Rob Zombie may have found the fountain of youth without even trying.

The veteran boundary pushing artist, who has won success as a rocker, filmmaker and publisher, has a hunch that the cinema side of his creativity may be the reason.

Now when he goes on tour, as he currently is as a guest on the Ozzy Osbourne bill, he says he sees a lot of people in the crowd who don't look like him.

"I think maybe the only thing I can see that maybe the movies really impact greatly with the tour is that crowds appear to keep getting younger and younger," he explains.

"You know a lot of times you think after doing this for over 20 years you go out there and the audience would look like they're getting old but they don't -- they look like they're getting younger and younger and younger. And I don't know if that's due to them discovering the movies first and then finding the music or what."

They certainly found his latest film work, a reinvention of John Carpenter's smash cult horror flick, "Halloween," in a big way. It premiered at number one at the box office, breaking all Labor Day weekend records while grossing an estimated 31 million dollars.

His critically acclaimed 2005 "The Devil's Rejects," described as a "macabre and twisted masterpiece," followed his 2004 cult classic movie, "House of 1000 Corpses." His work appears as a faux trailer for "Werewolf Women of the S.S." for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse."

A prolific video director too, Zombie has made more than 25 high-profile music videos, has contributed recordings to soundtracks, and is known for twisting the imagination and expanding the creative envelope of both film and music.

In 1995 he received an MTV Music Video Award for "More Human than Human," becoming the first self-directed artist to win such an honor. He also directed numerous videos for artists besides himself, his band White Zombie, Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society and others, including Ozzy Osbourne. "The video I made for Ozzy was probably the favorite video I ever got to do," he says.

Zombie also has brought his creative vision to hosting a new weekly movie showcase on Turner Classic Movies called "TCM Underground." The late-night show featured off-the-wall cult movies chosen by Zombie.

Still, there is nothing like a hit to earn some solid respect, he suggests.

"Everything changes when you have a number one movie. It’s not like some fringe thing you're doing anymore, especially with 'Halloween' coming in at number one and breaking the record for Labor Day weekend box office," he says. "I think that kind of shocked everybody. So, I really don’t know the exact fallout of what that would be until the next movie though. I think if anything, people take me seriously. You know 'House of 1000 Corpses,' people were like, 'Oh, this rock guy is goofing around.' 'Devil’s Reject,' everybody really liked it, so like, 'He’s serious,' and now with 'Halloween,' it’s totally rock solid serious. I think people get it now. It’s not a joke."

Nor are the economics of the business.

"I think that really the only thing that anyone in the industry is concerned with is money -- not on the creative, not the directors and stuff, but I mean, like the industry people. And you know, now I’ve made a movie, it came in at number one and it made a lot of money, so I guess you're perceived as a guy who can make them money. I think probably it’ll be easier for me to get crazier projects made because I’m not really looking to go become like this commercial guy, you know. It just so happens that 'Halloween' was very commercial. I think you're just perceived more as an entity in the industry."

As a person involved in several industries, including film, music comics and TV -- one unifying goal is to entertain, Zombie says.

"The main similarity is that everything you do has to somehow be entertaining. You're always thinking about the person who’s going to see it," he said.

That can be "a weird balance" he admits.

"You're trying to create something you like first. Because if you don’t like it, you know how can you present it to somebody else and expect them to like it? And so, it’s essentially the same thing. It's funny with the way things start, like you just come up with this crazy idea and then suddenly it becomes a reality, that’s the excitement of it.

"I mean, being on tour last summer it was like when 'Halloween' was just floating in the air, this (the tour with Ozzy) might happen, you know; doing the thing for 'Grind House' might happen. And they just start with just vague notions or phone calls and somehow it always – you know, when it turns into reality it’s 'Oh, maybe there might be this Turner Classic Movie Show, there might be this, it might be that.' It always follows the same journey and it’s just basically a wacky idea that you have to try to put it into motion."

The artist still finds satisfaction in trying to balance films and music.

