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Multitasking film director Rob Zombie puts a human
face on a family of serial killers.

"House of 1,000 Corpses." which Zombie wrote and
directed, helped kick off the current wave of horror
films flooding U.S. cinemas, and he returns on Friday
with slasher flick, "The Devil's Rejects."

His first film scared audiences, yet also made them
laugh with a mix of frights and campy comedy. Zombie
has headed in a slightly new direction with the more
stylized and cinematic "Rejects," which he likens to a
road movie of misfits.

"I wanted to create compelling characters and a story
that people get swept up in. I think the main thing,
you know, is serial killers are human, too," Zombie
told Reuters.

With "Rejects," he combined plot elements of classic
movies like 1967s "Bonnie and Clyde," which humanized
Depression-era gangsters, with the filmmaking style of
bloody 1970s horror flicks such as "The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre."

"Corpses" could have been a box office disaster. It
was made with the backing of Universal Pictures, but
the studio balked at releasing the violent film and,
instead, sold it to scrappy independent label Lions
Gate Films. Such a turn is often considered a box
office kiss of death.

But Zombie's fans and horror buffs turned out in
support, and "Corpses" brought in $16 million at
global box offices -- a solid showing for a
low-budget, independent film. It sold over a million
copies on DVD.

Horror films, of course, are a Hollywood standard
dating to silent movies and stars like Lugosi and Lon
Chaney. Zombie has been a fan of the genre since he
was young.

"What really attracted me was the monsters were the
misunderstood freaks. As a kid, you identify with that
on some level," he said.