Rob Zombie comes alive for Halloween

I don't think I've ever written a bad word about Rob Zombie or his ex-band White Zombie. I always liked Zombie's hits, especially the opening guitar riffs. Now, I'm glad I never laid into Zombie, because he's not passive about telling reviewers to suck it.

"One particular music critic," he tells me, "was always bagging on things so hard, then said, 'Come see my band.' I said, 'This, I gotta see. If I don't see musical genius onstage tonight ...'"

The critic's band stunk.

"I go, 'How can you say anything against anybody? You have what is probably THE worst band on the planet Earth -- and YOU are the worst part of it. This just blows any credibility.'"

Zombie won't tell me the name of the critic, which slightly screws up the fidelity of his story, but whatever.

Zombie -- who rocks the Palms' Pearl on Friday ($54-$69; 944-3200) -- has also become a noted director of "House of 1000 Corpses," "The Devil's Rejects" and remakes of "Halloween" and "Halloween II."

When he chose to film "Halloween II" in Georgia, he didn't know it would rain there every day -- except the day there was a blizzard, instead.

"We woke up one day and everyone's like, 'Oh it's gonna snow.' We were like, 'Oh that's gonna be cute. It'll be like a dusting.' And 8 inches of snow fell in an hour and brought the city to a standstill.

"The hardest thing with movies is you have to create continuity. So we were shooting exteriors, and we had to figure out a way to melt the snow. So ridiculous."

Filming, he says, is "one of those things where 1,000 things have to go right, and only one thing has to go wrong to screw up your whole day."

"You're delivering this detailed, intricate work, yet everyone's sleeping three hours a day. So you're punchy as hell the whole time."

I'm no film critic, but what I find interesting about Zombie's horror movies is that the first two -- "1000 Corpses" and "Devil's Rejects" -- reflected Zombie's atheism in that the movies' serial killers weren't supernatural. They were psychos, just like we have in the corporeal.

So I was surprised he took on the "Halloween" franchise, because villain Michael Myers was the product of a supernatural curse. Zombie talks about this.

"They had always made Michael Myers supernatural. That didn't really interest me," Zombie says. "I didn't really play him like he was this force of evil. I tried to humanize him, because it's more interesting. It's fun for movies, but I don't believe in any of that (expletive)."

I disagree slightly. Michael Myers is somewhat supernatural in Zombie's "Halloween," since Michael Myers receives gunshots and stabbings and keeps on ticking. Seems pretty supernatural to me.

But like I said, I'm no critic. So, Rob Zombie, don't come see my band or film, if I ever go that route.

MIDWEEK SHOW

Puscifer, headed by Maynard James Keenan, kicks off its national tour Thursday at the Palms' Pearl ($39-$49; 942-7777).

Earlier this year at The Pearl, Keenan was joined by guest singer and actress Milla Jovovich. When I say Jovovich's name, Keenan laughs and pronounces it correctly:

"Me-lah Yovavich," he says. "I got schooled on that one by her father, screaming in Russian ... for mispronouncing her name."

Jovovich can't make it this time because of "Resident Evil" filming. But Carina Round looks a go as a guest singer. She's a British vocalist whose singing can range from lush, landscape minimalism to harder-edged, post-P.J. Harvey staccato rock.

With me, Keenan was very pleasant and quick with a light joke. I told him his friendliness negated what stupid Wikipedia claims, that he is a "noted recluse." He explained:

"We never do interviews -- I've said that in about 600 interviews. We just keep saying it, and they keep believing it."

Doug Elfman's column appears Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.