Rob Zombie

"I watched him for 15 years. Sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall, looking at this night -- inhumanly patient -- waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off." -- Dr. Loomis in "Halloween" (1978) -- And so here we are, almost 30 years later, with the ninth iteration of the venerable "Halloween" franchise landing in theaters this week.

Hollywood slashed away at another box-office record as a new version of "Halloween" scared up a Labor Day weekend haul of $26.5 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales through Sunday, distributor MGM said. Director Rob Zombie's retelling of the 1978 slasher classic shattered the previous three-day record for the often-sluggish holiday period. The old record was set in 2005 by "Transporter 2," which opened to $16.5 million.

Hard rock isn't just about the singer or the song. In the hands of a wild pop-culture artiste like Rob Zombie, it can be something bigger and badder -- an explosive celebration of hot-rod horror Americana, where the music is almost secondary to the overall effect. That was the scene Monday at the first of Zombie's two nights at the Wiltern LG, where the decor was all about stars and stripes and skulls and naked anime chicks on the big screen.

It would be one crazy iPod that would go straight from super-sensitive Dashboard Confessional to horror-rock (and film) auteur Rob Zombie. It would certainly be an abrupt segue for a radio station to make. But it was particularly jarring coming as it did Saturday at the annual KROQ-FM (106.7) Weenie Roast y Fiesta concert at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine.

Rob Zombie would like you to know that although his upcoming movie, "The Devil's Rejects," shares several characters with his debut feature -- they're members of a marauding family of serial killers from "House of 1000 Corpses" -- it is not a sequel. "By nature, sequels are terrible," says Zombie, former front man for the platinum-selling heavy-metal band White Zombie. "This one is sort of like the next chapter for these characters.

After reading about the L.A. archdiocese's financial problems, I wonder if it wouldn't help to remove the sign at the baptismal font inside the new $189-million cathedral. The sign says: "Holy Water/No Coins." Twisting in the wind: The fliers asked USC students to gather for an attempt to set a world record for the number of people playing Twister. An estimated 500 showed up for the game, in which participants try to place their hands and feet on various colored circles on a mat.

Rocker Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" is at once a work of demonic brilliance and of wretched excess that could serve as a timely, savagely comic metaphor for the darkest impulses of the American psyche. Since we seem to be always upping the ante in many aspects of our lives, it stands to reason that the gore quotient keeps on going up in our horror pictures as well.

Rob Zombie has parlayed gruesome horror into a pretty nice career, always seeming to top himself in terms of shock value. But now he's come up with something almost unspeakable for this summer's Ozzfest tour. He's going to play on the tour's second stage ... in daylight! Well, the notion shocked tour namesake Ozzy Osbourne. "I came up with the idea while I was on the Merry Mayhem tour recently with Ozzy," Zombie says.

The 2002 Ozzfest will take place at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion on Aug. 31, with Ozzy Osbourne, System of a Down, Rob Zombie, P.O.D., Adema and others. Tickets on sale Saturday. ... Teen queen Britney Spears has added a second show on June 6 at Staples Center. Tickets on sale Saturday. Prince will make two appearances at the Kodak Theatre on April 19-20. Tickets on sale Friday. ...Songstress Alicia Keyes plays the Greek Theatre on July 30. Tickets on sale Sunday. ...

When Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider was in college, a potential boyfriend took her on a date to see the blood-soaked slasher classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." "Needless to say," she recalls with a laugh, "the guy didn't get a second date." Now Rob Zombie knows how he felt. Up until now, Zombie, a theatrical heavy-metal rocker, has been something of a poster boy for corporate synergy at Vivendi-Universal.