Rock God and Film Director Rob Zombie has announced his next film he will direct which will be “Lords of Salem”.  It is about what unfolds when an group of witches plague modern-day Salem.

Zombie says he will write the script and start shooting next year.

Also, Zombie was attracted to the setup by an offer of autonomy — he’s given “total control” over script, casting and final cut. That’s a far cry from working with the Weinsteins and Dimension.

The film will be a thriller, “set in contemporary Salem, where the inhabitants receive a demonic visit from a 300-year old coven of witches.”

Zombie says his best filmmaking experience to date has been with LionsGate on The Devil’s Rejects, and I’d mark the coincidence that Rejects is his best film. He says the battles on the two Halloween movies were draining. (”By the time I got [my way], I didn’t care anymore.”)

Speaking to Deadline, Zombie also namedrops The Shining as an example of a slow-burn film that might not get made by a studio now, which suggests that he might go for a longer, more deliberately paced film while making The Lords of Salem.

Zombie also went on to say, “I wanted to break away from anything related to preexisting material…The remake train is getting pretty tired now and when I made Halloween, everybody complained, either that it was too much like the original or too different. I like that people either love or hate what I do because it’s better than being in the middle, which means forgettable. But when you do an original premise, they take it on face value and after three years of not being able to win on Halloween, I just couldn’t go through that again.”

If only he had total control over House of 1000 Corpses.  I like Rob as a filmmaker, and I can’t wait to see his return to original movies.