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It’s been more than 20 years since House of 1000 Corpses hit theaters, transforming Rob Zombie from rock god into a fully-fledged horror movie director and launching the Firefly movie series that includes The Devil’s Rejects and 3 From Hell. Initially panned by critics, the movie has — fittingly for a horror classic — refused to die in the years since, becoming a true cult classic… a status now cemented with the impending release of the coffee table book Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses: The Making of a Cult Classic.

“This was a film that could have easily been left on a shelf or completely forgotten. But due to the loyal fanbase it has only gotten bigger and bigger with every year,” Zombie said about the movie in a statement from publisher Insight Editions. “I first realized this a few years after the film was released when I began seeing people getting tattoos of the characters. Since then I have literally seen thousands of tattoos. This is the mark of a true cult film."

Why create the Making of book now? Zombie was remarkably open about the initial reasoning: “The motivation for this book came from the fact that I had saved tons of material from the film. One day while organizing it I thought ‘what's the point of keeping all this stuff?’ this should all be in a book. So when the 20th anniversary of the film hit back in 2023 I was inspired to finally put it together.  Even after all these years the book is packed with photos, blueprints, storyboards and sketches that have never been seen before.”

Want to see some of those photos and other background material for yourself? Check out our exclusive gallery below:

Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses: The Making of a Cult Classic will be released September 16. If you're a big fan of the movie, you might want to consider the limited Collector's Edition, which is signed by Rob Zombie himself and features four fine-art prints exclusive to 500 copies. 

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.