When musician Rob Zombie branched out into making horror movies, he brought with him his heavy metal sensibilities and affection for cult and exploitation movies from the 1970s. This has allowed him to develop his own style and approach to the horror genre that worked to his favor in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects and to his detriment in his two entries into the Halloween franchise.
When Zombie approached his fifth movie, he once more looked to the '70s for inspiration. But instead of grindhouse movies like usual, he culled influence from European filmmakers like Ken Russell and Mario Bava, and neo-pagan horror movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Wicker Man. A truly odd amalgam of trippy visuals, strange moments that come seemingly out of nowhere and for no reason, Zombie's The Lords of Salem is without a doubt his most unique and ambitious movie. It's also his most bizarre movie to date.
The story centers around Heidi LeRoq (Sheri Moon Zombie), a recovering drug addict who co-hosts a late-night radio show in Salem, Massachusetts. She lives a happy enough life, but that all changes when a strange package addressed to her arrives at her radio station. Said package, a wooden box containing a vinyl record by a band called "The Lords," draws the curiosity of Heidi and the co-hosts of her show, Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Herman (Ken Foree). While interviewing local author Francis Matthias (Bruce Davison) about his book covering the Salem witch trials, the trio plays the record on the air.
But what they do not know is that playing the ominous music on that record has triggered something evil. Heidi is soon plagued by terrifying hallucinations and nightmares that push her sanity to the breaking point. Intrigued by the music and the name of the so-called band, Matthias does some digging and discovers that one of Heidi's ancestors, famed witch hunter Reverend Johnathan Hawthorne (Andrew Prine), led a mob that executed a coven of witches known as "the Lords of Salem." With their dying breaths, the Lords of Salem placed a curse on the Hawthorne family tree and Salem's female population, a curse that has been awakened by the playing of that music. The spirits of Lords of Salem have arisen, intent on sacrificing Heidi to Satan himself.
It's been a few days since I saw The Lords of Salem, and I'm still not one hundred percent sure just what in the blue hell I actually watched. It's a strange mind-screw of a movie that is equal parts captivating and frustrating. The movie is so weird that you can't look away yet you might find yourself upset that so little of it actually makes sense. I find it hard to describe The Lords of Salem in words that will do it justice, because it is a movie that you won't truly "get" until you see it for yourself. And if you're anything like me, you still won't completely get it even after you see it.
I don't know if I could call this movie Rob Zombie's best, but as far as his direction goes, his work is amazing. It's probably his best technical effort at making a movie, at the very least. The movie boasts some gorgeous cinematography that looks like it was pulled from The Shining, and is orchestrated in such a way that nearly everything will give you the creeps or just plain freak you out. Say what you will about this movie, but it's evident that Zombie knew exactly what kind of movie he wanted to make. There are some scenes that Zombie draws out and makes unbearably tense, and other scenes that are so bizarre that they defy words. It's like watching a weird mashup of The Shining and Requiem for a Dream, with some Rosemary's Baby thrown in for flavor. It's unsettling, uncomfortable, and just plain weird, and I doubt that Zombie would have wanted it any other way.
It's unfortunate, though, that Zombie's script isn't as strong as his direction. One gets the impression he got so focused on making the movie seem like a nightmare that he forgot to include things like worthwhile characters. The movie's biggest flaw is that you simply do not care about what's happening to anybody, and it's wholly the fault of the script.
Zombie stepped out of his comfort zone in writing The Lords of Salem, since none of the characters are ultra-repellent white trash or over-exaggerated hillbillies like in his other movies. But it seems like that's what he's best at because he really hit a dead end here. It's especially evident with the character of Heidi, who, despite being the lead character and the movie's emotional center, is given practically nothing of value to do for the entire movie. Even as she descends into madness, the character coasts along on autopilot, contributing the absolute bare minimum to the story. Everyone else is more intriguing, which is a damn shame because none of them are given as much focus as the blank slate that is Heidi.
At least the movie boasts a strong cast to make up for a lot of the script's inadequacies. Among the supporting cast, I enjoyed Ken Foree and Jeff Daniel Phillips quite a bit. Foree brings a lot of humor to his role, while Phillips did a respectable job playing the "guy with an unrequited crush on the lead character" you've seen in various movies before. (And it's a shame that Zombie didn't do more with that trope, either.) Judy Gleeson, Patricia Quinn, and Dee Wallace also provide both some funny and genuinely creepy moments as a trio of witches with nefarious intent. Meg Foster also appears as the leader of the Lords of Salem, her character frequently appearing in Heidi's hallucinations. Foster is actually really scary here, playing the role with a ton of otherworldly menace. And although his screen time is sadly limited to a handful of scenes, Bruce Davison contributes a likable performance.
And then there's the movie's star, Sheri Moon Zombie. Most people accuse her presence here as being a little nepotistic, considering she's married to the movie's director. And really, the movie probably could have benefited from having Moon in a supporting role and another actress in the lead. That's not to say Moon is a bad actress; I've actually found her to be quite strong in every other movie I've seen her in. But the characters she's played in the past have never been as ill-defined and poorly written as this one. Moon does the best she can, but there's only so much she can do when the character has to spend the whole movie walking around in a haze. There are a couple of moments where it feels like Moon could have something awesome to do, but they never really get off the ground. All that's required of Moon is to stare off into space and let everything else happen around her. The character shows absolutely zero proactivity or initiative, and is just a terrible excuse for a main character. And no matter how strong Moon's performance might be, she unfortunately doesn't have a whole lot to work with and that lack of material drags her down into the muck.
The Lords of Salem is, without an ounce of hyperbole, one of the most surreal movies I've ever seen. The movie feels like an odd experiment, as if Rob Zombie wanted to see if he could successfully make an art house movie that looked like one of his band's music videos. And he wanted to make something that would absolutely freak out everyone who sees it, too. That weird montage that serves as the movie's climax is all the proof you need that this is a truly strange piece of work. And as such, it's not going to satisfy everybody. Even I left the theater unsure of whether or not I actually liked it. And while I'll still argue that The Devil's Rejects remains Zombie's best movie, at least The Lords of Salem is better than his Halloween II. So it has that going for it, I guess.
Final Rating: **½
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