rob zombie movie reviews

Screen Rant

All 8 rob zombie movies ranked worst to best.

Whether remakes, retellings, or original stories, Rob Zombie's movies are always his, for better or worse. How do the horror director's films rank?

Rob Zombie ’s movies show off the director's distinct filmmaking style, but they have always been divisive with some being much better than others. While some praise his vision of stories full of gore and disturbing characters, others think he relies too much on shock value and doesn’t offer much beyond violent scenes of blood and guts. The truth is, both sides are partially correct: Zombie adds a lot of shocking scenes because of his exploitation influences, and his characters reflect the disturbing worldview often contained within his movies' themes. Combined with music often provided by the artist himself, Rob Zombie's movies are a unique audiovisual experience.

Zombie made his directorial debut with 2003's House of 1000 Corpses , and since then has directed a slew of titles that reflect his shifting tastes. From his fake movie trailer in Grindhouse , Werewolf Women of the SS , to direct-to-DVD animated films like The Haunted World of El Superbeasto , Zombie has proven himself to be more than a shock auteur. Zombie’s filmography runs the gamut from remakes and retellings to original content, with the director creating his own extended universe and mythology. Few artists have made the jump to filmmaking as successfully as Zombie, and though all of his Rob Zombie's movies have been polarizing, they are his own distinct creations.

RELATED: Rob Zombie's Most Hated Horror Movies

8 Halloween 2 (2009)

Like many Rob Zombie movies, his take on Halloween 2 was more of a retelling and not a simple remake of the 1981 film of the same name. Exploring both Laurie and Michael Myers’ pasts as well as Dr. Loomis’, the story is set right after the events of Halloween (2007) before a time jump of one year. Laurie is still dealing with the aftermath of that Halloween night while Dr. Loomis takes advantage of the tragedy and releases a new book. Elsewhere, Michael Myers is having visions of his mother, with Laurie also experiencing hallucinations connected to Michael’s past.

Though he kept some details from the original movie, like Laurie and Michael being siblings, Rob Zombie's Halloween films changed the canon and took liberties with the classic story. What hinders Halloween 2 the most is that it has too many things happening in just one movie. The addition of Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) through visions along with a white horse was a failed attempt to expand on Michael’s backstory and ended up being unnecessarily confusing. Zombie’s intentions were good, but Halloween 2 ended up destroying what his Halloween remake built.

7 31 (2016)

Initially believed to be a continuation of the story of the Firefly family from House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects , 31 was actually an original tale completely independent of the others that featured some frequent collaborators from Rob Zombie movies. Set during Halloween 1976, the story follows five carnival workers who are kidnapped by a gang of clowns and forced to play a survival game called “31”. The game lasts 12 hours, and the group is placed in a maze with different rooms where they must defend themselves from the “Heads”, which are murderous clowns whose goal is to torture and kill.

While the idea was nothing that hadn't been seen before, 31 contained Zombie’s typical gory blood-soaked scenes, and the maze established a claustrophobic feeling throughout. The movie had the style of classic exploitation films but spiced them up with a gang of murderous clowns with the character of Doom-Head being particularly nightmarish. Ultimately though, 31 failed to appeal to viewers outside the die-hard fans of Rob Zombie movies, and it generally lacked the imaginative approach that makes Zombie a divisive but distinct filmmaker.

6 The Munsters (2022)

Offering a complete departure from the typical Rob Zombie movies, the Netflix-exclusive film The Munsters was the director's take on the classic nostalgic property. Zombie's The Munsters was a pseudo-prequel to the 1960s show , and it was set in Transylvania where it followed a love-lorn vampire named Lily who falls head-over-heels for a gigantic science experiment named Herman, despite the ardent protestations from her protective father. They eventually move to the United States, and visit many of the familiar haunts from the series.

RELATED: Why Rob Zombie's Munsters Reboot Has So Many New Characters

Though The Munsters was a playful departure for Zombie, it ultimately suffered from many of the same problems that have been plaguing the director's work since the very beginning. Strong on heart and love for the source material, the film fails at telling a straightforward narrative and largely meanders from scene to scene with little motivation. Rob Zombie movies usually feature a low-budget grindhouse style, but large portions of The Munsters came off as cheap and not DIY endearing. Nevertheless, the strong and campy performances helped to keep the movie watchable throughout.

