Rob Zombie Did Not Have A Good Time Making His 'Halloween' Movies

Rob Zombie's Halloween movies have their defenders, but I'm not one of them. And it sounds like Zombie disliked making the movies just as much as I disliked watching them. The filmmaker and Dragula enthusiast recently opened-up about the "miserable experience" of making his two Halloween movies. Zombie also revealed that he made a behind-the-scenes documentary highlighting the problems involved with Halloween, but it's unlikely to ever see the light of day.

In 2007, Rob Zombie's Halloween attempted to resurrect Michael Myers for a whole new generation. The result was a messy, poorly-written film that took away what made Michael Myers so scary to begin with and turned him into some poor, misunderstood loser who grows up to be a hulking serial killer. Zombie's attempt to give Michael a tragic backstory is the antithesis of John Carpenter's original, in which Michael Myers was a seemingly normal kid from a normal family and who turned out to be the living embodiment of evil anyway. In short, I hated it.

Zombie's sequel Halloween II was a bit better because the filmmaker took things into an even weirder direction. But it still suffered from the problem that plagues all of Zombie's movies: a bad screenplay. Still, I know plenty of people – people whose opinions I respect, even – who love the Zombie Halloween movies. Yet all the defenders in the world aren't enough to improve the experience of making the Halloween movies for Rob Zombie. Speaking with Forbes, the filmmaker – who is out there promoting his latest film, Three From Hell – revealed that making Halloween and Halloween II was no treat.

"Making Halloween with the Weinsteins was a miserable experience for me," Zombie says, continuing:

"And so I was very reticent to do the second one. I did do the second one, and I thought, 'Okay, well the first one was a miserable experience, but it did well, so maybe it'll be easier the second time?' It was worse. Oh my God. I felt like they weren't trusting me on the first one because they wanted to make sure it was a hit and now they weren't trusting me not to fuck up their hit."

The Weinsteins were notorious for their interference in the films they produced. Before his career was derailed due to numerous sexual misconduct allegations, Harvey Weinstein was infamous for recutting movies himself, usually against the filmmaker's wishes. With that in mind, it's no surprise that Zombie had a less-than-great experience working with the Weinsteins.

In the same Forbes interview, Zombie also revealed that there's a making-of documentary that highlights the production woes, but we're unlikely to ever see it:

"We made a behind the scenes documentary for the making of Halloween. That has somehow gotten lost in the vaults. That shows how messed up everything was and what was going on when we were making those movies."

As much as I dislike Zombie's Halloween films, I'd love to see that doc. Maybe one day it'll turn up.