The Lords of Salem

Gleefully anarchic, the long-haired heavy metal rocker-cum-slasher-film-director Rob Zombie sustains an instantly recognizable image on par with his musical contemporaries (and friends), Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne. Long fascinated by Charles Manson, gore films, and the occult, Zombie exudes a dark sensibility that has earned him mainstream success as well as a certain cult following in the film world. Founder of the band White Zombie, the rocker made his name behind the camera not only by directing his group’s music videos, but by designing the surreal “head trip” animated sequence in Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996). His first feature outing came in 2003, with the controversial House of 1000 Corpses, a kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre update, overloaded with buckets of gore, packed with references to ‘70s and ’80s horror staples, and starring no less than Karen Black. Universal rejected the picture, certain of an NC-17 rating, but Zombie refused to make cuts and still emerged with an R. House drew critical pans but purportedly (and unsurprisingly) earned almost twice its small budget. His follow-up, 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects, did well critically (Roger Ebert commented, “The movie is not merely disgusting, but has an attitude and a subversive sense of humor,”) but disappointed studio heads, earning only slightly more than its production costs even as it thrilled genre loyalists. Later he went on to helm the troubled remake of John Carpenter’s seminal slasher pic, Halloween. The production did not find an audience and was considered a step down for the filmmaker. —allmovie guide