It's not unusual for musicians to try their hand at filmmaking — Prince, Madonna, Ice Cube, RZA, David Byrne, and many others have experimented in the director's chair — but few are as persistent as Rob Zombie. After directing several music videos for both his band White Zombie and his solo music, the metal musician made the grimy horror film House of 1000 Corpses in 2003.
Since then, he's directed eight more narrative features — chaotic, frightening works that grapple with violence on the margins of American society with varying degrees of success. While many of his films might make uncomfortable watches for squeamish viewers, there's no doubt that Zombie has a distinct, consistent cinematic style, and his willingness to take formal and thematic risks makes him an exciting filmmaker to explore.
Read on for EW's ranking of Rob Zombie's filmography.
9. The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)
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With the exception of The Munsters, all of Zombie's movies employ a crass, irreverent sense of humor. This grotesque direct-to-DVD animated project is the crudest of them all: a gleefully offensive set of vignettes based on Zombie's comics of the same name. It follows El Superbeasto (Tom Papa), a crime-fighting actor and wrestler, and his secret agent sister Suzi-X (Sheri Moon Zombie, who is married to the director and has appeared in all of his films to date). Paul Giamatti and Rosario Dawson appear in supporting roles.
The most generous reading of this film might interpret it as a tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top satire of the obsession with sex and violence in American pop culture. But it mostly feels like its director's juvenile sensibilities spinning out of control, as the majority of its humor relies on shock value and lazy provocation.
8. 3 From Hell (2019)
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The final installment in the House of 1000 Corpses/Devil's Rejects trilogy is the weakest by a considerable margin. The film takes place 10 years after the end of The Devil's Rejects, as serial killers Baby Firefly (Sheri Moon Zombie) and Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Moseley) attempt to escape prison with the help of Foxy Coltrane (Richard Brake). Its meandering structure makes it a chore to sit through, and it's not nearly as formally audacious or creative as its predecessors.
The film is also impacted by uncontrollable behind-the-scenes circumstances: Since Sid Haig was battling health issues at the time of production, his role is significantly reduced, which means it almost entirely lacks the trilogy's most invigorating character, killer clown Captain Spaulding. 3 From Hell brings very little to the table that you haven't already seen in previous installments, so it ultimately feels like a superfluous afterthought rather than a worthwhile extension of the story.
7. 31 (2016)
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When a gang of freewheeling carnival workers is kidnapped by a mysterious group of torturers on Halloween, they must fight their way out of a murderous game called "31" to survive the night. A stable of regular Zombie collaborators comprises the cast, including Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Richard Brake, and Malcolm McDowell.
The film has a few excellent scenes — especially the character introductions and the thrillingly ambiguous finale — but it suffers from a painfully repetitive structure. Most of the runtime consists of the characters running (and crawling) around claustrophobic locations without much visual intrigue or atmosphere.
6. The Munsters (2022)
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Zombie's tribute/prequel to the '60s monster sitcom is a refreshing change of pace and style for the filmmaker — a light, breezy comedy that proves he can do family-friendly kitsch almost as well as gnarly horror. The movie is full of winsome comedic performances: Sheri Moon Zombie makes a wonderful vampire as Lily; Daniel Roebuck excels as her grumpy father, the Count; and Jeff Daniel Phillips is hilarious as the Frankenstein's-monster-esque Herman.
The film's charmingly lo-fi style embraces the familiar warmth of tacky plastic, goofy makeup, and old-school television aesthetics. It also wisely adopts an episodic structure to mirror the source material — rather than adapting the series into one stretched-out narrative, the film tells five or six individual stories that flow into one another.
Where to watch The Munsters: Netflix
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5. Halloween II (2009)
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Diehard fans of the Halloween franchise may not appreciate how far this follow-up to Zombie's 2007 reboot strays from the series' usual conventions and dynamics. It's not particularly loyal to the fun tone, minimalist style, or tight pacing that made John Carpenter's original film so great. That's because this is a Rob Zombie movie first and a Halloween movie second — a flawed yet ambitious project that dives headfirst into the psychology of both Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), abandoning the black-and-white morality of the original film for something more complicatedly gray.
