Rob Zombie is anything but subtle. His movies are violent and dirty, with human monsters given the focus over the sobbing, bloodied victims. This goes back to his directional debut with House of 1000 Corpses (2003), where there are no final girls to be found. Zombie’s movies are relentlessly in-your-face, and isn’t that perfect for the horror genre? Everyone can enjoy a psychological slow-burn, but there’s room for Zombie’s aesthetic too, the kind where you sit down and have no clue how far he will go. But not every movie in his career is bleak and grisly, The Munsters (2022) is his most recent, where he gets to create his version of an established spooky franchise, except with a focus on the heart rather than the guts. You might love one of his films while completely despising his next and those feelings might even spread over to how this list ranks all of Rob Zombie’s movies he has made so far.

Werewolf Women of the S.S. (2007)

The “lost movie” by Rob Zombie is one made up of enough material for a trailer and nothing more. That was on purpose too. Zombie was given the task by filmmakers Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino for Grindhouse (2007), the duo’s double feature that is likened back to the 1970s exploitation movies. Rodriguez and Tarantino brought in filmmakers to help make fake movie trailers to play before each film, and with Werewolf Women of the S.S., Zombie more than delivered on his part.

At five minutes, the trailer presented German actor Udo Kier as an angry Nazi with an S.S. embroidered handkerchief and the director’s muse/wife Sheri Moon Zombie doing her best Marlene Dietrich. Oh, plus werewolf women and Nicolas Cage's cameo as Fu Manchu, the yellowface is left out with the stereotypical Asian accent remaining. At the very least, it fits the exploitation theme very well.

Watch on Google Play

3 From Hell (2019)

After escaping prison, the Firefly family goes on the run for one more rampage full of blood and chaos. Ten minutes of grainy “archival” footage open the film and by the time things really get going, it’s obvious this is a different film within Zombie’s Firefly trilogy, all the way up to its western-themed finale. Unfortunately, with only two of the infamous Firefly family members propelling the story, it loses the momentum of the colorful, vile monsters that populated Zombie’s last two entries in the trilogy. Despite the rather conclusive ending of the previous film, there isn’t much detail given to explain how Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), Otis Driftwood (Bill Moseley), and Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig) somehow survived their predicament.

This is an add-on, feature-length epilogue, made for fan service more than anything else. If 3 From Hell pulled anything from the previous films, it wasn’t the best parts. While the trio got some mild development and pathos previously, here they’re just a clan of psychos. Haig, a fan favorite in the role of Captain Spaulding, is limited to a cameo for unfortunate reasons; the actor’s health was in decline, and he ultimately passed away the same month 3 From Hell was released. Even though this wasn’t an entirely satisfying sendoff for Haig, his co-stars Sheri Moon Zombie and Bill Moseley still bring their manic energy.

Watch on Roku

31 (2016)

Carnival workers are forced into a life-or-death game with one objective: survive twelve hours against killer clowns. This one is not a slow burn and the violence never lets up. Zombie loves his crazy clan of three who this time are veteran actors Malcolm McDowell, Judy Geeson, and Jane Carr portraying aristocratic overseers and announcers. Their association is the more intriguing, unsettling aspect of this story and isn't nearly dived into enough. With heavy makeup and towering wigs, they’re instantly given more personality than the group of unwilling game contestants.

For Zombie fans who love his collection of demented killers, he creates yet another with actor Richard Brake as Doom-Head. Brake has such a wild and wide-eyed stare that you could be mistaken in thinking he has no eyelids. He remains an active threat, all the way to the final minutes set to Aerosmith’s “Dream On," Zombie does love an iconic 1970s song layered over a climactic sequence. In the end, plenty of his other films have succeeded in many places this one doesn’t.

