Back From Hell

In the pantheon of modern horror, few characters have gathered as impressive a following as the famed Firefly family of Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. With those nefarious sorts now returning for a third outing with 3 FROM HELL, we caught up with the writer/ director to discuss the new film and his career...

- Andrew Pollard

STARBURST: It’s been 14 years since we last saw the Firefly family in 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects, so why was now finally the right time to give these characters a third feature outing? Rob Zombie: I’m not exactly sure. I’ve always thought about the characters. Over the years, they keep getting more popular, and they’re always present in my life, but I never thought I would make another movie. Then, about three years ago, I got the idea that I wanted to do this. I went to Lionsgate, who made the other movies, and said, “I’m thinking about doing this”. I had to get their approval, and they were on board with doing it. From there, I began working on the script and working on ideas - and here we are.

Was the general narrative of the movie always largely the same as what we see in the finished film, or were there any major changes throughout the development of the story?

There were different phases that it went through. I always knew I wanted to do a threeact thing, where the beginning was like a documentary and a prison film, Act 2 was more like a home invasion movie, and Act 3 was this Mexican Western.

Many hold the Firefly family on the same pedestal as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and the classic Universal monsters. Being such a big horror fan yourself, what’s it like to have created a group of characters who are such big favourites?