Rob Zombie isn't lacking for ambition. With just two no-budget projects under his belt, 2003's House of 1000 Corpses and its 2005 follow-up, The Devil's Rejects, the rock star-turned filmmaker accepted the job of remaking a film that many genre fans regard as the Citizen Kane of slasher flicks: John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic Halloween.

After toiling in relative anonymity on his first two films, Zombie now finds himself the subject of unprecedented scrutiny. Genre fans don't take kindly to directors who mess with their babies, and they've kept a skeptical eye on Halloween seemingly since the day the remake was announced.

Zombie will finally get to answer his critics when his version of Halloween hits theaters on August 31. In an exclusive phone interview with ReelzChannel.com, the director talked about the perils of remaking greatness.

It's been said that your version of Halloween contains a lot more gore than John Carpenter's original. How else will it differ?

I don't want it to come across like this is some kind of "gore movie," because it's not. I hate movies like that. Stylistically, it's very different. Carpenter's movie is very specific -- it had a very specific look to it. The approach I wanted to take -- besides changing story points and what we see -- is I wanted to approach it as if it was very real, a very real, gritty movie. Carpenters style is very dream-like and there's a lot of long dolly shots. I wanted to do something a little more gritty and raw.

My movie has three distinct acts. The first act is "young Michael" -- that's very gritty and raw. Act two is sort of "Smith Grove's Sanitarium" -- that becomes a very clinical, Cuckoo's Nest vibe. And act three is Haddonfield, and that's different yet again. The general arch of the story is very different (from the original).

It's been a long times since I've seen a horror film that's actually scary. Will your version of Halloween buck that depressing trend?

I wanted it to be scary, for sure. But I also wanted it to be a real movie. I think what happens with a lot of horror movies is that people start thinking, "Well, if I have a lot of gore and if I have a lot of this, then I don't have to really worry about actors and acting." (laughs) I wanted to approach this like it was a real story, like this was the journey of this person called Michael Myers, and the characters and the way their lives collide in this insane situation. When we previewed the film, the one thing that was really great was the audience went with it. They didn't just get bored during the slow parts and scream for more blood. They really got into the characters and followed their journey. And that's when movies become scary.

There's been a lot of talk circulating about re-shoots. Can you talk about what you shot and why?

That got really out of hand. They weren't really re-shoots. What happened was, we were in the process of finishing the film and we went and had our first preview in New York. And it went great. After the preview, Bob Weinstein came up to me and was like, "I love this movie. I so believe in this movie. If there's anything in principal photography that you felt that you didn't get -- and there's always something -- I will give you money to go back and get it now. I want to do whatever I can to make this film great." And there were a few things that I felt like I needed. Every movie does it; it's just that a lot of you don't have the opportunity. There were certain characters that I felt had become more important in my mind, and I was like, "I really wish I had one more scene to resolve that character, to connect this to that or the other thing."

And you also shot new footage for the ending.

There's new stuff to the ending, yeah. The ending that I had...I wanted a little more. So there's more to it now. It just connects to what we had.

There's also a lot of speculation that you added more kills.

I hate that phrase, when someone talks about "the kills." It's like saying "the [ejaculation reference]," you know? I mean, we're not making porno. I hate that, when it's broken down to that level of bullsh*t. I hate that and I don't ever talk that way. I hate it when people refer to things like that. It's the characters and the story. And if you have characters that are compelling, you don't even have to do that much to them and people will freak out, because it's like, "Oh my God, I can't believe that I'm watching this happen to them. This is horrifying." You sell it with the actor's face in terror; it's not because you got inventive and you're like, "If I got a screwdriver and I launch it off a catapult and it ricochets off a f*ckin' rubber band..." All of these elaborate schemes. That's fine if that's what you're doing, but that's not what I'm doing. So I'm always very defensive about that.

When we did the preview, "scary" wasn't the word people used. They were like, "It's brutally disturbing." To me, those are the movies I like. It's like Taxi Driver. Was Taxi Driver scary? No. But was it so disturbing that you couldn't stop thinking about it? Yes. To me, that's what resonates. It's like, oh my God, my mind has been f*cking rocked by this experience.

