After creating a revisionist take on the horror classic, "Halloween," metal-rocker-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie declared he wouldn't be coming back for seconds.
He had seen what happened to the original franchise as it lurched from sequel to sequel, straying far from its roots as the simple tale of a babysitter stalked by a mysterious killer, Michael Myers.
At the time, he said he wouldn't direct a second installment because he's not a fan of horror sequels. He joked, "The next one will probably set be in space." But after the 2007 remake scared up $80 million worldwide, the studio decided they wanted more Michael Myers -- with or without Zombie at the helm.
Just when he thought he was out, however, Zombie found himself lured back in to salvage a troubled production. "Halloween II," written and directed by Zombie, opens Friday.
"There was a different director and different writer," Zombie explains via phone. "I started feeling protective of it, like these are my characters. I wanted to take them to the next level and not have someone else just fragment them off in another direction."
He signed on to write a new script from scratch last December and hustled to get the picture completed in time for summer. Scout Taylor-Compton returns as babysitting heroine Laurie Strode, along with Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris, Brad Dourif and Sheri Moon Zombie (the director's wife).
Zombie is back in part because he felt the last film was flawed and he wanted another pass.
"I barely scratched the surface with these characters and where we could go with them," says Zombie, who adds he will not make a third chapter. "The sequel is a tight continuation of the aftermath of what happened to all these people who survived this multiple homicide."
He continues, "Laurie Strode is not the all-American girl anymore. She lashes out and her face is scarred from being attacked. It's a much grittier, nastier movie than anyone's gonna expect. Darker characters are more interesting."
Even the actors may be surprised by what they see. The movie was unfinished even as the studio launched its marketing campaign. There were frequent rewrites on set and the movie may be cut in a way that veers away from the original plot line, according to Dourif.
"I know they are reshaping the film quite a bit," says Dourif, who portrays Sheriff Brackett. "I'll be interested to see what he finally came up with. We'll see if it works. There's a possibility it won't work, but Rob pulled the last rabbit out of the hat pretty good."
An ear for the eerie
Zombie's been interested in horror since he was a kid, but music came first -- because it seemed more accessible.
"Today, you can buy a videocamera and start making films, but back then, we didn't know how you got into Hollywood," says the 44-year-old Massachusetts native. His former group, White Zombie, was named for a 1932 Bela Lugosi chiller.
"Back then, it was easier to buy a guitar, get some drums and start a band," adds Zombie, whose heavy metal hits include "More Human Than Human" and "Living Dead Girl."
He established himself as a director with his own twisted vision six years ago, creating the gonzo creepshow "House of 1000 Corpses." The indie film introduced audiences to the Firefly family, murderous eccentrics named after Marx Brothers characters.
His next film, "The Devil's Rejects," was a sequel of sorts. While it brought back the Firefly tribe, the movie was more a vigilante saga than a slasher film. It won him new fans, including the Weinstein Brothers, who hired him to reboot "Halloween." His way of putting his own personal stamp on the series was to turn the clock back to the killer's childhood.
"To me, the most interesting thing about 'Halloween' is Michael Myers," says Zombie. "He always gets shoved in the background, and they put these random teenagers who look like supermodels in the foreground. I decided to concoct this whole backstory and make Michael Myers the lead character."
Commercial success was not coupled with critical praise. Purists felt Michael Myers should remain an enigmatic figure and meeting his family made him less imposing. But the opposite can also be argued, that humanizing him boosts the fear quotient.
"This is a character who was originally just called the Shape," says Danielle Harris, who returns as Laurie's friend, Annie Brackett. Her history with the franchise dates back to the fourth and fifth installments, in which she played a little girl named Jamie Lloyd.
Harris continues, "Michael Myers was just this physical form and Rob took that and made Michael a human being, which I think is scarier than the boogeyman."
The 1978 John Carpenter original, which Zombie saw at a drive-in, was relatively low on the violence scale. The new renditions feature an emphasis on shocks over suspense, bloody splatter instead of looming shadows.
As much as Zombie appreciates Carpenter's pioneering work, his favorite movies show everything and imply nothing.
"Growing up, I watched 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre,' 'Dawn of the Dead,'" says Zombie. "They were hard, they were scary, they were dark. You walked out and said, 'What ... deranged mental patient made this movie?'"
Some critics have asked the same of Zombie (real name, Robert Cummings). "Halloween" may be brutal, but it pales next to his sadistic indies, featuring blood by the gallon, piles of severed body parts and depictions of sexual assaults on teenage girls and elderly women.
Yet the female characters can be predators too. Zombie's wife, Sheri, played a giggling serial killer in "Corpses" and "Rejects." She was Michael Myers' stripper mom in the last "Halloween" and comes back from the dead in the sequel.
Harris says, "Women are badasses in Rob's films, and I think that comes from him being so in love with Sheri. She is such a great strong woman. I don't care for the way the women are portrayed as victims in this genre. There's always this cliche big-boobed girl in a wet T-shirt running through the woods in the night screaming. The women that Rob writes, it's the opposite of that."
In the moviemaking mix
Harris adds that Zombie is proactive on the set, involving himself in every component of the production.
"You never see him sitting behind a monitor," says Harris. "His mind is always working a hundred miles an hour. I remember he wanted to make Laurie's room look like she's kind of gone crazy. We walked in and he's like 'This isn't enough.' He grabbed cans of spray paint and started tagging the walls, drawing teddy bears and writing 'Save Manson' and all this weird stuff."
Two weeks before release, Zombie was racing to finish the film, even as he and the cast started to promote it. There was 11th hour sound mixing to take care of.
"He's really been under the gun, and I think it's been very hard on him," says Dourif. "He's been playing catchup the whole time and it's a risky thing what he's trying to do, making the movie more character-driven than what's normal for a horror film."
Zombie has a penchant for putting together eclectic acting ensembles, mixing newcomers and cult faves. For his first film, he recruited Sid Haig ("Spider Baby"), Bill Moseley ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2") and Karen Black ("Easy Rider"). Look for a pre-"Office" Rainn Wilson in there too, dead and mutilated.
"Halloween II" has its share of colorful casting choices. Zombie recruited actress Margot Kidder to play Laurie's psychologist, because he believed the "Superman" star's struggles with mental illness would provide depth and insight.
"She's very open about her life and the things that have happened to her," Zombie explains. "To play a therapist, she really knew that world."
Howard Hesseman, formerly known as Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati," portrays Laurie's hippie boss at a record store/coffeehouse. His nickname, "Uncle Meat," is a Frank Zappa reference.
"If you look behind the counter in the store, there's a giant picture of Zappa sitting on a toilet," Zombie points out.
He continues to lead a rock/film double life. There's a new picture in the works, "Tyrannosaurus Rex," about a disgraced prize fighter. An adaptation of his comic book, "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto," debuts in theaters and on DVD next month. After that, a new album and a tour are on tap.
Zombie compares his twin careers on concert stages and soundstages.
"Being a musician is easier," says Zombie. "You really only have to keep it together for that hour in front of the audience. With film, you're getting picked up at 3 a.m. to be on set at 4 a.m. You work for 17 hours, and as a director, you never stop. At the end of the day, my skin color is gray and I'm brain dead."
He sacrifices sleep to follow in the footsteps of his celluloid heroes, from John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper to the Marx Brothers and Billy Wilder.
"Last night we were mixing the sound on the Universal lot, and we just walked around," Zombie says. "I remember coming here when I was in third grade and my mind was blown. Now to be working here, what a strange journey from one place to another."
Lisa Rose may be reached at lrose@starledger.com.