The kings of the Hollywood horror film genre usually don't look scary.
Wes Craven, the man behind the Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream films, looks like an English literature professor.
George A Romero has the appearance and demeanour of a cuddly granddad, not the godfather of zombie films after making Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.
Melbourne 30-year-olds, Leigh Whannell and James Wan, look like two guys you'd find in a South Yarra wine bar, not the duo who created the SAW horror franchise, films filled with sickly torture scenes.
Rob Zombie, however, has the name and look.
Long, straggly, shoulder-length hair hangs from his head and a wiry, unkept goatee grows around his mouth.
Tattoos, including flames, demons and laughing clowns, cover his arms.
The 42-year-old Zombie, who was born in Massachusetts with the more eloquent name Robert Bartleh Cummings, is one of the world's most prolific heavy metal music artists, but in the last four years he has joined Craven, Romero, Whannell and Wan as one of the leading writer-directors of Hollywood horror films.
It began with 2003's House of 1,000 Corpses and he backed that up in 2005 with The Devil's Rejects.
Zombie's latest venture is Halloween, a remake of the 1978 horror classic by another great of the genre, John Carpenter.
Arriving at a five star Beverly Hills Hotel for this interview dressed in well-worn denim, Zombie's appearance creates plenty of head-turning from other guests.
Zombie's appearance also surprised Malcolm McDowell when they first met.
Zombie wanted to recruit McDowell, the star of Stanley Kubrick's landmark 1971 thriller, A Clockwork Orange, to play Dr Samuel Loomis, the part played by another Brit, Donald Pleasence in the original Halloween.
They agreed to meet at Beverly Hills' restaurant, Mr Chow.
"I walked in and there I saw Charles Manson sitting there," McDowell cracked.
Zombie, the longest active artist signed to the Geffen Records label, does not have to make films as his bank account is healthy thanks to seven gold or platinum records and sold out concert tours.
He fell in love with horror films after watching the original King Kong when he was a boy and lived out his dream when he made 1,000 Corpses.
But, he was not interested in remaking Halloween when first approached to write and direct it.
There had been eight Halloween movies about Michael Myers, the mask wearing psychopathic killer and Zombie did not want to add a ninth.
"I thought Michael Myers, as a character, had been driven into the ground," Zombie said.
"By the eighth movie, no offence to anyone, but they were pretty bad."
Hollywood studio Dimension Films and producer Malek Akkad, whose late father Moustapha financed the original Halloween, gave Zombie free reign to "re-imagine" the film.
As Zombie examined the possibility of remaking the classic, he began to wonder about Myers' early life.
While on a concert tour in the US last year, he began writing the script during downtime.
What he came up with was a disturbing look at the upbringing of Myers.
The film begins with Myers, aged 10, and follows him as he grows into a towering psychopath locked up in a mental institution.
"I never really wanted to play him like the boogeyman just as John Carpenter did," Zombie explained.
"I didn't want to make him supernatural, I wanted to play it like a real story.
"I did research on psychotic children and children who kill other children because this is where this would have started.
"I wanted to degenerate him so he became less and less of a person.
"But, I always wanted to create the back story so even when he was an adult Michael Myers, the audience has some sense of the character.
"He just wasn't a scary guy in a mask."
Zombie looks the part of a horror director, but he does not want to be pigeonholed in the genre.
He can see himself making violent crime dramas, with his favourites including Taxi Driver and Straw Dogs, but says he would not mind making a romantic comedy.
"I like that stuff too," Zombie says with a smile.
"Romantic comedies have a bad wrap.
"If you mention Bringing Up Baby or something, people say 'Oh that's a classic'.
"But, if you say 'romantic comedy' everyone thinks You've Got Mail.
"My only parameter for anything I do is if I feel a connection with the material.
"Even with Halloween, at first I didn't really feel a connection.
"It wasn't my story.
"Michael Myers wasn't my character.
"But, once I started developing the back story and started with a clean slate with little Michael, I found a way to twist adult Michael into something that had more sensibility."
McDowell was won over by Zombie.
"He is going to be a really big director," McDowell predicted.
"I don't think he'll be known for horror movies.
"He'd be good in any genre.
"I think he'll come up with a western or something and he'll surprise everyone."
One project Zombie has ruled out is another Halloween film.
He says Hollywood has "sequelitis" and the ending he created for this film should satisfy horror fans.
"No," he answers firmly at the prospect of making another Halloween.
"For me, I'm done.
"I did the one movie and that's all I wanted to do and I don't know where it will go next.
"It seems like this movie ended.
"I don't know what they'll do next and it doesn't really matter to me."
The film opens in Australia on November 22.
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