Bloody-Disgusting spent an evening on the set of Rob Zombie's H2 back at the end of March as the production was nearing its finish on day 27 of 33. It was a rainy, chilly night in rural Newborn Georgia where Zombie and crew were shooting a scene at Sheriff Brackett's (Brad Dourif) house. Details were scant, but the scene involved a dream sequence that had Taylor Scout-Compton dressed in a red and yellow clown costume and creepy kiddie mask. In the scene we observed, Dourif and his fellow officers raced up to the house, red and blue lights blaring, in a caravan of brown Haddonfield police cars.

We only got a few minutes with Zombie on the set, but the director seemed in good spirits, aside from the weather. "Everything's going great," he told press. "This rain is the only thing that's killing us every day. Every time we plan to do something, it rains. We always figure out how to shoot something, but now we are getting to the end of the schedule, so things have to match. You can't jump around so much. There's almost no more interior stuff, so its kind of a bummer."

Zombie added that he was enjoying the freedom of the sequel since he didn't really feel the obligations to be loyal to the series, now that the first movie is out of the way. "Since it was a remake I felt some responsibility to retain elements of the original. But with this one I don't feel any responsibility except to go crazy with it."

The details of H2 remain under wraps for now, but as the official trailer debut gets closer, fans are starting to put the plot together a bit. "I can not tell you a lot," said Zombie. "It's a fucking crazy movie, that's for sure. It's really layered and there's a lot to it, but I wanted to pick it up and when you follow all the characters you really [see] how fucked up the characters are from what would have happened. It's not like anyone survived it without being completely a mess. It's pretty good. It starts really dark and gets darker. There's really no nice moments in the whole movie. Dr. Loomis is kind of living this pseudo-nice life and it all goes bad. So he has a few nice moments, but everyone else is having a bad time trying to deal with it."

After the brief chat on set, Zombie had to get back to work and we had to get to the other side of Georgia for another horror shoot, THE CRAZIES. Luckily, we were able to catch up with Zombie again this week from the editing room to discuss the H2 production a little further and also get some updates on what's next, T-Rex or maybe even H3?

Bloody-Disgusting: How far into the H2 editing are you?

Rob Zombie: We're about a week or so.

BD: Are you completely done shooting or will there be reshoots?

RZ: We're done shooting as far as I know. There's always a chance of reshoots, although with this schedule its unlikely.

BD: Was it just the tax cuts that brought the production to Georgia?

RZ: Well, the tax cuts were great, I guess, but that's kind of irrelevant to me. Georgia worked out great just for the locations, especially for that time of year. The other places I would have worked, it was still winter. They were still having snow. Georgia has a great look and it worked out well.

BD: I know you said you wouldn't do a HALLOWEEN sequel after you finished the first, but did you have at least an inkling of where you might go in a sequel?

RZ: It was totally starting from scratch. I didn't ever think I was going to do a second one, so I never even thought about it. I had no ideas whatsoever.

BD: How does the psyche of Michael Myers in this series differ from the Michael Myers of the original series?

RZ: I'm not really sure what the intention was with the originals. I've obviously seen the first one a million times and however he progresses in the sequels, I don't remember, so its kind of hard for me to compare and contrast. I figured that they made eight HALLOWEEN movies before I came on board in any way, so they'd done them all from a certain point of view. So that's when I thought I'd like to switch it up and turn Michael into more of a character, not just a guy in the shadows all the time. I thought making him more human, in a sense, would make him scarier. Not that I didn't think he was scary the other way, but like I said they already did that eight times. For me, I keep trying as much as possible to play it as if its a real situation and how that would take place.

BD: Did the criticisms of the first movie pop into your head as you were making the second, or did you just have to put that all out of your head?

RZ: I just separate myself from it. If someone says something bad, it doesn't mean anything, and if someone says something good, it doesn't mean anything. You just have to do what you're going to do. I was thinking about this the other day. Its not that you ignore everything, but it has to come from a source that you understand. When its just a person that you don't know that has an opinion, its pretty meaningless in a way.

BD: You seem to be having a little more fun with the rumor mill this time around with the beard stuff and the Daeg recasting controversy.

RZ: This time, it was basically kind of funny. I didn't pay any attention to it because it was so funny. Rumors are so funny because rumors will start and then the rumor will answer itself. Then I will see my response to the rumor, which isn't even my response. It's someone else saying I said this. My favorite is the guy saying, ‘Well I heard...' I'm like, ‘Where did you hear it? You're like this 14-year old kid in Wisconsin who lives with his parents. You heard? If you were on set standing behind some producer who's talking, well then maybe you did hear something.' That's always the greatest out for a bullshit rumor. A lot of times people start rumors and if you don't respond to them, they think that that means its true, where as I'm like, ‘Well why should I respond to every crazy thing that someone says?'

BD: Its funny because you have people that hated the first movie going crazy because Daeg was recast and saying this movie will suck because of that.

