It’s hard to believe that Rob Zombie has been directing feature films for almost 20 years. The shock rocker began his music career in the mid-‘80s, turning his love of horror, science fiction, and all things schlock into a legacy that has spanned decades. After directing 18 of his own music videos, he transitioned into feature-filmmaking when production began on House of 1000 Corpses in 1999. While it didn’t see release for another 4 years due to distribution shenanigans, he never looked back.
17 years later, Zombie has directed seven feature films, a TV comedy special (Tom Papa: Live in New York City), an episode of CSI: Miami, a concert film (The Zombie Horror Picture Show), (at least) an additional 27 music videos (including ones for Prong, The Ghastly Ones, Ozzy Osbourne, Powerman 5000, Black Label Society, and Fiona Apple), and even commercials for Woolite and Ambro.
As fun as it might be to rank the videos, for my purposes here I will be excluding all non-narrative works. I’ll also be leaving out the CSI: Miami episode and his faux Werewolf Women of the S.S. trailer from Grindhouse. Yep, we’re sticking with his seven features only here, as comparing a trailer and a slice of episodic television to his film work would be a tad silly for me to do.
What follows is a list solely comprised of my own opinions. I’m sure many of you have your own preferred ranking of his works, as well as your own in-depth opinions on each of the films themselves. Many (if not most) of them will probably be wildly different from my own. Feel free to share yours in the comments below!
Let the mayhem begin…