Zombie dares the Devil…
The H-Bomb: Late one night in Salem, Massachusetts, local radio DJ, Heidi LaRoc (Sheri Moon Zombie), receives a strange package containing an old school vinyl record from a band calling themselves “The Lords.” When Heidi puts the record on, a bizarre instrumental piece plays, one that seems to have a hypnotizing effect on her. While in these trance-like states, Heidi has visions of naked women in 1600’s Salem performing some kind of Satanic ritual.
In the following days, things get worse for Heidi as her visions of Salem’s past intensify and become more vivid, sinister figures with stone faces appear to be stalking her, and she dreams of being assailed by a demonic munchkin. Then there’s her odd, elusive new neighbor renting the apartment at the end of the hall . . . a new neighbor that her landlord (Judy Geeson) insists doesn’t exist. There is definitely something strange going down in the town of Salem, and Heidi seems to be right at the center of it . . . but why her? And who, or what, are the Lords behind this creepy record?
Rob Zombie has always interested me as a filmmaker, even if I haven’t exactly loved the bulk of his movies. His debut, House of 1000 Corpses, is a crazed, candy colored acid trip of a movie that has, I’ll admit, grown on me, but initially I kind of hated it. Its sequel, The Devil’s Rejects, is a grim, gritty, and genuinely intense picture that, much to my surprise, I kind of loved. His two Halloween flicks I didn’t love or hate. They had some aspects I liked, but overall, Zombie’s style just didn’t jive well with that particular series.
Now he brings us his fifth feature (not counting that animated abortion, The Haunted World of El Super Beasto), The Lords of Salem, and this time, he has switched his style completely. While his previous films were in-your-face slasher flicks caked in blood and grime, The Lords of Salem is a relatively low key Satanic thriller that’s very much (perhaps a bit too much) in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby. A slow burner that favors atmospheric creepiness over straight up shocks, it’s a Rob Zombie film unlike any we’ve ever seen.
This stylistic departure has drawn very mixed reviews, particularly from gore nuts who only wanted another Devil’s Rejects, but instead got something considerably more restrained and sophisticated. Some have praised Zombie for taking a stab at something new, others were disappointed by the lack of carnage. Me personally, after Halloween II, I was tired of seeing the same old trashy splatter flick from him, and was ready to write him off as a one trick pony. Then he went and did this, and while The Lords of Salem is not without its problems, it is overall a spooky little freak fest that shows that Mr. Zombie does have range as a director, after all.
Dispensing with his typical hand held shaky cam look, Zombie employs a more classic visual style, consisting of deliberately composed frames and slow, creeping tracking shots. Often accompanied by a David Lynch-like sound design, the nightmarish images that Zombie creates achieve a truly unnerving effect. And here, the surreal imagery actually works in the context of the film, unlike in Halloween II, where the dream sequences felt completely out of place and came off as laughably pretentious. This time, they effectively convey Heidi’s descent into madness over the course of the story.
That brings me to something I would be remiss not to mention, the lead performance by Sheri Moon Zombie. A lot of reviewers out there in Internetland have given her crap, not only for this movie, but for all of them. They say she’s a shitty actress, that if she wasn’t married to Rob Zombie, she wouldn’t have a career, blah, blah, blah. I say bullshit. She’s been good in all of Zombie’s films, especially as the batshit bonkers Baby from Corpses and Rejects, and here, she really outdoes herself and demonstrates that she has real chops as an actress. Never mind that the whole movie falls on her shoulders and she has to carry it, Heidi is an emotionally complex character who, as stated, is slowly driven insane. It takes a real actress to pull off this role, and Moon Zombie does exactly that, delivering a knockout performance. So shut the fuck up, haters, you know nothing of what you speak.
There is another performance; however, that I didn’t feel was quite up to snuff, and that came from, surprisingly enough, veteran actor Bruce Davison, who plays a local writer/provider of exposition. I’m not sure if it’s his fault, or the script’s, or a combination of the two, but he just isn’t very good here. His line deliveries are awkward, his high pitched accent is weird, everything about him is just off. The part where he shouts “Fuck me!” after discovering something about Heidi’s past is an embarrassing display of overacting that would should make William Shatner cringe.
And while I’m on the topic of things I didn’t like, I should point out a few other aspects of the film that just don’t quite work, a key one being Zombie’s screenplay. The man has grown into a solid director, but writing wise, he still has a ways to go. It’s not that the script for The Lords of Salem is bad, it’s just uneven. The Black Mass sequences, for example, feature even more manic overacting, as well as uber-cheesy dialogue like, “In the name of our dark lord, Satan!” They simply come off as unconvincing and incredibly hokey. Another bit that doesn’t work is Heidi’s encounter with an evil, lecherous priest. Like the Satanic ritual scenes, it’s played so wildly over-the-top it’s ridiculous. Besides, isn’t the whole sexual predator priest thing a tad trite by this point?
All of these petty gripes, however, are exactly that, petty gripes. My main issue with The Lords of Salem, what really drags it down and keeps it from being a great horror film, as it had the potential to be, is the story itself. I’ve already said that it’s too close to Rosemary’s Baby, and it is, to a point where it’s ultimately predictable, and just plain unoriginal. It’s such a shame, too, as Zombie really had me going for a while there, he just should have thought of a different direction to take the film, instead of heading down an already well traveled road.
That being said, The Lords of Salem is still quite good. Zombie switched things up and gave us something understated, unsettling, and creepy in a way that just crawls under your skin and stays there. It’s all the more impressive in that Zombie was working completely outside of his comfort zone on this one. He has stated that he will never make another horror film after this. I imagine this decision was made following the film’s sadly lukewarm reception, which is too bad, since this movie demonstrated that he has matured as a filmmaker, and there’s no telling what twisted treats he had in store for us had this one panned out. I can only hope that, someday, he will change his mind.
