“Their blasphemous music echoes in my mind, driving me to the point of insanity…”
Rob Zombie deserved another chance. Sure, I may have found his 2007 remake of Halloween wretched, and the southern-fried Grand Guignol spectacle of House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects have always fallen flat. But Zombie keeps coming back to horror, to the point that when he went on tour with Marilyn Manson a few years ago, I was surprised to learn that he was still making music. (To be fair, I’ve seen Zombie live, and it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.) I’d heard good things about The Lords of Salem, and its poster is intriguing in its minimalism. By all accounts, this is Zombie’s most accomplished film. I’d agree with that, even though his previous work didn’t leave a high bar to hurdle. But The Lords of Salem definitely represents an evolution for Zombie as a filmmaker. There’s actual artistry, and characterization, on display here.
It doesn’t hurt that Lords is functionally an homage to all the movies Zombie grew up getting scared by. You can see touches here of The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, The Thing, and any number of Italian giallo movies or Hammer films. The most important influence, however, is John Carpenter’s The Fog. Sometimes The Lords of Salem feels like a tribute, or a reinterpretation. The similarities are on the surface; both films feature the director’s wife playing a radio DJ. There’s deeper connective tissue, though, in that both movies center around the actuality of an urban legend.
Heidi Laroq (Sheri Moon Zombie, who I will refer to as Moon so as not to confuse her with the director) is a DJ at WIQZ, “Salem Rocks.” She’s part of a trio that also includes Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Herman (Ken Foree). The three of them have believable, enjoyable chemistry; their easy rapport makes Lords stand out in Zombie’s filmography because he seems to actually care for these characters, as opposed to the active antipathy he’s shown towards characters in his other films. Heidi, Whitey, and Herman are fun, and funny, so there’s heightened emotional stakes for everything that happens.
Heidi receives a wooden box, inlaid with demonic runes, with only “The Lords” as a return address. She and Whitey listen to it, which they must, because this is a horror film. But their occupation makes it a natural decision for them to make, and when the music starts, it gives Lords a bit of an Evil Dead vibe. The song is repetitive, dirgelike, sounding like someone hitting only the black keys on a piano in need of tuning. “It’s really fucked-up sounding,” Heidi says, and she’s correct. This is the one crucial aspect that The Lords of Salem absolutely needed to nail, and it does. The song is unsettling, and Heidi has a visceral reaction to it.
Unfortunately, this is where a number of plot threads are introduced that have no payoff down the road. Whitey stays at Heidi’s apartment (on the couch), and later Heidi admits to being in love with him, although Moon and Phillips certainly don’t act that way. It’s as though the actors were rebelling against the characters. When Heidi plays the Lords’ song over the radio – as part of their “smash or trash” segment – the women in town freeze, in some kind of thrall. This is never followed up on, either. Zombie can’t quite tell what kind of movie he wants to make here. One gets the sense that, although this certainly his best work, he’s out of his element while trying to make something that isn’t confrontational and grimy.
The film ambles along, somewhat aimlessly, with Heidi getting progressively worse. Soon she makes her way to a supposedly empty apartment down the hall, in which she finds a neon red cross. She’s entranced by it, but Moon can’t really pull off “entranced,” so her face just idles in neutral. But it’s still a great image in a film that is not short on them. Better still is the beast skulking behind her. The Lords of Salem boasts no jump scares, but, at its best, it cultivates an atmosphere of simmering insanity. This is also a film that, to its credit, is unafraid to get very weird, which is when it enjoys its greatest successes.
Apart from the visuals, though, The Lords of Salem pivots from being a tribute to The Fog to a kind of riff on Rosemary’s Baby. Heidi has been the victim of manipulation by a coven of witches, including her landlady. It’s all part of a plan centuries in the making to summon Satan in order to get revenge on the town that killed their ancestors, a group of witches who called themselves the Lords of Salem. The plot is boilerplate enough that it can’t live up to the trippy visuals. If you watch Lords as a kind of music video, it’s a solid case for Zombie as a visual stylist. When we finally see the devil, for instance, he’s not some horned beast, but a disgusting baby-man who wouldn’t be out of place in a Cronenberg movie.
At least it ends on a high note. The climax is at a level of insanity that actually feels earned. Heidi is so far gone at this point that she just goes along with everything, which makes it easier for the viewer to luxuriate in some of the truly Kubrickian visuals. (The bed in the middle of an ornate theater lobby seems like a clear homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.) Zombie is able to strike a difficult balance here, between surreal, macabre, disgusting, and beautiful. When Heidi births the Antichrist, it’s not some creepy kid, but a small tentacled monster that looks like an unused creature design for The Thing.
The Lords of Salem is uneven, but it isn’t a disaster. Moon has never given a better performance, and Zombie has never reined himself in like this. He goes too far at certain points, which is where the pace really starts to drag, but this is the first and only film of his that seems to have something on its mind. I’d like to see Zombie push himself more in this direction, but his follow-ups to this were 31, and this year’s 3 From Hell, which is a continuation of The Devil’s Rejects. It’s too bad. There’s skill on display here, and passion, and it would be a shame to cover all that up with more pointless filth and misery.
10/1: Hellraiser / The Invitation
10/2: Splice / Banshee Chapter
10/3: Jennifer’s Body / Raw
10/4: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist / Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
10/5: Kill List / A Field in England
10/6: Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
10/8: Ginger Snaps / Creep
10/9: Cube / Creep 2
10/10: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / The Ritual
10/11: Hell House LLC / The Taking of Deborah Logan
10/12: Re-Animator / From Beyond
10/13: Beetlejuice / Sleepy Hollow
10/14: Idle Hands / The Lords of Salem
10/15: The Ring / Noroi: The Curse
10/16: I Know What You Did Last Summer / The Monster
10/17: Night of the Living Dead / Train to Busan
10/18: The Devil’s Backbone / Southbound
10/19: Event Horizon / Dreamcatcher
10/20: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / The Bad Seed
10/21: Eyes Without a Face / Goodnight Mommy
10/22: The Strangers / The Strangers: Prey at Night
10/23: In the Mouth of Madness / The Void
10/24: The Amityville Horror / Honeymoon
10/25: Gerald’s Game / Emelie
10/26: The Monster Squad / Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/27: Veronica / The Jacob’s Ladder
10/28: High Tension / You’re Next
10/29: The Innkeepers / Bug
10/30: The People Under the Stairs / Vampires
10/31: Saw / Saw II
About Author