Watch on Amazon Prime

Halloween (2007)

After Halloween: Resurrection (2002) underperformed at the box office and was additionally not well received by the fans, the October-themed boogeyman went into development hell. As time went on, Resurrection might have gotten a fanbase, but it was decided the slate would be wiped clean. The new film was to be a “reimagining” with Zombie on board as director, infusing the slasher icon with his gritty aesthetic. After years in a mental institution, Michael Myers breaks out and descends upon the residents of Haddonfield, but Zombie isn't content with doing a scene-by-scene remake of a horror classic. Michael Myers is a humanized boogeyman, one who has been through childhood abuse, and grown to be massive, thanks to retired wrestler, Tyler Mane.

Some might say the humanizing of Myers was too much, while others loved the more realistic take on the character. He was born into an abusive life, and he grew up to be a vicious killer, delivering his trauma onto the unlucky victims of Haddonfield. Laurie Strode is an average, everyday teen, compared to Jamie Lee Curtis’ original version which was more vanilla. Actress Scout Taylor-Compton's Laurie isn’t a character trope, she can be obnoxious and sweet. Then there’s Dr. Loomis, who is somewhat the same, which is a shame as having someone with the acting caliber of Malcolm McDowell, the role could have been taken in many other directions. The iconic score is pulsating. The kills are brutal, meeting the quota for movie audiences of 2007. Even with the new elements, Halloween felt like an overall retread of the 1978 classic.

Watch on Roku

The Munsters (2022)

Like what Zombie did with Halloween, the filmmaker got to make another origin story for a popular monster franchise, and instead of Haddonfield's masked slasher, it was the satirical, goofy Transylvanian-American family of monsters that live in the suburbs. But how did the Munsters get there? Rob Zombie wrote and directed his answer. Taking place before the 1960s TV series, vampire Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie) and science experiment gone wrong Herman (Jeffrey Daniel Phillips) fall head over heels in love, against the wishes of Lily's irritable father, the Count (Daniel Roebuck). There are plenty of misadventures along the way as these ghoulish creatures eventually travel to their new home at Mockingbird Heights. The Munsters is Zombie's strongest of his origin stories, where his visual eye breathes new life into the black-and-white original.

Leaving out the filmmaker's typical use of intense violence, the movie acts like a cheesy haunted house attraction where blue, green, and pink are vibrant colors nearly everywhere on the sets. The dutch angles are a signature camera shot to establish the strange world of Transylvania. There is no shortage of fog machines that are turned on, just as there is a good number of spooky-themed transitions. Zombie doesn't forget to capture what made the family from the sitcom so lovable. The Munsters might eat curried scorpion casserole for dinner, but they feel like they can fit right in with their neighbors in "normal" Mockingbird Heights.

Watch on Netflix

The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto (2009)

An ex-wrestler and a super-spy team go after Dr. Satan to stop him from marrying a stripper with a satanic birthmark in the Rob Zombie movie you probably have never seen. You might be reminded of The Ren & Stimpy Show while watching this raunchy, animated musical but 90’s cartoons are not the only thing Zombie is paying homage to. The filmmaker goes on to show his love for horror classics, from The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) to Alien (1979), and plenty more.

Zombie wasn’t above letting audiences know how he felt about the mixed response to his Halloween remake by having El Superbeasto drive right into Michael Myers. Elsewhere, ghosts making love in the graveyards are all too common in this world, which Zombie envisioned as a Gothic landscape. The animated world he puts together is part fantasy, part wish fulfillment and the joy he surely felt in making it come alive is infectious.

Watch on Roku

The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

The Firefly family takes to the road to escape an enraged sheriff, who is a relative of a past victim. Right off the bat, The Devil’s Rejects pulls the rug out from under the audience and changes the narrative completely. This isn’t a repetitive sequel, it presents itself as a mean-spirited road movie. While the horrors of the first movie happened at night, here, daylight is unsafe. In one of the film’s most haunting visuals, of which there are a few, a victim runs for her life after being trapped by the family of killers. Frantically running under the run, the skin of a loved one is tied and snug on her face, and ultimately, she doesn’t get far.