He is disenchanted with the music industry, not with the music, he said. "I love being in a band. I love touring and I love doing all that. It’s just the industry itself has kind of like destroyed itself through just greed and stupidity. That’s like all businesses. Greed destroys them all eventually. I still love doing music and that’s why I’m still here and I never really stopped at all. But I love doing movies too, so as much as I can try to balance the two, I always will. "

Musically, the artist, whose latest CD is "Zombie -- Live,” has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, becoming one of Geffen Records top selling and longest running artists. He is the most prolific Geffen artist in terms of gold and platinum discs earned.

In film-making, Zombie initially was uncertain about the prospects of success in taking on a remake of "Halloween."

"My first thought was I wasn’t really sure, but then I went back and watched the original a bunch of times and thought, you know, the main thing is why I think movies can be remade or redone or re-whatever, is if you have really strong characters at the core of it and you have a really basic story. And that’s what that movie had,” he explains.

"You have this great character Michael Myers, this iconic character that’s on the level of Frankenstein these days, and you have such a simple story. And when you have such a simple story you could just vary off of it so much that I thought like, you know what, it’s totally doable."

He once disliked the idea of remakes.

"I thought it was a really kind of stupid way (for him) to look at things because there are so many films that I love that are remakes that never would exist if everybody had that attitude," Zombie reasons.

The inspiration to do it still has to be there, he insists, "not just because the project is there."

There were several other remake opportunities that came to him before "Halloween."

"And I turned them all down because I just didn’t have an ounce of passion for the projects and it would have been a drag. But with this one, looking at it and thinking, well you know, Michael Myers, he’s a pretty clean slate. You can almost do anything with him. That’s when I knew it was worth approaching."

For Zombie, it is the characters who define the greatness of a horror film.

"It’s not about the blood and the guts and the gore because that doesn’t do anything for anybody. For me it’s the character." he says.

He references "Jaws" as an example.

"That could have been just some (bad) movie about a big shark. But the characters, the three characters on the boat with Robert Shaw and Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss were just so incredible and so believable that you were so swept up in their journey that you felt like you were on that boat," he says.

"So, any tiny little thing was terrifying and I think that’s what it is. The same thing with 'The Shining' or any great horror movie, the characters are what's compelling, not the violence or anything like that. I haven't really felt like I was scared by a movie since I was a little kid. The main film I think that freaked me out and which is such a common one is 'Jaws.' "

Zombie says the horror films that he likes the best aren't necessarily the most frightening.

It is always the classics that he appreciates the most: "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein," "all the Universal classic stuff I love," and "all the 'Hammer' stuff' from the '50s with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing," and "a lot of '70s stuff, like 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre,' 'Dawn of the Dead,' the sort of like more intense raw stuff. Those are always the films that I like the best."

Visually, he says, his own films may be more influenced by his live concerts than the other way around.

"I have a huge warehouse of all the (concert) stage sets from over the years. I kind of piece together something totally different than we ever had before," he says.

If there's anything that movies teach you, it is pacing, he says.

Zombie: "You know, you want to have a big beginning and then bring it down and bring it up, and bring it down and have pacing and different things, so that when the show is over, you go, 'Oh yes, they did that and they did that and they did that.' Sometimes you see a band and you know whatever they’ve done in the first five seconds is what they're going to do for the entire hour. It’s never going to fluctuate."

The musician tries to offer plenty of variety. "I like where’s there's a little something different for every song visually to latch onto or mood-wise, just so it's more like a show than just a concert, you know? It’ll be a very visual experience." He wants to impact people who come to his concerts.

"We were in South Dakota last night. We pull up (to the venue) and it’s just kind of like this really dismal looking ice rink in the middle of nowhere. And I just wanted the kids when they walked out of that place at the end of the night to go like, 'Holy f---, didn’t expect that!'

"It just blew their minds because that’s really what you want it to do. And that’s what I always wanted things to do to me as a kid, whether it was a movie or a concert. You want it to just open up your mind to something different and go like, 'I never thought of it that way before.' I didn’t know it could be that. You know, the main thing it’s supposed to be is fun. "