Rob Zombie rails against meddling movie companies that cramp his horror-making style

When American horror director and hard-rocker Rob Zombie chatted with me by phone the other day he took a little time out from promoting his new album and upcoming tour with Alice Cooper to castigate the studio behind his latest film, Halloween 2.

"Movie companies meddle--especially Weinstein Company, they're the most meddlesome company on the planet earth," fumed Zombie. "They meddle so much and you fight all day long about everything that it's not really till you step back from it that you realize how many things have changed that you didn't want to change or didn't intend to change. Basically you have people that are fucking with the process so heavily that it's almost like you start losing your mind after a while."

Zombie did say that he was pleased to have his director's cut of Halloween 2 available on DVD, because "the whole tone of the movie is different, and the entire end of the movie's completely different." But he's definitely had enough of remaking the John Carpenter-spawned slasher series. There will be no Halloween 3: Season of the Witch with his name on it.

"I did two for that company because that's what I was contractually obliged to do," he said, "but I will never work in a situation again where people want to fuck with the finished product that much. It's just not worth it. I would rather not make movies than deal with that anymore."

For more from Zombie on the Gruesome Twosome tour, his relationship with Alice Cooper, and the YouTube controversy surrounding his song "Virgin Witch", see Return of the rocking Rob Zombie.