The film, which reunites Laurie and Michael a year after their first encounter, is all about the effects of violence, with chillingly visceral kill sequences that linger on the pain of the victims for uncomfortably long stretches. And the two main characters share hallucinations seemingly onset by trauma, creatively visualized with surreal imagery and off-kilter editing. It's scary, troubling, and surprisingly empathetic — not Zombie's finest work, but a fascinating entry in his filmography nonetheless.
4. House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
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Even though it's rough around the edges and structurally off-kilter, Zombie's debut feature remains the best display of his nightmarish creativity. The film follows a group of friends (Rainn Wilson, Erin Daniels, Jennifer Jostyn, and Chris Hardwick) who end up trapped in a house with a family of malicious oddballs (Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, and Karen Black) after their car breaks down. It's overstuffed with fascinating characters, filthy locations, and highly detailed lore.
With 1000 Corpses, it feels as though Zombie put every horror idea he could into a single movie: In addition to the murderous family of antagonists, there's also a killer clown, dead cheerleaders, an evil scientist named "Dr. Satan," and a carnival ride revolving around legendary local murderers. Yet, it doesn't over-explain the darker corners of the world it creates, because Zombie knows that some of the scariest images and ideas are the ones you don't fully understand.
Where to watch House of 1000 Corpses: Tubi
Rob Zombie on his 'f---ed-up crazy movie' House of 1000 Corpses, 20 years later
3. The Devil's Rejects (2005)
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Zombie's sophomore feature is a direct sequel to his debut, and it's probably his bleakest, most anarchic movie to date — which means it's the purest example of his signature style and directorial ethos. The murderous antagonists of House of 1000 Corpses — Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), Otis Driftwood (Bill Moseley), and Baby Firefly (Sheri Moon Zombie) — are this film's central figures, but they haven't reformed or atoned to make themselves any more heroic.
It's a relentless chase movie between awful but charismatic serial killers and the sadistic lawmen that pursue them, like Bonnie and Clyde if Bonnie and Clyde were the worst people in the world. There are no likable or even sympathetic characters at this movie's core, just several different flavors of sociopathy. It's only his second feature, but Zombie's artistic vision already feels fully realized here — every shaky shot, unpredictable cut, and classic rock needle drop seems precisely deployed to disorient the viewer.
2. Halloween (2007)
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Zombie's reimagining of John Carpenter's classic slasher is one of his scariest and most dramatically effective works. While Carpenter declined to give Michael Myers much of a backstory, Zombie enthusiastically runs in the opposite direction, dedicating almost half the movie's runtime to the killer's childhood and unpacking the psychology behind his violence.
The film frames Michael (Tyler Mane and Daeg Faerch) as both survivor and perpetrator in a cycle of violent trauma — a product of his environment rather than a natural force of evil. Zombie's approach forces us to consider sympathizing with a character who's incapable of sympathy himself, which is especially impressive considering the terrifying brutality of his actions in the later parts of the film. Malcolm McDowell brings steady gravitas to Dr. Samuel Loomis, while Scout Taylor-Compton's blood-curdling screams make her an excellent Laurie Strode.
1. The Lords of Salem (2012)
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Zombie's best movie follows a radio DJ (Sheri Moon Zombie) in Salem, Mass., as she unwittingly encounters a coven of witches through nightmares, visions, and hypnotic music. For a filmmaker so enamored with anarchy, the director shows an unusual amount of restraint here, replacing his usual shaky camerawork and fast-paced editing with a calm, precise style that slowly and steadily moves through each of the film's unsettling locations.
Zombie creates a rich, foreboding atmosphere unlike anything else in his filmography, so full of inexplicable dread and surreal imagery that it almost lulls you into a trance. Sheri Moon Zombie has never been better, crafting a natural, nuanced character battling addiction and supernatural afflictions — sympathetic but never condescending.
Where to watch The Lords of Salem: Tubi
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