Rob Zombie talks Kubrick, Polanski and why The Lords of Salem feels like the biggest movie he’s ever done

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue Rob Zombie has his own trademark style of making movies. Interestingly though, his highly anticipated  latest feature THE LORDS OF SALEM might be a change of pace for the director. Speaking to Artisan News, Zombie gave a rundown of the cinematic approach he went for with his latest movie. You can read a transcript of the chat below:

“Cinematically, I wanted to do something different, ’cause I’ve done all the other movies – and I like that style – sort of handheld  and rough and kind of in your face, but I wanted to do something that was much more (…) controlled and composed, so it didn’t seem like ‘oh, I’ll just throw up a hand cam and grab it’. All the shots are very symmetrical and composed… Which is kind of a stupid thing to do when you don’t have a long shooting schedule, because sometimes setting up the shot takes forever and you’re losing so much time doing it, but once I locked into that style I couldn’t really vary from it. But, amazingly, it got done and it makes the movie look gigantic compared to the other films, because it just has this really grand approach to it. Which is really what I wanted to do. I couldn’t find a lot of movies that really had the look of what I was going for. All of the Stanley Kubrick films have that look and then the vibe of a lot of Roman Polanski’s films and then kind of the weirdness of Ken Russell’s movies, you know… If Ken Russell directed The Shining.”

THE LORDS OF SALEM stars Sid Haig, Bruce Davidson, Christopher Knight, Ken Foree, Billy Drago, Richard Lynch, John Five, Lisa Marie, Maria Conchita Alonso, Sheri Moon Zombie, Ernest Thomas, Michael Shamus Wiles, Barbara Crampton, Brandon Cruz, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Michael Berryman, Patricia Quinn, Judy Gleeson and Dee Wallace Stone.