From his band White Zombie, to a successful heavy metal solo-career and through such fright flicks as House of 1000 Corpses (2003), The Devil’s Rejects (2005), Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009), Rob Zombie has shown himself to be an ambitious maverick of the macabre. Although The Devil’s Rejects stands out as his best work, it is likely that most fear-fans still thrilled to the ensemble cast he put together for House of 1000 Corpses – which re-introduced cinema screens to the allure of such beloved B-movie names as Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Karen Black. Whilst both Michael Myers movies were undoubted misfires – unique only in being every bit as bad as the franchise’s erstwhile nadir with 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection – Zombie’s latest frightener, The Lords of Salem, demonstrates a notable U-turn from such slasher nastiness. In this stylish shocker, perennial muse Sheri Moon Zombie plays a DJ who is terrorised, for mysterious means, by a coven of witches. Already running up considerable word of mouth, not to mention divergent reviews, The Lords of Salem may never reach the critical heights of The Devil’s Rejects – which remains one of the best horror flicks of the past decade – but it will definitely have genre buffs speaking. And, when The Dark Side catches up with Zombie, that personal – and often polarising – stamp, he admits, is something he never hopes to lose…