Obviously, you've had a tremendous amount of scrutiny with this project from the outset, especially from fans on the web. How have you responded to it? 

I basically just ignore it. What else can you do? You can't be affected by it because it's kind of meaningless. People are commenting on something they know nothing about, so their comments aren't helpful in any way, because they don't really know what they're talking about. You can't handmake a movie for the fans. No one's ever done it and no one ever will. The only way you can make a good movie is to stick to your idea and your vision, and make it. If people are fans of it later, that's great. But the fans can't even agree amongst themselves. So there's no way you're gonna satisfy that.

The fun of it is delivering something that nobody's expecting. People can only base their opinions on what they think they would do, because they don't know what I'm gonna do.

I'm glad that you chose to stick with the music from Carpenter's Halloween. It's so distinctive. Did you ever consider doing something different?

I always considered that whatever the movie needed, that's what we would do. When people asked about the music while we were shooting the film, I would say, "I don't know yet." You just don't know. I love the John Carpenter score as much as anybody, but I didn't know if it would make sense with my movie, because it's so identifiable with images that you've already seen. I could use it and it might seem spectacular or it might seem like, why are you using music from a different movie? So I really didn't know until we got into the editing process whether or not it would work. And it works great, but I didn't know that at the time. From the fans' point of view, you have to use the music, you have to, because if you don't, f*ck you! But from a director's point of view, you have to do whatever makes the picture better, not what some fan thinks must be done.

In the original film, the character of Dr. Loomis was every bit as creepy -- if not creepier -- than the villain, Michael Myers. Talk about how Malcolm McDowell approached playing Dr. Loomis in your version.

In the original he seems like a deranged maniac running around. (laughs) Malcolm's take was totally fresh because he'd never seen any of the Halloween films so he had no reference point of anything Donald Pleasance had ever done. So that right there was enough. Malcolm's Dr. Loomis is different too because we've only ever experience Dr. Loomis after all the horrible things have happened. The Loomis describes it, there was some point where he was taking care of Michael and felt like he could reach him, and failed. And then he just wanted to keep him locked up. We now see all of that. There's a bigger character arch with Dr. Loomis being this child psychologist who feels he can do good, and then over the years it becomes something else. And we see him go from an idealistic person to someone who's jaded and has given up. It's just a very different take on the character.

Have you starting making plans for DVD?

We're actually just starting that now a little bit. The only thing I know of so far is that we have a lot of deleted scenes -- a lot. Because I just shot a lot of stuff that didn't get used. So there's tons of that. And we shot a very comprehensive making-of documentary, which we haven't cut together yet. I'm sure that'll be a separate disc unto itself.

Will there be an "unrated" version of Halloween for the DVD?

I don't know. The R-rated version that's going to theaters kind of got almost everything into it. So I don't know what I would do in another version. That's a funny thing -- this version feels like it didn't get attacked (by the MPAA). So with an unrated version I would almost feel like I'm shoving stuff in there that I meant to cut out in the first place. So I'm kind of on the fence about that one this time. With Devil's Rejects, I definitely felt like there were things I had to cut out and I needed to put back (for the DVD), whereas this time I don't feel that way. I don't want to go back and add ten minutes of boring crap into the film just so we can call it a different version. That doesn't make any sense.

At this point, are you still steadfastly opposed to doing a sequel?

Yeah, I would never do a sequel. I don't want to. I wanted to do this because I was excited about doing a movie with this iconic character, much like Frankenstein or something. And I made a movie much like how John Carpenter made his movie: it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And that's why I want to walk away from it. I'm not stupid; I know if it does well they'll make a sequel. But I just don't want to have anything to do with it. I want to move on to other things. This movie is all I care about.

Halloween opens nationwide on August 31st.

Rob Zombie will be at this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, where he'll be unveiling some new footage from the film. Be sure to check out ReelzChannel.com's Comic-Con page for our comprehensive coverage of this year's event!