RZ on the Great American Nightmare; “There are sights within that will scar you and I mean that.”

On Monday I was granted an early look at Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare. The season long haunted attraction that opens Friday at the Pomona Fairgrounds in Southern California. Not only was Sinful Celluloid on hand for the sneak peek, but was surprised by an appearance by Zombie himself who is helping oversee the final details for his vision of the ultimate Halloween haunt! Read on for his thoughts and some first look photos from the attraction…

When you first enter the fairgrounds, it’s an enormous series of venues, quite overwhelming in size but nothing that differentiates it from another. That is, until you step inside building 7 and the home to Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare.

The first thing in front of me was Captain Spalding’s Museum of Monsters and Mad Men. I was instantly in Ruggsville. The building smelt of hay and decay in the best way (yes, I’m a poet and didn’t know it). It is an amazing structure that only gets more and more detailed as you look around. I was about to step inside when a tall thin figure stepped out…Rob Zombie was in the corpse in this house! With a lot to do and so little time, I managed to get some burning questions in.

SINFUL CELLULOID: With Universal doing the original version of a House of 1000 Corpses maze in 1999 for their Great American Nightmare and the 3D version in 2011, would you say this is more completely your vision?

ROB ZOMBIE: I wouldn’t say that, Universal, those guys were great to work with and since it’s all based off the movie, I guess it’s always my vision. In both cases, they chose to take different elements and run with it, this is taking the Murder Ride and expanding it into it’s own big attraction so it’s kinda different than the one Universal did.

SINCELL: Was there anything you did this time that you didn’t get to do the first times around?

RZ: I don’t know. The thing I was excited about was the 3D getting better and better. We had done 3D before and as with anything, it gets better as the years go on. That was kinda exciting.

SINCELL: Is this something you would want to do every year if it goes off?

RZ: Yeah. That’s the plan. To do it every year and do it in more markets next year. Take it to other states, perhaps other countries.

SINCELL: Here is a challenging question for you. Can you bring this back and do Broad-street Bullies maze?

RZ: Yeah well think of it. You just make it look like a big giant locker room and when you walk through it you just get hassled by a bunch of Hockey thugs, that would be scary, right? Snapping their towels?  (Laughs) Actually, it’s funny you should say that cause I went to this one called Madison Scare Garden that they did a bunch of years ago, and they just had one section that was a prison. And literally you are just going through the prison being taunted by prisoners. That was actually the most terrifying. A lot scarier than any of this.

With that, we were met by Producer Steve Kopleman, who escorted us inside Spalding’s for a first look tour.

Spaldings is amazing! So much detail went in to this that I wanted to not only stick around, but I was waiting for the Captain to wander out and attack. Everything from the news paper covered bathroom door to the “Tasty fried chicken”, they didn’t miss a beat.

Now I can’t tell you what’s inside but believe you me, this is not for the squeamish! There are sights within that will scar you and I mean that. This is the Murder Ride EXTREME EDITION! Beside the serial killers in the film, you get so many more from the wall of shame recreated in loving detail!

When we got to EL SUPER BEASTO 3D, it was like the animation exploded all over the place. I liken it to the Doors film. An acid trip with out dropping. I felt i was transported to Toon Town or Cool World. It’s absolutely fantastic and I hope everyone can enjoy the surreal experience.

There is NOTHING I will tell you about The Lords of Salem except that you better prepare yourself because for everything that you think it might be, you are wrong…DEAD WRONG!!!