5 3 From Hell (2019)

The ending of The Devil's Rejects made it seem as if the leading trio of Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding had been killed by a hail of police gunfire to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd's classic rock staple "Free Bird." 14 years later though, 3 From Hell revealed that the Fireflies were only mostly dead, each having somehow been nursed back to health, then tried and convicted of their many crimes. 3 From Hell sees Otis and Baby escape from prison with the help of Otis' half-brother Foxy ( 31 's Richard Brake). Unfortunately, Spaulding diedearly in 3 From Hell due to the late Sid Haig's failing health at the time.

3 From Hell offered all the violence, gore, foul language, torture scenes, and 1970s music that fans had come to expect from Rob Zombie movies, but it was nevertheless lacking. 3 From Hell 's biggest failing was just how closely it stuck to The Devil's Rejects ' template without adding anything new. Outside a few key changes, it was almost the same exact movie, and its retconning of The Devil's Rejects' brilliant ending wasted a strong choice made by the director in the previous film. 3 From Hell hit all the marks for those who wanted more of the same, but its unremarkable nature was its unfortunate downfall.

4 The Lords of Salem (2012)

The Lords of Salem stood out from the rest of Rob Zombie's movies, but that didn't necessarily make it a strong piece of cinema. The story centers on witchcraft and satanism, and follows a DJ named Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) who receives a wooden box containing an album by a band called “The Lords”. As soon as she plays the record, she starts having strange visions and becomes entangled with a coven of ancient witches and diabolical Satan worshipers.

Out of all the Rob Zombie movies, The Lords of Salem had the least amount of gory and violent scenes, and while it was his most compelling film both visually and aurally, it was yet another example of Zombie wanting to tell a bunch of stories and add a lot of backstories in just one movie, which resulted in an overstuffed narrative. The Lords of Salem gathered its own cult following of fans who defend it for being different from Zombie’s usual slasher films, but the flaws weighed the movie down far too much for it to truly succeed.

3 Halloween (2007)

In 2007, Rob Zombie did what many have wanted but wouldn’t dare: take John Carpenter’s classic horror film Halloween and make it his own. 2007's Halloween was both a remake and a re-imagining and gave Michael Myers a backstory by following him during his time at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium after killing a school bully, his sister, and several others. It also expanded on his family life and his relationship with his mother, Deborah, and jumped 15 years into the future with Michael stalking Laurie Strode and her friends on Halloween night.

RELATED: All 3 Versions Of Rob Zombie's Halloween (& Which Is The Best)

What Rob Zombie's Halloween got right was its approach to Myers' backstory, which comprised the first half of the movie. It helped to provide a better understanding of Michael's personality, family background, and relationship with Dr. Loomis, as well as his motivations as a vicious murderer. Most viewers were expecting a full remake of the original movie, and that’s what ultimately hurt Zombie’s unique take. Nevertheless, Zombie built his own Halloween universe and paid tribute to Carpenter’s work at the same time. Of all the Rob Zombie movies, Halloween was his most divisive because of its beloved source material.

2 House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Zombie’s directorial debut was a strong one and set the tone for the rest of his filmography. House of 1000 Corpses took a page from classic exploitation films with strong influences from iconic horror movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes . Set around Halloween 1977, House of 1000 Corpses introduced the Firefly family and their love for torture and blood. The story follows a group of teenagers traveling across the country who find themselves living a real nightmare when they encounter the dangerous Firefly clan.

House of 1000 Corpses was the beginning of a trilogy that followed the crimes of the Firefly family, and while it initially received a lot of bad reviews, it gathered a cult following. The movie featured abundant amounts of gore and violence and succeeded at shocking the audience in a way that exactly matched what exploitation films aim for. While introducing the most memorable characters from Rob Zombie's movies, House of 1000 Corpses showed the director's deep love of horror cinema, and he left an indelible mark on the art form that helped launch his cinematic career.

1 The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

Two years after the release of House of 1000 Corpses, a sequel titled The Devil’s Rejects arrived with most of the original cast. The story is set in 1978 and reunites the Firefly family, who continue with their reign of horror, but with a few obstacles. After a raid on their home, only two members manage to escape while one is taken into custody and the rest are killed. Meanwhile, Captain Spaulding is somewhere else but reunites with the surviving members of the family to continue their murder spree.

The Devil’s Rejects is the best Rob Zombie movie because it’s better written than the rest, the characters have personalities beyond all the killing, and the acting is much better. The story is cohesive and takes its time without being sluggish, and it doesn’t try to cover too much ground. It’s interesting that The Devil’s Rejects , Zombie’s second movie, is his best in terms of storytelling considering that many of his follow-ups have suffered from major issues in that area. In the end, The Devil’s Rejects proved that Rob Zombie could tell an exciting and terrifying story both visually and narratively, contrary to what many critics have come to believe.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the munsters.

