Rob Zombie has signed on to direct The Lords of Salem from Haunted Films. The film is set in contemporary Salem, where the inhabitants receive a demonic visit from a 300-year old coven of witches. The title of the film is taken from Rob Zombie‘s album “Educated Horses“.

According to Deadline, Zombie not only direct the film but will also write the script for Haunted Films, which is run by Paranormal Activity‘s Jason Blum, Steven Schneider and Oren Peli.

Rob Zombie said:

“What excited me most was Jason saying, you can have total control over the script, casting and final cut…I said I’m in.”

“It’s so hard to make a patient movie, and if a classic like The Shining was being made now, you know some studio executive would say to cut 70 minutes out of it…People who’ve seen the director’s cut of Halloween on DVD like it better, and these theatrical releases are being cut to little more than the length of a TV show.”

“I wanted to break away from anything related to preexisting material…The remake train is getting pretty tired now and when I made Halloween, everybody complained, either that it was too much like the original or too different. I like that people either love or hate what I do because it’s better than being in the middle, which means forgettable. But when you do an original premise, they take it on face value and after three years of not being able to win on Halloween, I just couldn’t go through that again.”

The Lords of Salem is currently slated to shoot next year.