Rob Zombie on his 'f---ed-up crazy movie' House of 1000 Corpses, 20 years later

House of 1000 Corpses is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month, but for Rob Zombie — who made his feature directorial debut with the horror movie — the journey has been longer.

The movie was filmed three years prior, in the summer of 2000. So why did it take so long to hit the screen? Zombie's tale of four friends (including characters played by Rainn Wilson and Chris Hardwick) running afoul of the twisted Firefly clan (portrayed by Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Sid Haig, and Karen Black, among others) was originally financed by Universal. The studio refused to release the director's violent, gnarly, outrageous tale and the movie sat on the shelf until Lionsgate finally put it onto screens on April 11, 2003. The film was a minor hit and swiftly developed a hardcore following, inspiring two Zombie-directed sequels (2005's The Devil's Rejects, 2019's 3 From Hell), and now a20th anniversary Blu-ray box set and SteelBook.

"It turned out great for me, it turned out great for Lionsgate, so it's all good," says Zombie, whose other directing credits include his 2007 remake of Halloween and last year's film version of The Munsters. "But it was a f---ed up journey to make it all good."

Below, Zombie talks more about that journey, the origins of his self-described "f---ed up crazy movie," and whether we will see the Firefly family onscreen again.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you strike the deal with Universal to make House of 1000 Corpses?

ROB ZOMBIE: I'd gotten a call from Guy Oseary, who now manages Madonna, and back then was running Maverick Records. We just had lunch, and [he said], "What do you want to do?" and I said, "Well, I'd really lIke to make movies." He said, "I'll set you up with a meeting with my friend at Universal, Kevin Misher." He set up a meeting, I went over to Universal, met with Kevin. It happened so fast that I kind of pitched a half-assed idea because it wasn't like I'd really been developing this pet project. It just seemed like it kind of kept going. It was the easiest I ever got a movie made! It was almost like we were so below Universal's radar that it just sort of kept bouncing ahead until we were making a movie. That they didn't want! [Laughs]

The film has this incredible cast of actors, some of whom were well known at the time, like Karen Black and Michael J. Pollard, and some of whom would go on to be much better, like Rainn Willson and Walton Goggins. What was your guiding spirit with regard to casting the roles?

Some people, maybe three or four, I wrote the roles with them in mind. It was definitely Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon, and Chris Hardwick. They were all people I wanted to be in the movie, the roles were developed around them. I don't remember how the idea for Karen Black came up but as soon as it did I was like, yes, perfect. I always wanted Michael J. Pollard because I just always loved him. It was really like a wish list of who I really liked to put in the movie. I never try to go after recognizable marquee names, it's more just people I think are cool.

As far as Walton Goggins or Rainn Wilson, they just came in for auditions and stood out to me. People always think like, oh, there's a million actors, and going on a casting call, it's a waste of time. No, it's not. There's a million actors, but there's a million s---ty actors, so the good ones stand out quick. It wasn't like it was between Rainn Wilson and 50 other guys. As soon as I saw him, I go, "That's the guy." Same with Walton Goggins. The people that are interesting pop out quick, if that's what you're looking for. I think Universal didn't like any of my casting back then. They really questioned the Rainn Wilson casting — and some of the others — and they kept making me bring them back. Back then, if you think of that time period, it would have been more conventional to cast models. I wasn't going for that look; I was trying to find people that were a little bit older, and not, you know, gorgeous [and] just happened to be driving cross-country. I just like people to look normal.

You're famously a fan of the Universal monster movies from the '30s and '40s. What was it like to actually be shooting on the Universal lot?

It was really great to be there. It felt like you're really making movies. You drive onto the lot, you show your ID to the guard, you drive past the soundstages and the Jaws ride. That part was really exciting. They would set up the tables in front of the Psycho house and we'd eat lunch up there. Or sometimes I'd just sit on the steps of the Munsters house and eat lunch. The thing that was kind of a strange bummer was, the tram ride that goes through the backlot, they will not shut it down for any reason. So it was constantly interrupting us while we were shooting. That was kind of weird.

How did you find out that Universal was not going to release the film?

We had a test screening and all the heads of Universal were there, [including] Stacey Snider, who was the chairman of Universal at the time. I thought the screening went well because the audience was engaged and cheering and yelling. Unfortunately, they were cheering and yelling in [the executives'] minds at the wrong stuff — cheering for the bad people to kill the good people, which now no one would be surprised at, but then it was shocking. After the screening, I went down to the lobby, and I was like, "Hey, it went great, right?" And all [Stacey Snider] said to me was, "Come to my office tomorrow, we've got to talk." And then they left. I was like, well, that doesn't sound particularly good. I went the next day and she basically said, this movie is unreleasable and we don't see there are any changes that you could make to it that would make it releasable. And that was it.

At the time, I was sort of like, good. I felt, well, I don't want to chop it up and water it down so then it's neither here nor there, it's not a f---ed up crazy movie nor is it a palatable PG horror movie. But then, as time went on, nobody wanted the film. It sat on a shelf for almost three years. I was like, this sucks. I never gave up on it, but it did not seem like things were going to turn out good.

How did Lionsgate get involved?

One of the people working there was a guy named Peter Block, who was really into doing genre stuff. He was a really good dude. Everybody there was really cool. Lionsgate was kind of small and very personable. I think they had passed on the movie at some point and somebody was like, no, they want to see it. This was years later. And that's when they took it.

When did you realize the film had begun to acquire a hardcore cult following?

It was a modest success and then it did really well on DVD. Nobody was on social media, or anything, because that was 2003 — you just had no vibe. I was like, is anybody even watching this movie? I don't f---ing know. Does anybody like it? Does anyone care? But I can remember clearly, I was on tour, and I was in Wisconsin, and this kid came up to me, and he goes, "Check it out!" And he had his entire leg tattooed with all the characters from House of 1000 Corpses. It just slowly kept going.

Have we seen the last of the House of 1000 Corpses/Devil's Rejects/3 From Hell world?

Probably as far as theatrical films go. Maybe there'll be graphic novels or other things. At this point, the three movies feel like they go well together. It took a lot of work to get the third one made and no one's getting any younger. Even with the third one, Sid Haig, from the time that we started talking about the movie to the time we shot it, his health declined so severely that he went from being one of the leads to barely being able to keep him on set for an hour to work. So, yeah, I think we got in just under the wire to make a trilogy.

Do you know what you're doing next?

I'm just focused on music. I tour all summer with Alice Cooper and then I want to start making another record. As far as films go, no. The Munsters was exhausting. That was an exhausting movie to make. It took almost five years of non-stop pushing. And then, being in a foreign country, during the height of COVID, was not as much fun as you would think! [Laughs] So the whole experience was very draining.

I interviewed you last year, and I asked if you would make another Munsters movie, and you said, "Ask me in a year."

Yeah. I won't and I don't want to. The only reason I would ever want to is because I like making sequels. You have so little time with the first movie to develop these characters. Towards the end of the Munsters film you go, okay, now they're all set, you can really jump in with what they're all about. But c'est la vie. That's why I like the Firefly stuff — I really got to develop them over the course of three movies, because the characters, by the third movie, are not the characters they start out as in the first movie.

The House of 1000 Corpses 20th-anniversary box set and SteelBook is now available to buy.

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