5 Awesome Horror Projects Rob Zombie Almost Directed!
John Squires
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My sincere apologies if this makes you feel old, but it’s now been 13 years since Rob Zombie’s directorial debut solidified his status as a horror filmmaker worth keeping an eye on. It was back in 2003 that House of 1000 Corpses turned Zombie from musician to musician/filmmaker, and he followed up his debut effort with The Devil’s Rejects, Halloween, Halloween II, and most recently, The Lords of Salem. Up next he unleashes 31.
With 31 set to hit limited theaters for one-night-only on September 1st, followed by a planned VOD release on September 16th and standard theatrical roll-out on October 21st, we thought it’d be fun to look back on the horror flicks Zombie didn’t get to make, rather than the ones he did. From a couple of remakes to an original film we’re still begging to see, here are 5 awesome horror projects that Rob Zombie *almost* directed!
1) THE CROW: 2037
A couple years before production began on House of 1000 Corpses, Rob Zombie was originally set to make his directorial debut with new franchise installment The Crow 2037: A New Age of Gods and Monsters. At the time, the future-set film would’ve followed in the wake of The Crow: City of Angels, and though it was of course never made, Zombie did write a script. The script began on Halloween night in 2010, the story kicking off with a young boy and his mother being murdered by a Satanic priest. True to the franchise, the boy rises from the dead and becomes a vengeful assassin. Zombie’s The Crow: 2037 script was eventually reworked into a standalone project that also never came to fruition.
2) THE BLOB
Prior to directing Halloween, Rob Zombie famously noted that he had no desire to ever remake another filmmaker’s work, and in the wake of Halloween, he became attached to yet another remake. Back in 2009 it was reported that Zombie would be making his own version of The Blob, and in an interview he strongly implied that the film would center on an original creature from outer space, rather than a gelatinous mass of goo. He also revealed that the film’s second remake was going to be very dark and deadly serious. Alas, after the nightmarish experience he had making both Halloween and Halloween II, Zombie reverted back to his original promise of never directing a remake, and he departed the project.
Last we heard, Simon West (Con Air) is now attached to remake The Blob.
3) C.H.U.D.
Speaking of remakes, there was one point in time when it was reportedly confirmed, straight from Rob Zombie’s mouth, that he was developing a new take on the 1984 cult classic C.H.U.D. (aka Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers). We learned absolutely nothing about the alleged project prior to Zombie’s management team denying the rumors; rumors that began in 2007, when Billboard.com announced that Zombie’s C.H.U.D. was scheduled for release in 2009. If Zombie was actually planning on remaking the film, those plans were likely scrapped due to him signing on to direct Halloween II – which was released in 2009.
4) TYRANNOSAURUS REX
Hands down the coolest unmade Rob Zombie movie of them all is Tyrannosaurus Rex, which Zombie began teasing in 2008. Scheduled, at the time, for release in 2009, the film was set to be an adaptation of the Steve Niles/Rob Zombie comic book The Nail, centered on a badass professional wrestler who runs afoul of a bloodthirsty gang of Satanic bikers in North Dakota. Described by Zombie as an “incredibly violent” homage to ’70s action movies, Tyrannosaurus Rex was teased with various pieces of concept art (seen above), but the whole thing dropped off the face of the Earth when Zombie instead directed Halloween II. Will it ever roar back to life? We can only hope.
5) MANSON FAMILY TV SERIES
It’s no secret that Rob Zombie is incredibly fascinated by Charles Manson, so much so that many elements of the so-called “Manson family murders” have worked their way into his films, so it came as no big surprise when it was announced that Zombie was developing a series about Manson and his female followers. The plan, as announced in 2014, was that Zombie and American Psycho writer Bret Easton Ellis would collaborate on the small screen mini-series for Fox, with Ellis writing and Zombie directing. The idea was to tell converging stories of people and events leading up to and after the infamous 1969 murders, told from shifting points of view. However, it wasn’t long before Easton Ellis revealed that the project was dead in the water, suggesting that the social media buzz about it led NBC to green light the Manson-inspired series “Aquarius”; Fox, as a result, scrapped their plans.
Which of these unmade Rob Zombie projects would you most like to see? Let us know!