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Rob Zombie ’s childhood was not unlike thousands of young Americans. Growing up in Haverhill, Massachusetts there wasn’t much to do, so he’d watch TV like all the kids on his block. It is important always to remember that when thinking about the past in America as a very specific lived experience and not an abstract series of symbols and images that there really only were three channels on TV. Zombie likely saw “The Munsters,” a series that had been passed from hand to hand until finally it was written by "Rocky and Bullwinkle" creators  Allan Burns  and  Chris Hayward , several times a week. “The Munsters” had been intended to be a kind of animated riff on “Leave it to Beaver” (whose producers were also running the show at “The Munsters”) with character designs borrowed from Universal’s monster movies, so they wouldn’t have to worry about rights issues, leading to a live-action sitcom on CBS. The Munster family would just try to get by week after week; deal with trifling problems like first dates or larger ones like intolerance, and like "The Brady Bunch" after them, have short-lived brushes with fame. When you grow up in Haverhill and there are but three TV channels, you will have likely seen every single episode of “The Munsters” after school and this thing that was intended as a lark may indeed take on a greater importance than perhaps even its creators could have understood. Zombie discovered gore films when he was a teenager, but he never forgot “The Munsters.”

The sense of humor of the sitcom, with its bigger-than-life performances from Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis, its cartoon sound effects pulled from the same closet where “Bullwinkle”s editors had left them, the sight of Universal monsters keeping up with the joneses in the suburbs of Mockingbird Lane—all of that infected everything that Zombie made thereafter. From his music videos to his cartoon and concert films, from his forgotten Tom Papa stand-up special to his infamous horror movies, there has always been an undercurrent of late-night sitcom rerun style, almost naive jokiness, frequently as an ironic counterpart to the murder and mayhem of his art. His newest movie, a tonally straight-forward and shockingly faithful-in-spirit adaptation of the show, simply titled “The Munsters” (technically the sixth movie made with these characters) is like a missing piece from his directorial work, a completely innocent, at times screamingly funny movie that’s mostly about an idealized world made of '60s cultural icons, a slicing of reality’s fabric so we might step directly into Zombie’s visions of his past sitting in front of the TV.

We open on Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang (the always great Richard Brake , lately of “ Barbarian ”) and his half-wit assistant Floop ( Jorge Garcia ), who are in the midst of preparing the doctor’s greatest experiment yet: creating the perfect man out of the dead flesh of geniuses from the past century. The doctor is theoretically in luck this day because Shelly Von Rathbone (Laurent Winkler), one of the great philosophers of the age, has just expired. Unfortunately, his twin brother Shecky (Jeff Daniel Phillips ), a bad stand-up comic, has also died and is lying in the same funeral parlor. Floop collects the wrong brother’s brain and when Henry debuts his creature on live TV, he finds he has not an impossible genius capable of playing Brahms or speaking perfect French but a big dumb goon (also Phillips) who loves laughing at his own jokes. Though Henry is mortified by the display, someone else is watching who is enthralled. Unmarried and undead Lily ( Sheri Moon Zombie ), also living in the same neighborhood in Transylvania as the doctor and his creature, has been enduring a string of dreadful first dates trying to find the one. When she sees the creature, whom Floop names Herman Munster, she’s instantly smitten. She finds him and they begin a hurried courtship, all the while her father the Count ( Daniel Roebuck ) looks on with disdain and tries to break them up. He sees Herman as an uncouth ape unworthy of his gorgeous daughter. Of course, they come together when Herman accidentally sells the family estate to one of the Count’s vengeful ex-girlfriends Zoya Krupp ( Catherine Schell ). They’ve got to move to America and if the Count doesn’t want to get left behind, he’d better become a more loving father-in-law in a hurry.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about “The Munsters” is that it manages such impressive, engrossing mise-en-scène while committing to the kind of pre-teen friendly aesthetic of Halloween shops and commercials from the '90s. Zombie’s color scheme seems to at once borrow from the few instances that The Munsters would appear in color (as in 1966’s movie “Munster Go Home,” which features an appearance by the Munsters’ hotrod Dragula, the name of Zombie’s most famous song) and from advertisements for make-at-home toy bugs. It should prove unwieldy (especially as it’s the envelope in which sitcom humor is delivered) and to some it may, but few movies this year have as much color in every composition, nor as much care put into navigating the beautifully-silly-but-expertly-crafted sets. Zombie and director of photography Zoran Popovic use every trick in the book, both guilelessly iconoclastic (stab zooms for punchlines, shaky, handheld dutch tilts during scenes of chaos) and tightly assured (the camera practically floats around corridors and down stairs). It’s a preposterously pretty movie, laying its every impulse on the table like a hand of cards. The score by Zeuss is right out of the sitcom library, making sure every comic beat gets the proper horn sting. It’s like some magnificent cross between the must-see-TV line-up and a softcore Euro horror-comedy circa-1977.