RZ: I came to a conclusion a long, long time ago. Long before I started making movies. It seems virtually impossible to please anybody with anything. Back in my days of making records, it seemed like no matter what you did, they hate the album and then you make a new album and they hate the new album but they'll tell you how much they loved the old album. And it goes on and on... You just don't fucking know. And making movies is much crazier than making a record. You just have to stick by your guns and let the chips fall where they may.

Replacing Daeg was a bummer. It wasn't something I wanted to do, but he wasn't a little kid any more. He showed up and he was like he was 17. He was tall and big and his voice had changed. It didn't make any sense with the script because it was supposed to be [Michael] as a kid. I didn't have any choice, but that was a hard decision. I tried making it work, but it just didn't work.

The thing that's fun when you read people's complaints is that they're always paranoid that there's an evil plot afoot. (Laughs) ‘They're doing this because...' and then they name some horrible reason. And sometimes its just because that's the way things work out and its a tough decision and it wasn't something you wanted to do. It's not because of any other evil plan that anyone has.

BD: When will the official trailer debut?

RZ: Yeah, it's funny, because I didn't know that [TV footage] was going to be out. According to Bloody-Disgusting, [the trailer] comes out this Friday on YouTube or something. But I actually don't know. I haven't been paying any attention to it, but that sounds like that could be true. I know that the trailer wasn't finished yet, but it might be now.

BD: And Daeg's face appeared in the footage that just came out. There's also the rumor that a digital version of Daeg's face would be in the movie.

RZ: Yeah, that was pretty funny. I did hear that and I'm like, ‘Why would I go to that much trouble?' I think there was a shot of Daeg that they left in the trailer by accident, because a lot of times, you know the people who cut the trailers aren't the people working on the movie and they don't know what the fuck's going on. There's a couple things in there that are kind of funny. It was actually from a test footage day, it wasn't even a scene from the movie. There's some other stuff in there too that are like makeup tests and stuff. (Laughs)

BD: Release isn't until August, so you've got a lot of work to go.

RZ: Yeah, its August 28th. We're at such an early stage right now, its hard to even tell what you're working with.

BD: But you're happy with how the shoot went?

RZ: Yeah, it was a very different experience. HALLOWEEN was a very troubled shoot from Day 1. Sometimes you get a shoot like DEVIL'S REJECTS where every second goes perfectly, every day is wonderful. And then you get one like HALLOWEEN where everything is a fucking pain in ass 24-7. It was one of those ones where, if something could go wrong, it was gonna go wrong. This time is much better. I've got a new D.P. and a better team around me and it made for such a different experience.

This one was tough, because with each film you try to expand what you're going to do. Especially with HALLOWEEN, you don't want to just do the same thing again. It would be real easy to make a film of Michael Myers just running around in the dark killing people. And you think, ‘Well, I'll try to do something more than that.' You've just got to push yourself harder. That was the trick, I guess.

BD: After this, is H3 a possibility?

RZ: Even though I said I wouldn't do H2, really I definitely won't do H3 and I don't think anyone else will either. I was happy to come back, kind of like with DEVIL'S REJECTS, you want to come back and see how you can take it to another level. But I didn't want to do [a third] with that either and most of the actors didn't want to do it either. They felt like it had been done. This time, I really feel like enough is enough. If somebody else wants to do H3, I'd be happy to see what they're going to do with it.

BD: Well if this succeeds, its hard to imagine there won't be an H3 in some capacity.

RZ: I would think they would do them forever if they could. I would assume that the day after this one opens, somebody will be having that conversation, but not with me.

BD: Is H2 the official title?

RZ: I can never get a straight answer out of anybody, and frankly there are some battles I really don't feel like having yet because there are bigger issues. The trailer was another one. Like, what scenes are in the trailer? I didn't give a shit. For all I know, there's tons of stuff that's in the trailer that's not even in the movie. I just can't pay attention to it.

BD: Do you think you'll shoot T-REX after this?

RZ: I don't know, maybe. It depends. That's the thing, these days, every day it gets harder and harder to get movies made. And these days, it gets harder and harder to get something made that isn't already something. Everything is a sequel, a prequel, a remake, a graphic novel, a television show. I've gotten offered a million movies, and every single one of them is a remake or a sequel or a TV show. Its unbelievable. At least with H2, it didn't have to be based on anything except my own crazy ideas, so it felt fresh to me.

I would love to do [T-REX] and I still intend on doing it some day. But its a tough sell. They just want to remake anything, even if its something you've never heard of.

BD: Are you a boxing fan?

RZ: I used to really like boxing a lot. I don't pay attention any more. I can never sustain prolonged interest in anything, it seems. (Laughs) I just get really excited for a little while and then I move on to other things.

BD: I should probably let you get back to the editing room.

RZ: Please don't. (Laughs) Editing can make you fucking crazy. Its nice to get out of there for ten seconds.

H2 arrives in theaters August 28