Stoke up the fire and put the cauldron on to boil, kids: Rob Zombie’s back and this time he’s tackling witches. Thanks to some cash backing from Paranormal Activit****y’s Jason Blum, Steven Schneider and Oren Peli via their Haunted Films company, he’s turning a long-gestating script called The Lords of Salem into his next film.
The horror thriller will take place in modern-day Salem Massachusetts, famous – or should that be infamous – for the witch trials that took place in the 17th century. That history comes back into play when a 300-year old coven of witches starts causing trouble for the inhabitants. And they thought there’d be no controversy!
Zombie has apparently been noodling with the concept for a few years, but put it aside to work on other things. Now, though, he’s shoved it front and centre and will write a shooting draft while he’s out on tour this year, to kick off shooting in 2011. He seems especially glad at the deal Haunted Films offered him, which could best be described as carte blanche. “What excited me most was Jason saying, 'you can have total control over the script, casting and final cut,'” Zombie tells Deadline. “I said I’m in.”
But what of The Blob, which he announced he’d be remaking a year ago? We have good news for those who disliked his Halloween movies and bad news for fans... Zombie’s happy to stay with something original, and is ditching all his specially bought jelly moulds. “I wanted to break away from anything related to pre-existing material,” he says. “The remake train is getting pretty tired now and when I made Halloween, everybody complained, either that it was too much like the original or too different. I like that people either love or hate what I do because it’s better than being in the middle, which means forgettable. But when you do an original premise, they take it on face value and after three years of not being able to win on Halloween, I just couldn't go through that again.” Neither could we, Mr Z. Neither could we.