Rob Zombie‘s latest project is characteristically dark and has exactly the kind of vibe you’d expect from the hard-rocking musician and filmmaker.
A creepy soundtrack accompanies a fast-moving string of unsettling images. A masked man is seen dragging a large, heavy sack through a smoky field adorned with creepy scarecrows.
But it’s not Zombie’s latest film project, it’s a commercial. The 30-second spot, which he shot in Vancouver, is pushing Woolite laundry detergent and the scary character is eventually revealed to be a merciless clothing torturer.
Of course, some critics have accused the Grammy-nominated Zombie of “selling out,” but on Facebook at least, most of his fans applauded him for directing the unique ad.
“I hadn’t even thought about [a fan backlash], it hadn’t crossed my mind,” said the musician, who fronted White Zombie in the ’80s and ’90s before going solo.
“Whenever anyone talks about selling out it’s the most absurd statement anyone could make. I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do, to me selling out is changing your music, your image, everything based on some sort of corporate manipulation to become rich and famous. I’ve never done that.
“When someone says I’ve sold out I say, ‘What do you do for a living?’ and maybe they’ll say, ‘Oh, I work at Walmart.’ So they’re corporate whores for the largest corporation in the world but have the nerve to [call me a] ‘sell-out?”’
Zombie said he turned down several requests to do the commercial before the timing finally worked out and considered it an opportunity to get some more film experience. His directing credits include the Halloween remake in 2007, its sequel Halloween II and House of 1,000 Corpses.
“I like doing different things, I did an episode of CSI: Miami because I wanted to see what it was like to do a TV show and now a commercial; you want to get these things under your belt,” he said.
“The funny thing is a lot of people are like, ‘Oh it’s so weird that you’re doing this’ but every single director does it, it’s just that they don’t usually mention it. I could’ve easily done that commercial and never said a word and no one would ever know but I thought it was funny so I told people about it.”
