Sporting a thick mane of dark dreadlocks and armfuls of self-designed tattoos, horror rocker-turned-film director Rob Zombie found a comfortable niche scaring and enthralling, first, arena, followed by movie-going audiences. A true devotee of the horror genre in its classic forms, Zombie never strayed from his screen-fright roots, remaining faithful to the gory muse that fueled his creative ambitions since the earliest years of childhood.

Born on Jan. 12, 1966 to a furniture maker father and saleswoman mother, the quiet young Robert Cummings Jr. was, with his younger brother Michael, raised in