10 Movies We'd Love Rob Zombie To Remake

Earlier this month, shock rocker and horror director Rob Zombie said that no movie is too sacred to remake. “If you do it for the wrong reasons, yeah, it’ll be awful," explained Zombie. "But if you really do it for the right reasons, anything can work." This, of course, led to a lot of people pondering what classic film they'd like to see Zombie remake, right down to former Screen Actor's Guild president Ed Asner:

All joking aside -- and hey, we got in on it, too -- there are a handful of movies we'd actually love to see Rob's take on. Granted, we didn't love his remake of John Carpenter's Halloween, but that's a perfect film -- these are all movies that, though good, all could be improved with a heavy dose of darkness and filth. Here are 10 that come to mind…

Ride with the living dead! Psychomania is a cult-classic horror film about a motorcycle gang called The Living Dead, who one by one kill themselves -- only to rise from the grave as undead biker witches. The film is flawed, and exists before modern biker culture, which means it’s ripe for Zombie to add grit and weirdness to it. ‘Living dead bikers terrorizing a small town’ feels like something straight out of the shock rocker’s dream journal.

The Lost Boys is an ’80s classic, and definitely helped bring goth into the mainstream… but at times, the film is hokey, and lacks some bite. Rob Zombie’s sense of teenage overkill would help elevate the teenage vampire gang into terrifying heavy metal outsiders, and could portray Santa Carla as the murder capitol it was always meant to be. Plus, imagine John 5 as the sexy sax man.

READ THIS: Watch Marilyn Manson cover the Lost Boys theme

Now we’re talking! Motel Hell is a bizarre slasher flick about two old cannibal siblings who run a motel and turn their unsuspecting guests into barbecue. But that’s not all -- they also bury them up to their necks and remove their vocal cords, to make them soft and flabby but unable to scream. Rob has all the bizarre, twisted mental tools to turn this underground classic into a hilarious and repulsive free-for-all. Remember: it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.

How Weekend At Bernies got made in the first place -- given that its premise is two dudes carting their boss’s corpse around to keep their weekend alive -- is beyond us. But in Rob Zombie’s blood-sticky hands, this madcap comedy could be a brilliantly morbid mindfuck. What if Bernie’s body starts to decompose rapidly? Imagine two work buddies trying to smear mortician’s wax on a cadaver’s face, or sewing his lips shut to keep his jaw from falling open? This one could get really messed up, really fast.

Post-apocalyptic puritan freaks chase Charlton Heston in a hot rod -- honestly, it sounds like a Rob Zombie song already. This early-’70s horror film based on Robert Matheson’s famous book I Am Legend is the kind of insane, all-over-the-place thrillride that only the decade of cocaine and disco could bring. You know Zombie’s got a storyboard for this one hidden away somewhere (especially given that White Zombie has a song called I Am Legend).

READ THIS: Every Rob Zombie film, ranked from worst to best

We're with you, Justin! Two recurring stylistic themes in Rob Zombie’s movies are the ’70s and gang culture. Whether it’s the psychotic Firefly family or the luchadors of the Black Satans, Rob loves a team in complementary outfits that harken back to just after the summer of love died. Imagine what he could do with The Warriors, the graphic adventure movie about a stylized New York street gang trying to get from the Bronx to Coney Island while dodging other insane groups of hooligans? We’d watch it for Luther clanking his bottles alone.

Let’s get old-school. The Universal Monsters movies are some of horror’s most timeless classics, but many of them are a little stark and serious for Zombie’s gruesome zaniness. But Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, the first of these flicks that pits two of these villains against one another, has an inherent sense of overkill to it. It wouldn’t just be awesome to see Rob take on two of horror’s greatest, but to go all-out and throw them at one another.

Man, imagine the music! Sure, a Labyrinth remake automatically loses something without David Bowie. That said, this ’80s goblin movie is so strange and erotic that we’d love to see what Rob Zombie could do with it. Given how grand in scope Netflix’s new Dark Crystal is, this one would also have a sense of scope that we’d love to see Zombie take on. Here’s an idea: Tilda Swinton as the Goblin King. Yeah, now you’re interested.

This 1975 post-apocalypse movie is about a teenager and his telepathic robot dog searching the wasteland for the rarest resource: love. That said, the original film is shoddily crafted and tonally questionable at times. Zombie’s remake would hopefully up the weirdness of the desert wasteland setting, but also enhance the female presence therein -- Zombie’s women are usually terrifying killers, albeit sexy ones, so this feels like his guidance could improve this oddball flick.

Full circle! Many cite 1932’s White Zombie as the first real zombie movie, but the film has plenty of problems -- it’s way too long, not very scary, and kind of racist (we all love Bela Lugosi, but how’re you gonna have a white voodoo witch doctor?). Zombie could add a real menacing, vaguely political overtone to White Zombie without keeping it from being weird, scary, and brilliantly unique. The poetry of this one alone would be worth it.

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