Quint: I think probably the biggest disagreement that we would have and what
I'm most curious about is the approach to Michael Myers as a character.
Obviously you're really attracted to finding a "why" for his evil or
at least giving a deeper background to why he became the way he is and I think a
lot of fans were probably the most worried about that. So I was wondering what
the attraction was for you to explore the source for Myer's evil.
Rob Zombie: Well, basically for me, the idea of firing up this movie with this
character, Michael Myers, was exciting, but then I was like "It needs
more," because if you just do what we've already seen, it does become like
all the remakes that we all complain about… "Why did you bother? We
already saw that movie…" To me those were some of the most interesting
missing elements. In the original Dr. Loomis would always sort of refer to…
about the old days of what happened with Michael and we never saw any of it. We
never really got any insight into it, but the idea is I was never really trying
to explain "why," because what I found fascinating… I mean I don't
know… there are so many versions of so many scripts, I don't know which one
anyone ever saw or was complaining about, but in researching…
I did a lot of research as if "what if Michael Myers was a real person?
What would he be?" You know, he would be basically a psychopath, a textbook
psychopath, and there really is no "why" for a psychopath. That's what
I found fascinating. They don't have a situation that turns them into that.
They're basically born that way. So really the young Michael stuff is not why he
is like that, because there is nothing… it's not like "Oh, he had a bad
childhood, so he became bad," because that's not the case. He could've had
a wonderful childhood or a bad childhood. You could have a wonderful childhood
and become psychotic. You could have a horrible childhood and become a saint.
That doesn't make sense, so that wasn't the approach. It was just seeing him,
the mystery of him unravel and yet he still remains a mystery. I mean as much as
we see of him through his life, it doesn't explain any reason why he became what
he became what he became and I thought that's what was kind of fascinating.
Everyone's like "oh, there's going to be a 'why.' This happened… somebody
stole his bicycle when he was 12 years old and now he's a killer!" You
know, there's none of that shit in the movie.
Quint: Yeah, well that's good. As a fan of Carpenter's original you must
have an understanding of why people are afraid of too much change. It's weird.
It's a precarious balance when you're doing a remake, which is why they should
be entered in very lightly, because you don't want to give what you've seen
before, but you want to stay true to…
Rob Zombie: Well it's a delicate balance that can work. I used to be a little
more like "oh, why do they remake things? Blah blah blah…" and then
I was like "Shit man, there are a lot of remakes I really like."
They're just not normally in the horror genre. And then the ones that you do
like, say anything from Scarface to Cape Fear, you kind of forget about…It is
a delicate balance at all times and you have to be conscious of it, because if
you're just going in to do the same exact movie with different actors, sure why
bother? If you're trying to make it look the same and feel the same… why
bother? What I wanted to do was keep… make it a totally different experience,
so within the first five minutes of this movie you're going to go "there's
no sense sitting it here comparing the other…" It's so different, there's
nothing to compare. But, there's enough classic elements that you'll go
"wow, these moments are harkening back to what I loved about the
original." You know what I loved about the original, I loved the feeling
that it was Halloween. I loved Michael Myers. There were a lot of elements to it…
just in the atmosphere that… you can retain without making it seem like just a
carbon copy.
Quint: I'm definitely going to go in with as open a mind as possible, but
I've always thought… it's always been hard for me to separate a remake from
the original and I never really thought it was fair to be asked to do so,
because that's the whole point of a remake or a sequel. I couldn't do it with
Zack Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead. I could recognize it as a really good zombie
movie, but as a remake it was lacking. And it might just be a personal thing for
me, but it's really hard for me to disassociate…
Rob Zombie: Well, it's impossible. It's impossible for anyone. Someone can
remake a movie and make it 10 times better and I'm still going to like the
original movie that gave me the original experience better. It's just a fact of
life. Dawn Of The Dead, for me, no matter how good the remake was, the
experience of seeing the original when it came out that blew my mind, that was…
that's life. [laughs] It's just the way it goes, but then I always hear kids
where they see the remake first and then you show them the original, sometimes
they're like "I don't see what's so special about this."
Quint: Yeah, they'll focus on the dated aspects of it, not the story.
Rob Zombie: Well then sometimes it's hard if you can't even disassociate it in
your own mind. The experience of seeing it at that time… and then sometime you
can't even explain it. I've shown people movies and I'm like "this is the
greatest movie ever" and they're like "this movie sucks…" It's
like "what are you, fucking insane???" But they're not bringing the
mental baggage to the film that I am. It's just some low budget crappy movie to
them… to me somehow it was a life changing experience.
