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Rob Zombie on “Post Mortem with Mick Garris” only on FEARnet, preview

By April MacIntyre Aug 17, 2011, 19:12 GMT

Awesome! - Rob Zombie - Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival 2010 in West Palm Beach - August 11, 2010 - Cruzan Amphitheater - West Palm Beach, FL, USA © LUIS BLANCO / PR Photos

One of the best series on the smallscreen and Intenret is FEARnet’s “Post Mortem with Mick Garris," especially if you are a horror fanboy/girl.

Award-winning filmmaker Mick Garris lands the big Tuna in the field for his series: Friedkin, Landis, Darabont, Carpenter, Corman, Englund, Craven and more.  He recently sat down with filmmaker Rob Zombie to discuss his career.

Garris himself is no slouch in the gore and more cinematic department, starting his career as a receptionist for George Lucas’s Star Wars Corporation, where he worked his way up to running the remote-controlled R2-D2 robot at personal appearances, including that year's Academy Awards ceremony.

Garris hosted and produced "The Fantasy Film Festival" for nearly three years on Los Angeles television, and later began work in film publicity at Avco Embassy and Universal Pictures. It was there that he created "Making of..." documentaries for various feature films.

Steven Spielberg hired Garris as story editor on the Amazing Stories series for NBC, where he wrote or co-wrote 10 of the 44 episodes. Since then, he has written or co-authored several feature films (*Batteries Not Included, The Fly II, Hocus Pocus, Critters 2, Riding The Bullet) and teleplays (Amazing Stories, Quicksilver Highway, Virtual Obsession, The Others, Desperation, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Masters Of Horror), as well as directing and producing in many media: cable (Psycho IV: The Beginning, Tales From The Crypt, Masters Of Horror), features (Critters 2, Sleepwalkers, Riding The Bullet), television films (Quicksilver Highway, Virtual Obsession, Desperation), series pilots (The Others, Lost In Oz), and network miniseries (The Stand, The Shining, Steve Martini's The Judge). 

FEARnet.com, the online component of the FEARnet cable channel, will soon feature an in-depth interview with the director, musician, and genre rebel Rob Zombie (“Halloween,” and “House of 1000 Corpses”) on “Post Mortem with Mick Garris.” 

Garris talks to Rob Zombie about his tough climb to success, his music career, his dislike of CG, and the similarities between the genre business and the porn industry.

The five-part interview will be available on FEARnet.com and On Demand (VOD) starting August 22, 2011, and will also be made available on FEARnet’s cable channel as of August 27th. 

You can view past and present episodes of “Post Mortem with Mick Garris” at: http://www.fearnet.com/shows/post_mortem/index.html. 

EXCERPTS

Garris and Zombie discuss Zombie’s bumpy ride to success in the horror film industry, his opinions on being a genre director, his music career, and his dream project.  Highlights of the interview include Zombie’s comments on…:

Rob Zombie on his early struggles: 

“And then I was on the set of Daredevil.  Um, interviewing Ben Affleck for MTV… between takes he said, ‘hey what’s up with your movie blah blah blah?’ I said, ‘oh well Universal dumped it because… I guess they have a conscience, they have morals, but MGM’s gonna put it out, I guess they have no morals ha ha ha.’  …And then the next day it was on the front page of Variety, me saying that…  and the editor called me and goes, ‘yeah we just got here.  Everything’s locked up and they won’t let us in.’

… his career aspirations:

“I would love to make a Western…  That’s probably one of my favorite things of all time, is Westerns, even more so than horror.” 

… his dream project:

“I think at this point Tyrannosaurus Rex has become my dream project. I put so much into it… cause it’s basically a really violent 70s-style fight movie.  It’s the perfect movie that the timing is right. And the less that anybody wants to make it, the more you feel like the timing is even more right.”

… his feelings regarding his past work:

“I remember with Devil’s Rejects when it was done; Houses of 1000 was a… mess so I never knew how I felt, but Rejects I felt like when it was done I was like, ‘I love this movie. I don’t care what anyone else says, I love it. Nothing’s gonna change my opinion.’ Because that was the only movie I was ever 100% free to do whatever I wanted. You know, whereas the Halloween process was not that.”

… use of computer graphics:

“I’m not a big CG fan because I think it’s just turned movies into cartoons… The movies have become so big and so spectacular. I almost can’t even pay attention to them. They’re so big, ya know… I can’t relate to anything.”

The conversation also covers Zombie’s own feelings on the horror genre’s reputation in the entertainment industry, his specific movie-planning techniques, and his extensive track record with different forms of media, and what his future holds.

FEARnet is the premier cable television channel for fans of horror, thriller and suspense entertainment.  FEARnet is also available online at FEARnet.com and On Demand.