Rob Zombie’s Five Favorite Horror Films

I could go on forever with the list, so I just picked five random ones, because I go through periods where I watch certain movies a lot. I don’t know why — I’ll get on a kick. I’ve been on a kick lately of watching Dracula, the 1931 version with Bela Lugosi, over and over and over and over. You know?

I love everything from the ’30s. The 1930s is my absolute favorite time period for horror movies, because they were just so demented and sick. Sometimes you watch them and go, “Wow, they get away with a lot.” Then, of course, the codes came in and it ruined the party. When you watch movies from the 1940s, they seem so tame and so dry, but everything from the ’30s is just amazing.

Lugosi in that film is so iconic, he doesn’t even seem like an actor giving a performance. Some of these people transcend to something else. It’s like Marilyn Monroe or something. They became something else. Sometimes people will make fun of his performance because of his accent, but he’s so… It’s so funny. I love watching him, because his performances are so unique. Sometimes there’s other people in the film — like David Manners, who’s like the lead, good-looking guy, and he’s so wooden and so 1930s-stiff acting, and Lugosi seems like Brando. You can see he’s so in it that when they yelled, “Cut!,” he didn’t cut. You can just see it. He’s so committed that his performance is funny, because it’s on such another level from anyone else in the film. Everybody in those movies back then, you watch them and it’s just — it’s that feeling like, “Eh, you know, even though they’re supposed to be boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, they don’t [seem] like they’re having sex or something.” Lugosi seems like he wants to f— everything in the movie constantly. He just has that vibe. Really weird, man. You know?

He does, essentially, I guess.

Yeah, he does. He’s just not tame. I don’t know, maybe because he was Hungarian or whatever, he just has a different way of approaching, but he does not have that “uptight American actor from the ’30s” vibe at all. He just steals every moment. Not just him; Dwight Frye as Renfield is amazing. It’s funny — actors seem like they don’t want to do these types of movies, but as soon as you play a villain in something that’s like a horror movie, that’s what you’re going to be remembered for. Even if Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for whatever — Remains of the Day or Howard’s End or I can’t even remember what it was — he’s Hannibal Lecter. Doesn’t matter if Jack Nicholson won an Oscar for Cuckoo’s Nest or whatever; he’s Jack Torrance. It’s so funny, these roles are just so — they stick.

Lugosi’s my favorite. I think he’s in almost every movie I picked here.I didn’t even realize it till I did my list and it’s like, “Oh, s—, He’s in every movie I picked.” Another one is Murders in the Rue Morgue. 1932 again, with Lugosi as Dr. Mirakle, who’s desperately trying to mate a woman with a gorilla. Again, you watch — basically, he wants the gorilla to have sex with this woman, and they’re sort of dancing around the topic the whole time. He’s mixing their blood, and when he’s done with the ones that failed, he just dumps them in the river. It’s pretty f—ed up. Again the male leads seem completely… Oh, they’re from “blah blah blah”  acting, and Lugosi is so bizarre and incredible, as always.

Do you think they intentionally told the rest of the cast to keep it kind of mellow so he could upstage them?

I don’t think so. I think he was just on another vibe. They were all like, “We’re in a movie and we’re acting,” and he’s like, “I am Dracula.” It’s funny — I always talk about Brando, like I said before, bringing in that new style of acting, but I don’t know. When you want Lugosi, he sort of was like… He was already there, man.

I would say my third one would probably be The Black Cat, 1934. Lugosi, but with Karloff, who also is demented, as a Satan worshiper. David Manners, who is in Dracula, again giving another bizarre, stiff, wooden performance, except this time it’s more obvious, because you have two guys who are amazing surrounding him. It’s always weird watching these sort of straight-up leading men being destroyed by these freaks. I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. I guess these guys don’t really get the credit that they deserve for their acting, because they were always in horror movies, but Lugosi and Karloff are just incredible. I mean, they create these iconic moments that define what cinema is, and they’re sort of brushed off. But I guess that’s the way it goes.

And I’m sure they had no idea their images would become so legendary for decades to come.

No, I’m sure once they shot these movies, they thought, “Oh, who’s going to remember this next year?” No one thought they’d be watching these movies over and over. That why, when that Shock Theater popped up on TV in the — what is it, the late ’50s or whatever? And people started rewatching these movies on TV, and they found a whole new audience, people were shocked. They’re like, “Who cares? These movies are old.” It’s so bizarre.

People don’t give enough credit to how twisted they really were. You can watch them now, and they stand up.

They totally do, because what happened was like, you can see the cycle. In the 1930s, they’re incredible. They’re like A-level movies for Universal or MGM or whatever. They’re really dark. They’re really adult, too. 1940, the codes come in, everything gets a little bit more whitewashed. It becomes like House of Frankenstein, and there’s a lot of monsters, and you can see it’s more aimed for kids. Then the next step of degradation was they have to meet Abbott and Costello. By that point, it’s just complete buffoonery. Maybe it’s like a 10-year gap or something. But if you watch Dracula and then you watch Lugosi in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, you’re like, “Wow, it’s so weird to watch …” It’s like watching Jack Nicholson pop up in an Adam Sandler movie, but playing the character from The Shining, and you go, “What? Really? We’re doing this?”

I love those movies, too, because they’re so bizarre, but it’s so funny, because that’s, I think, what people think of, because they’re so childish. The ones from the ’30s are definitely not childish. Especially Frankenstein. When you watch it, I mean we’re not really talking about that one, but some stuff is… These are such early films, people must have been so disturbed. There’s not a lot of music. Especially Dracula has, like, no music, so the sounds of people screaming or whatever’s happening just seems so real. I can’t imagine what people were thinking, because movies had just come out of the silent era, practically, so it’s pretty crazy.

You know, we can talk about degradation back then, but today too — the first Elm Street movie was such a classic, and then Freddy almost became like Mickey Mouse.

That always happens, yeah. I used to always say that — that Freddy Krueger and stuff, he was scary, and then they’re like, “Oh, his catchphrases get a big reaction. More catchphrases.” Then there’s a line of toys. I used to think it was funny when you’d see a five-year-old dressing up as Freddy Krueger. Your five-year-old’s dressing up essentially as a child-murdering pedophile? Okay, that’s a good costume. Yeah, they always become lovable after a while. It just happens.

Pretty disturbing in itself.

That’s just the way life goes [laughs].

The last one I picked was another Lugosi film, so yeah, he is in every film I picked. That’s funny. I didn’t even realize it. It’s White Zombie from ’32, which is shortly after Dracula. It’s an amazing movie. I’m pretty sure it’s the first movie to ever use the word “zombie” — to use that in a movie. It takes place in Haiti, and Lugosi runs this sugar mill and the zombies are his workers and stuff. Again, he’s amazing, but the film is — only really bad versions of it existed for so long, so every time you’d watch it, you go like, “Wow, the quality of this movie is horrible. It looks like a cheap movie.” Then later, when people have restored things and find them, it’s a really incredible-looking movie. Again, it seems very primitive, but it looks amazing, and he’s great as always. If you watch some of the leads and you just watch their scenes, you go, “What is this, like a cute little musical comedy?” Then he comes in. Again, not f—ing around.

I know a certain rock star that named his band after the movie.

Yeah, I love that movie so much, and I always thought, “What a great name for a band.” I thought that way before I ever had a band. I go, “If I ever had a band, that would be the name.”