It’s brutal and disturbing, a complete tonal change. If the first film in the Firefly trilogy presented a psychotic wonderland, this one opted to show a more realistic portrayal of the killers, they could exist in the real world. The Devil’s Rejects ends with the sound stripped away except Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” as the Firefly family enacts one last act of violence against a barricade of police. Zombie has you care for their safety, yet also be pleased with their fate. If this was the end to the saga, it would have ended in a blaze of glory in more ways than one.

Watch on Tubi

Halloween II (2009)

Laurie Strode struggles to process the trauma of Michael’s murderous spree, unaware he is planning a reunion. If the initial remake was Zombie slowly molding his own story from the Halloween franchise, Halloween II was his personal stamp to unsettle fan expectations. Not only was Myers grunting and charging at victims, he’s in need of a haircut and the film posed the question: “What does Michael Myers do in the time leading up to Halloween?” He lives a homeless existence, prone to visions of his long-dead mother, who appears with an ethereal white horse. Then there’s Taylor-Compton’s portrayal of Laurie and McDowell’s of Dr. Loomis, and this time around, Zombie truly revamps the iconic horror characters into his own.

Laurie has become withdrawn, angry, and volatile. Loomis has soaked up the true crime fame he could from the events of the last film. These are not at all like the characters audiences recognized and that’s okay. There wouldn’t be a point if Zombie was only going to repeat the 1981 sequel. The film is as unhinged as most of its characters. Taken as his own reworking of the Halloween mythology, Zombie truly gave something different, but in the end, it was perhaps too different for those who went to the theaters. Then again, the theatrical cut greatly pales in comparison to the director’s cut, a much more coherent film. A third film never materialized, yet maybe Halloween II was the ending it needed to stick to.

Watch on Roku

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

The Devil’s Rejects and 3 From Hell tried to repeat the success, but there really was no way they could top the original in this trilogy. That is all thanks to the sheer lunacy that Zombie throws into this film. The premise alone is interesting enough: a group of friends discover a roadside attraction and become victims of the sadistic Firefly family that runs it. A haunted attraction where you feel unsafe and is, in actuality, a life-threatening situation, works on real emotions. But it's how much further Zombie goes with his concept that makes the film truly unforgettable.

If the fever-dream aspects of Alice in Wonderland were put into a blender with the slasher and body horror genre, perhaps it would create this concoction. House of 1000 Corpses is an incredibly dark and gritty monstrosity of a film, presenting some of the most repulsive monsters in horror cinema. But it’s obvious Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, and many more are having a blast, you almost forget and have fun along with them. That’s the twisted relationship with a Zombie flick.

Watch on Tubi

The Lords of Salem (2012)

A DJ’s life becomes a literal hell when her Salem radio station is bewitched by a mysterious record from the past. In the role of Heidi, the cursed DJ, is Sheri Moon Zombie, given a quieter role in The Lords of Salem than her other roles. It’s for the better because this one is for the veteran actors, which is where this film truly shines. Bruce Davison portrays a history author turned amateur sleuth who attempts to solve the weirdness that plagues modern-day Salem. He knows about the town’s witchcraft past, which is made clear in this film was authentic. You almost root for him. But Zombie’s love is clearly for the villains over any heroes, and his take on satanic witchcraft is anchored by Dee Wallace (Cujo), Judy Geeson, and Patricia Quinn (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) as a formidable trio.

It’s as if their witchy characters were pulled from Macbeth and tweaked to fit Zombie’s style. If witches in the horror genre needed to be brought back to their gothic, bloody roots, these women sell it. Warmth and quirky charm are just one personality of these sisters. When they need to murder, they will not pause for one second.oh Sound is incredibly important in many of his films. It doesn’t hurt that the record featured in the film is a creepy piece of music to the ears, leading to the finale which seems to be a music video from hell. With Rob Zombie getting creative freedom for this project, The Lords of Salem might just be one of his purest films where he goes as far as he can. At times, it’s shocking; at others, it’s darkly hilarious.

Watch on Tubi