Naturally, this attitude applies to the performances, too. Everyone here commits with every inch of their body to this wisp of a conceit. Sheri Moon Zombie imbues Lily with a batty good nature, never one to let a situation, no matter how dire, get her down. Phillips has been Zombie’s neurotic utility infielder for years, able to play the conniving and the hopelessly narcissistic with equal zest. His Herman Munster is a more modern and slightly more petulant take on the character than Fred Gwynne delivered (with respect to Phillips, no one was ever going to best Gwynne’s take on the character that made him a legend), but the core of churlish self-infatuation remains. Phillips does seem to be having a ball playing a creature at once all nervous desperation for approval and delight with his own every joke and insult. 

Daniel Roebuck makes for a perfect stand-in for Al Lewis, the magnificent old codger who once ran for mayor of New York as the delegate from the Green Party. Supporting players Schell, Garcia, Sylvester McCoy , Cassandra Peterson (who you might know as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), and Tomas Boykin all bite right into the overt comic tone, unafraid of the enormous volume their director is asking of them. Richard Brake, as usual, is the MVP, living it up in a dual role as both the effete mad doctor and the Nosferatu-styled vampire Lily takes on a date. Zombie always lets Brake have more fun than his other directors and these are both delicious parts for Brake to carefully yet greedily devour. The film also has small turns from original “Munsters” cast members from Pat Priest (Cousin Marilyn) and Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster).

Where the film enters conspicuously into the line of Zombie’s other movies (beyond its magnificent unselfconsciousness) is in its mingling with aged signifiers, much the same way the Munsters themselves are happy to find dead bodies buried on the front yard of their home on Mockingbird Lane. The film’s script is stitched together from various “Munsters” plotlines, and its reference points are almost all double entendres. Take the musical number where Herman and Lily sing Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” Sure, it’s a reference to the kind of performance you’d watch on TV between reruns of “The Munsters” and “I Dream of Jeannie,” but it’s also a little nod to Bill Moseley ’s performance in “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part 2.” Moseley plays spree killer Otis Firefly in Zombie’s “Devil’s Rejects” trilogy and in the earlier film by his friend Tobe Hooper , he played a sadistic vet covering the metal plate in his head with a Sonny Bono wig. This isn’t any different from the way Zombie usually works except that instead of there being an element of comfort for the indoctrinated to temper the relentless bad vibes of his horror movies, here it’s in line with the mission of the piece: remembering something while making it new. 

In my review of “3 From Hell,” I compared Zombie to Howard Hawks , who by the end of his career was deliberately retreading ideas because it was clear that milieu most pleased him. “The Munsters” plays like one of Hawks’ disreputable comedies, “A Song is Born” or “Man’s Favorite Sport?,” where the seemingly inconsequential plot allowed the director to revel in situations that revealed the most about human nature to him. Molly Haskell related Hawks’ characters to Adam and Eve, people discovering how much they will and won’t tolerate of each other, searching mismatched sensibilities until they find openings to understand one another. Zombie’s “Munsters” movie is about Adam and Eve figures of a different kind, and in playing their story like an old-fashioned romance and the comedic bits like the funniest jokes ever told, a purity of intention emerges. Every idea is given exactly the attention it needs, because Zombie is trying to do justice to so many things at once: his cast of beloved regulars, his obsessions as a creator and consumer, the original TV show he’s adapting, and the time his younger self spent glued to the TV set forming his personality (not for nothing does TV play such a crucial function in this movie’s plot), unconsciously planning a life that has looped back around to this moment. 

On Blu-ray, DVD, VOD and Netflix today, September 27th.

Scout Tafoya

Scout Tafoya is a critic and filmmaker who writes for and edits the arts blog Apocalypse Now and directs both feature length and short films.

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Film credits.

The Munsters (2022)

Rated PG for macabre and suggestive material, scary images and language.

109 minutes

Jeff Daniel Phillips as Herman Munster

Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily Munster

Daniel Roebuck as Grandpa Munster

Jorge Garcia as Floop

Richard Brake as Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang

Cassandra Peterson as Barbara Carr

Sylvester McCoy as Igor

Dee Wallace as Good Morning Transylvania Host

Butch Patrick as Tin Can Man

Cinematographer

• Zoran Popovic
• Vanick Moradian

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