That 70s Horror Show

Rob Zombie Goes Back in Time with The Devil’s Rejects

Turns out the metal group White Zombie was just Rob Zombie's first big idea. His gigs have included art director, P.A., music video director, animator and horror-comic impresario. His first feature, House of 1000 Corpses was dropped by Universal but eventually picked up by Lion's Gate Films, which turned a healthy profit on it and greenlit The Devil's Rejects as a follow-up. House of 1000 Corpses played like a fond re-imagining of grisly 1970s horror fare like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Last House on the Left, but ask Zombie about the sadistic The Devil's Rejects and he'll tell you it's inspired by a different type of American film - Bonnie and Clyde, Charly, Two-Lane Blacktop, and everything Sam Packinpah ever directed. We asked him to talk about how a 16mm shoot, a tasteful DI, and about $1 million worth of rock music helped him travel 30 years back in cinematic time.

F&V: How did you get that authentic 1970s look?

A lot of it was the collaboration I had with Phil Parmet [Harlan County U.S.A., Dallas 362], my cinematographer. His background was mostly in documentary. Phil’s in his 60s and shot a lot of stuff during the 1970s. I met with a lot of DPs, and they get a very "Well, I see it this way" type of attitude. And my response to that is, "I don’t give a f——-g s—t how you see it. It’s your job to make it how I see it." And Phil is the coolest guy in the world. We hit it off right away and just got down to work. It was all about what the movie needed and not anyone’s personal ego stroke.

The main thing was we shot the entire movie handheld. Everything. Even if the camera was on a crane, the operator was holding the camera. But unlike the modern way of doing handheld, which is constantly whipping the camera around, NYPD Blue-style, our instructions to the operator were, "Hold the camera as still as you possibly can. Don’t shake the camera."But of course that’s impossible. And I think that’s what gives it a very authentic feel. We never want it to be conscious, like "Look! We’re shaking the camera!" We wanted it to seem legitimate.

The DI [at FotoKem] was important for us because we shot the whole movie in 29 days, which was insane. And the DI helped us match different takes together when the light had shifted or the colors didn’t match. A lot of times the DI people go in there and they go apes—t tweaking the colors, making them bright and oversaturating everything so it looks like a rock video. And I hate it when movies look like rock videos. That’s why I was trying so hard to not do anything — even when we were doing split screens and things — that could not be found in a movie that was filmed in the 1970s, whether it’s The Getaway, Charly, or Dillinger. Any time we did anything like that I wanted it to be primitive. So we just desaturated the colors a little bit, crushed down the blacks, and made everything match. We didn’t go too crazy with it, and that’s why I didn’t shoot 35. I didn’t want to shoot 35, get a clean negative, and then have to try to make it look grainy. I wanted the grain and the distress to be real, because I can always tell when it’s digitally added later. I just think movies these days look too slick.

F&V: How expensive were your music clearances?

Music alone would have been about a seventh of the entire budget. We worked a lot of sweet deals, so they ended up being maybe a tenth of the budget. The budget was $7 million, and the first pass of music came in at close to $1 million. That’s just hard to justify. I cleared a lot of the music in advance of shooting the movie. I knew I wanted to use " Free Bird " [by Lynyrd Skynyrd] and " Midnight Rider " [by the Allman Brothers Band] in their entirety, more or less, and I didn’t want to get into post and then not be able to get the rights to the songs. A lot of people edit their movie and temp in the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. You’re never going to get those songs, so don’t fall in love with them, because you’re going to hate yourself later when all the music comes out of the film.

F&V: When did you realize the songs were so important?

I knew it from day one. I was listening to the music when I was writing the script, and I kept it in an iPod in my pocket the whole time I was shooting. Whenever there was down time, I’d listen to the same songs to stay in the same space I was in when I was writing. I wanted to take "Free Bird," which is the great American song, but is almost a cliché, and make this the ultimate stamp on that song. You’ll never hear it the same way. That’s a testament to when a song works well, and the best example of that is " Singin’ in the Rain." I associated that song 100 percent with the movie Singin’ in the Rain — until I saw A Clockwork Orange.

F&V: Would you like a bigger budget for your next film?

Definitely. You know, $7 million’s a lot of money, but it was a stretch for this movie. We kept cutting shooting days to make it work, and that gets tricky. I wish I had another week to shoot. But I only want to escalate the budget as I can escalate my ability to control it. If someone suddenly gives you $100 million, that money also comes with seven other producers who are calling the shots. I can’t bear to make movies that way. And nobody’s going to let you make a movie like this.

F&V: Have you ever considered shooting on video or HD?

I discussed it, but I didn’t think I could achieve anything I wanted to achieve on video. And with HD, you’re really, really trying to electronically simulate the look of a film. It’s too new. And there aren’t a lot of experienced cameramen who’ve worked in HD, so it really starts cutting down your cinematographer options. That world’s not quite there yet. It’s great for Robert Rodriguez and people who have established themselves in HD, but it’s not easy for me to make that choice.

F&V: Do you have any advice for beginning filmmakers?

The best thing you can do is just make a film. Everyone’s got a great story they’re going to tell you, but as soon as something’s on film, and someone can sit down and watch it, you’ve immediately distinguished yourself from the pack. Everyone and their grandmother has an idea or a script. But as soon as someone hands me a DVD, suddenly it’s one step closer. These days it’s so easy to make a movie, even a short movie with a video camera, and you can see talent. When someone hands me a demo tape of their band, it can sound like s—t— but you can hear whether or not the band has talent.

F&V: What’s your next project?

The next movie is still a secret, but I do have an animated movie that’s been in the works for about a year. It will be out in 2006 and it’s called The Haunted World of el Superbeasto. It’s an R-rated cart oon for adults. It’s sort of like Austin Powers meets the Munsters — but if that was done in a way that was dirty.