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Rob Zombie - Celebrity Interview - Main Image

re-imagining was the casting of Dr. Loomis, Myers's psychologist from his mental institution. The part was originally played by the late Donald Pleasence, and Malcolm McDowell steps in in the update. "McDowell's the only one I really thought would make it work. Early on, everybody was like, 'Well no one can replace Donald Pleasence.'...he brought the same thing to Halloween that Alec Guinness brought to the original Star Wars, you know?" In Zombie's mind there was only one choice. "I thought McDowell could do it. He was the only one on the list."

While he was able to snag his dream casting for that character, however, there's a long list of respected actors from the '70s and '80s Zombie would've loved to have appear. "Rutger Hauer," he says, throwing out a few random names. "I really wanted Rutger Hauer for Werewolf Women of the SS, actually. Roy Schieder's another one."

Zombie's love for the stars of Blade Runner and Jaws, respectively, is an extension of his love for many movies in the '70s, when he was growing up. "Well, the first film that I ever saw was King Kong, and that made me go, Holy crap, movies. I was like in kindergarten. But the first movie I saw in theaters -- it's funny when you're such a little kid, you don't even know that movie theaters existed, and then you go, why are all these people sitting in these seats? -- the first movie I saw in theaters was Willy Wonka." He notes some of his other favorites include Blazing Saddles and The French Connection. As you might have guessed, A Clockwork Orange, which is from the '71 and stars McDowell, is also among the list. "The first time I saw that [was] in high school," Zombie says. "He's just so insane."

Zombie is also quick to point out that he's a huge fan of the original Halloween director, John Carpenter, who's churned out over a dozen well-regarded horror films in his forty-year career. "I've known John since Escape from L.A.," Zombie says, referring of course to the 1996 follow-up to the '80s Kurt Russell B-movie classic Escape from NY. "I did a song for that movie based only on the fact that I wanted to go down and hang out on the set...when [doing Halloween] came up, he was the first person I called. And he was cool. He was like, 'Oh, great, go for it.'"

Of course, Zombie did go for it, and it looks like his master career plan -- whatever that is -- is working: Halloween shattered the Labor Day weekend record with 31 million dollars over the past four days. Considering the horror genre's many flops this year, and the flick's launch in the no-man's-land of late summer, it's a massive achievement. Already the film has affected his career: a few ...

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