic Con 2012: Rob Zombie on ‘The Lords of Salem’ and Manson

“I’m really excited about Lords of Salem. I was looking at it today, because we’re just finishing the sound design and the sound mix and all that stuff. It’s a really different movie. Because the last couple of movies I’ve made have been these very handheld, rough, and physically violent sort of films. This isn’t like that at all. It’s a very slow-paced, psychological, specifically composed sort of movie. It’s almost the exact opposite of what I’ve done before. So I’m really excited to get it out to see what people think. It’s not what they expect it to be.

“It starts in 1697 in Salem, Massachusetts. The basic idea is that back then, when the witch trials were going on, obviously there were innocent people being killed as witches. But there was a group of people who were not so innocent, but were murdered and put to death. They, before they died, put a curse on Salem, which is now coming true in modern times. Most of the movie takes place in modern-day Salem. I’m trying not to spoil things…

“That’s the problem with things like this – you always have to explain it. But I’m trying to keep something secret so when people see it they don’t go, ‘Oh yeah, I knew all that.’ Because when there are no surprises it kind of ruins it.”

As for his tour with Marilyn Manson, Zombie said, “It’s probably not unlike when I did the tour with Alice Cooper. What I like about these tours is that it’s a co-headlining tour, so both acts do the full show and their full set. Nobody has to sacrifice anything. Alice and I are good friends and it was one of the most fun tours I ever did. But of course there’s gonna be this fun rivalry, because nobody wants somebody else to upstage them. So that’s fun, and I assume it will be more of the same with that.”

If Alice Cooper’s collaboration with Zombie was a case of “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man,” how would Zombie describe his tour with Manson?

“’Frankenstein versus the Bride of Frakenstein’?” he laughed. “Because Marilyn is a girl’s name…”

“No,” he added, “I can’t wait to do it. It seems like one of those tours that’s so obvious, like we would have done it before. But we haven’t… I’m kind of glad we haven’t, because there are still exciting things to do. It’s gonna be good, because we’re going to do it here and in Europe, and it will go for a while.”

“So I hope we get along,” he laughed again, “because there are a lot of shows!”

– Joseph McCabe, FearNet

http://www.fearnet.com/

Lords Tweet

Anybody else catch that Tweet from Rob Zombie concerning his latest cinematic endeavor: LORDS OF SALEM? Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, considering the train wrecks that were his last two HALLOWEEN films, but at the very least it looks like Mr. Zombie is setting the bar a little higher on this one. Here's what the the man had to say, direct from his Twitter page:

"Watching LORDS OF SALEM SFX test footage. Holy f*** this is f****** sick s***. I hope everyone loves demented, perverted satanic movies."

Again - good or bad - you be the judge. I think as Zombie has demonstrated perfectly well in his past two live-action films, extreme ultra-violence and nauseatingly realistic gore do not equal a scary movie. Hopefully this is the film where he redeems himself. Filming has wrapped and post-production has commenced - so expect more updates soon from everyone's favorite band!

Woolite?

I don't know about you, but when I think of Rob Zombie, I think WOOLITE fabric whitener! Rob Zombie directing a 30 second spot for Woolite? Sure - why not! From RZ's official website:

Rob Zombie sat down for an exclusive interview with ARTISTdirect.com editor and Dolor author Rick Florino about the commercial, touring with Slayer, The Lords of Salem, and what he keeps learning along the way.

Q: Did you get to apply a lot of your personal storytelling techniques to the Woolite commercial? You have to tell a story in about 30 seconds so it's not that different from what you normally do.

RZ: "Somewhat! It was an interesting situation to handle. It was just one of those projects that came to me. I wasn't searching out shooting a commercial. A lot of directors do commercials, but most of the time they don't talk about it so you don't realize it. I just thought it was cool so I'd been mentioning it. I was on tour in Australia when it came up. I got a call that this ad agency had pitched this crazy idea to Woolite, and they wanted me to direct it. They essentially wanted a commercial that the first half resembled a horror movie trailer. They needed something along those lines, and they thought I could handle it. It was fun. We shot it over two days in Vancouver. My director of photography who worked on Halloween II came in and worked with me. I like doing things like that for the experience. It was like when I did CSI, I wanted the experience of doing a television show. You just want to have it under your belt. Also, the more direct gigs I can get between films, I always learn something from everything."

Trial By Fire

Found this posted on Pumpkinrot's blog and thought I'd share as the pics are so eerily cool. These are from the set of Rob Zombie's next cinematic outing: THE LORDS OF SALEM. For the record, I'm on my last thread of patience with Mr. Zombie as a director. Musically, the guy is on the money - theatrically, my patience is running thin. I have been disappointed with his last couple of films (HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN II) and didn't think his two before that lived up to the hype. Zombie needs to impress with SALEM, so let's hope he gets this one right. To see pics from the set, visit here:

http://www.caughtonset.com/photo-gallery/3537/6/set-lords-salem/

Lords of Salem

While killing time over at Bloody-Disgusting yesterday I happened to come across this: the plot details for Rob Zombie's upcoming 'LORDS OF SALEM.' Not sure what I think about the plot - it seems very 1980's to me...but maybe that's a good thing? It's hard to tell with a director like Zombie - he's a love-him-or-hate-him kind of guy, and I haven't been exactly impressed with his last couple of movies. Anyway - here's the lowdown:

The story is about a local DJ who mistakenly unleashes a hellish curse on the town. 300 years earlier on the very streets of Salem that the townspeople walk on today, innocent folks were rounded up from their homes, convicted of being witches and sentenced to death. The Lords of Salem ran the town with an iron fist, but four witches who were tortured and killed in secrecy vowed that one day they would be back for revenge.

What do you think? Is this one going to rock like a son of a witch - or is this film going to continue the decline Zombie's been on since 'The Devil's Rejects?'

www.bloody-disgusting.com

Lords of Salem

Master of shock ROB ZOMBIE just did an interview with Empire Online in which he talked about his upcoming film THE LORDS OF SALEM. It doesn't start shooting until this spring - but here's a little of what we can expect (plus his opinions on THE BLOB, HALLOWEEN II, and remakes in general).

"There were twenty people that everyone knows about - obviously all innocent - executed as witches in Salem. The basic premise of the film is that 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..."

Zombie also threw in this little morsel: "Lords of Salem is probably the bleakest of all my films... It's only gonna get worse!" He then went on to explain why his Blob remake is not going to happen:

"I didn't want to do another remake. You just can't win. 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! I found especially with Halloween II that everyone talked about what it wasn't and not what it was: 'you can't do that with Michael Myers; you can't do that with Loomis...' 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."

To read the full interview, visit: http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=30225