Quint: I have some favorite movies like that, like Sleepaway Camp, where
most people just look at it as real cheesy, but for some reason…
Rob Zombie: Oh yeah, OMEGA MAN was a big one for me. It was such a significant
movie when I was a kid. You show it to kids now and its like "this movie
sucks. [Both laugh] Why would you even watch this?"
Quint: You're like "fuck you guys, Chuck Heston rules!"
Rob Zombie: So yeah, I totally get it.
Quint: Well are you in L.A. right now? You're not in San Diego yet?
Rob Zombie: I've got to work every second and I can't go to San Diego until two
seconds before panel time, because we're still sound mixing and stuff, so…
Quint: I'd imagine you're showing something at your panel. Are you looking
forward to talking to the fans and showing…
Rob Zombie: Yeah, I am and I'm not, because there's weird things, like when
you're going to show somebody one scene, you're like "shit, what do I show
them?" Sometimes if you take anything out of context it's like "well,
that'll give the wrong impression… that'll give the wrong impression," so
yeah, I'm kind of agonizing over what to show.
Quint: Well I don't want to put any more worries into you or any, you know,
false hope, but COMIC-CON is such a… I know that you've been here before
right?
Rob Zombie: Oh yeah, yeah.
Quint: They can be the most amazing audience… give you the best feedback in
the world, but if they don't like something they also don't mind holding back.
There's no filter, so I can imagine being…
Rob Zombie: Yeah, I mean nothing about it worries me, because I've… you know,
the same thing with Rejects. When Rejects was done, I was like "I love this
film. I'm good, no matter what anyone says, it doesn't matter to me." You
know and that's how I feel now and that's the only way you can approach things
and I think that if you do things with self doubt like "oh my God, somebody
said something I better change it…" that's why you get so many movies
that look like they're so bland and made by a committee. You have to be focused
that you're doing what you're doing. It's the only way to make things.
Quint: Yeah, well I think one thing that we can definitely agree on is
your casting of Malcolm McDowell as Sam Loomis. I think that it takes a lot to
fill Donald Pleasence's shoes, but McDowell, I felt was pretty inspired casting.
What was he like to work with? Did he really embrace the…
Rob Zombie: Malcolm was great. I love Malcolm. I've always loved him as an actor
and as a guy. He's like the greatest guy in the world… easy going… just fun
and it was a total pleasure and that was one of the things that was funny. Even
friends of mine, when they're like "I don't see how you could possibly
remake this movie! Who could possibly take over Donald Pleasence?" I go
"What about Malcolm McDowell?" They go "Well that might be true.
It might work." Of course you don't know…but when people would see
stuff, they'd go "oh yeah, well I guess that'll work too." It's funny
how everyone's so convinced at something and slowly they go "well, Tyler
Mane? That's the worst idea I've ever heard." When they see him they're
like "yeah, he does look pretty fucking good doesn't he?" It's funny.
Quint: What did he bring to it? Obviously you don't want him to just be
playing Donald Pleasence playing Loomis…
Rob Zombie: He had never seen Halloween. So he had no reference point what so
ever. He's coming from a totally different point of view. He had never seen
Halloween and he was friends with Donald Pleasence. So it's a totally different
perspective from a fan of Halloween and in fact it's from the exact opposite of
the corner, so yeah we played him different. I mean, Dr. Loomis, in the
original, doesn't really have a character arc in the sense that we come to him
after everything has happened. You know, he's like "He's Michael and we
want to keep him locked away… blah blah blah," but this Dr. Loomis goes
through a change when we meet him early on with young Michael where he feels
that there's still somebody there he can reach and there's something he can do
and then we watch him go through his failure becoming the other guy, so it's a
very different character. They go through kind of the same journey, except we
never saw the other character actually go through the journey, we just sort of
heard about it in little snippets. So it's very different.
Quint: Would you be open to doing sequels or would you be like Carpenter and
back off to do your own thing?
Rob Zombie: I definitely would not do sequels, so no. Because much like I'd
assume Carpenter, I wanted to make a movie with a beginning, a middle, and an
end, so it's a movie going experience. It's not a franchise going experience,
because I think that's part of what ruins these movies too - everybody's like
"well what are you going to do for part 2?" I don't give a shit about
a part 2 or 3, 4, 5. I want to make one great movie and then whatever happens
happens. If you just go in there with that sort of thought process, you're not
going to do anything. You're going to be so scared, like "oh but what about…"
You can't worry about that. What about what makes this fucking movie work? Why
not focus on that for a change.
Archived w/o permission 2007-08 Alex D Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net