The Lords of Salem (2013, Rob Zombie)

I'm not one of the Rob Zombie haters. I've dug his films since "House of 1000 Corpses" up to his "re-envisioning" of John Carpenter's "Halloween", which I also didn't mind. Sorry. However, I could see why people hated his dogshit sequel, of course... Anyways, following that incredibly phoned-in mess of putrid Weinstein vomit called "Halloween 2", I was a bit eager to see what Zombie would come up with next, since it was apparent he was going to detach himself from the overbearing Hollywood studio system for his next feature. Then, "The Lords of Salem" started getting mentioned and put on hold and teased and all the other uncertain bullshit and I awaited with relatively high hopes... So, how is it? Fucking disappointing.

First off - here's a plot synopsis: a small time Salem radio DJ, named Heidi, receives a mysterious wooden box containing a record labeled The Lords. Her and her radio partners play it on the air a few times, as well as in private and each time, she reacts strangely to it - eventually going off the deep end and experiencing strange visions and demonic nightmares. She eventually gets mixed up with a coven of old witches - one of whom happens to be her landlord. As this goes on, a Salem writer who was on the radio show as a guest when the annoying Lords song first played, attempts to figure out it's origins in connection with the DJ...

What really sucks is that "The Lords of Salem" had SO much potential and should've been pretty fucking cool considering this overall COOL idea! Problem is, it's NOT. It's actually incredibly boring, desultory and hollow looking/feeling. I guess what it really comes down to is that Rob Zombie CAN direct, but seeing him shift from his usual brand of white-trash, violent serial killer-themed shit, to a more subtle, 'spooky' and... I guess, more MATURE style of film just didn't 'hit' this time around. I was actually onboard early on when I saw what Zombie was doing. More supernatural-ish looking scenes with obvious inspiration derived from "The Shining". That's all fine and I didn't mind what I saw, even though it was more 'traditional' horror elements. Then, the film seemed to lose sight of all of this when Heidi starts having her bad dreams every 5 seconds. I was really getting tired of seeing her wake up startled... When the modern day witches come into play was when shit REALLY got laughable (Dee Wallace saying "cunt" was alright, though) and they introduce, what I assumed to be, 'the devil' and... Holy shit... This fucking thing had me giggling like a lunatic for the rest of the movie! It was like a fucking misshapen midget-baby with a potbelly and tentacles! Absolutely terrible! And I was at least expecting Rob Zombie to really NAIL IT with the outrageous and macabre imagery with this flick and that shit fails on top of the plot being completely shallow and directionless. Hell, people will probably want to burn ME at the stake for saying this, but I thought he did a much better job of combining whacked out, morbid, Satanic visuals to a plot with "House of 1000 Corpses" then with this! Again, I saw what he was trying to do with "Lords" and I still really think he is capable of coming up with a really powerful and crazy surrealist horror film with a more 'arthouse' aesthetic like this, but he needs a bit more focus on fitting it all together WITH a storyline without it falling apart like it did here. And, perhaps, a better lead than Sheri Moon Zombie. This broad cannot carry a film...

So, yeah. It appears that Zombie is on the decline when it comes to quality. He's certainly not doing a great job of showing much versatility outside of his usual cinematic earmarks that tend to include copious amounts of foul-mouthed redneckery and harsh violence; all of which, "The Lords of Salem" lacks. I wouldn't mind that at all if it was, at this point, possible for him to make a decent film without all of that. Doesn't seem to be the case. Still, you can always tell it's a Rob Zombie film because every wall has a skull spray painted on it...