The Lords of Salem (2013)

This takes place in Salem MA.A DJ (Sheri Moon Zombie) receives a record recorded by "the Lords". She plays it and it unleashes three witches (Dee Wallace, Patricia Quinn and Judy Geeson) to possess Zombie and make her the bride of Satan.Dark and disturbing full of sick imagery and gratuitous female nudity. Not a lot of blood and gore but the imagery and tone more than make up for it. The acting is excellent across the board and it all leads to a disturbing ending.This was barely released (for some reason) but deserves recognition. I give it a 6.

Very disappointing. Sure, I wasn't expecting Kubrick or even John Carpenter. But Zombie's previous efforts were interesting and entertaining.But this? Dull, dull, dull. I really wanted to shovel it into the bad category but was remarkably poor. The ending had some interesting visual elements, but nothing more than a good music video. And there were some good shots throughout. But the narrative was just plain boring. I didn't see any effort in coherent storytelling or characterization. It didn't help that yet again Zombie casts his wife, who is very attractive but a very poor actress. That was made more evident by the group of very good character actors. Granted, Zombie made her in name as a recovering addict, but had nothing to do with the story.I'd say the ending was definitely Zombie exercising some visual urges he wanted to get out. But there was nothing about it up 'til then that was very interesting. The hallway was good but there were five apartments and one at the end that was eerily vacant. But not once did we see the other three tenants. Not even when the three witches were babbling in the hallway in the middle of the night.And staying on the visuals. The three witches dump her into the palatial hall that was on the other side of apartment #5 and she met---what was that? Was that suppose to be the baby Devil? The actual Devil? It was just an ugly roley-poley---thing. Laughable.So the story trudged along, killing time before the ending. Mrs. Zombie is continually haunted by this record and images (that were very cost conscious), over and over. Very redundant. I smirked at the supposed writer of a book about the Salem witches not really knowing much about Salem witches.Then the voice over at the end said a janitor found the dead women in the theater. Uhm, nobody was working at the actual theater as they let in the audience and worked at the concession stand? Nobody was going to lock up after the show? And when Mrs. Zombie disappeared into the theater, why didn't her two DJ friends go into the show? The radio station was giving away the tickets, after all. And if they could not, we saw no result of that.Even at an hour 40 minutes, it felt very long. Don't bother with this. Nothing worth taking the time.

The Lords Of Salem is a departure for director Rob Zombie, easing back from his usual brand of profane, blitzkrieg, jarring vulgarity and bloody excess that he burst into the film scene with. Here he tones down the craziness in favour of something far moodier, that gets under your skin subtly, instead of ripping it off and wearing it as a suit. Don't get me wrong, it's still an extremely disturbing movie, but it takes its time getting there, the horror a droning force of inevitability as opposed to a dancing clown jabbing you playfully with a butcher's knife. The story here is based on the infamous Salem Witch Trials, and in a grimy prologue we see several gnarled pagan banshees involved in a backwoods ritual. Jump to present day, we follow Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) an ex junkie radio DJ, along with her fellow broadcasters Jeffrey Daniel Philips and the one and only Ken Foree. They interview various guests and goof off on the daily, a lighthearted enough job. Until a mysterious vinyl record shows up, in a box decorated with a vaguely threatening symbol. When they play it on the air, a grinding, dreadful melody flows out across town, causing strange, hypnotic behaviour among the women of the area. Heidi starts having hallucinations and shocking daytime visions of terrible things, which lead her down a path of distraught behaviour and confusion. Something evil is brewing again in Salem, something to do with Heidi, and her three cackling landladies (Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn and Dee Wallace). A local author (Bruce Davison, excellent) is onto it and believes he can prevent it from happening. The film has a classically satanic, sort of 1970's vibe, clearly a throwback to oddball horror stuff from back then, like flicks from Ken Russell and the like. There's an almost psychedelic aura to it, and indeed visually the film looks just stunning, alternating from dirty, lived in frames, to nightmarishly baroque, surreal set piece shrouded in smoke and thoughtful, painstaking production design. Anyone who's said Moon Zombie can't act in the past should bite their tongue with this one; she displays a believable, slow burning picture of an unraveling mental state, a girl deeply in trouble. Meg Foster gives an unrecognizable performance that will make you want to hide behind the couch, as the feral leader of the original Coven, Margaret Morgan. There's also nice work from Richard Fancy, Andrew Pine and Maria Conchita Alonso. It's a new leap for Rob Zombie, film wise, but he handles the brooding side of horror quite well, and even in a chaotic, balls to the wall final sequence of wtf-ness, he never goes loud and crude like he has in the past, keeping it reigned in to an atmospheric minimum. Not a film for everyone, but any fan of this type of horror will be pleased.

First off The Lords of Salem is yet another film by the brilliant artist-musician-film director Rob Zombie. This movie was released in 2012 and is a story about basically The American Witch. Unlike Rob Zombie's other films The Lords of Salem is a bit of slow starter very heavily detailed. We purchased The Lords of Salem because we are hardcore Rob Zombie fans, we love his music, art, and films. We consider The House of 1000 Corpses to be a complete work of art, "The Devil's Rejects" to be a very great somewhat extension to the first film. Rob Zombie is an artist, his work is more enjoyable to those that truly see him as an artist. Former films directed by Rob Zombies such as his versions of Halloween and Halloween 2 we feel were better than the originals, yet they still held true to the original stories. This all being said, "The Lords of Salem" was more artistry based of a film, slow moving, detailed, but is a hard film to get in to.Now we watched "The Lords of Salem" a few times now, following Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) through the story as it slowly exposes that she had a lot to do with a specific coven of witches known as "The Lords of Salem". I can't stress the length of time in this build up enough, maybe too much detail leading up to this was displayed. Of course Rob Zombies' movies are all about the detail which has made them all amazing, this film specifically is just slower based. The film style used in The Lords of Salem is awesome, the characters were played very well, and we also liked the little kick backs here and their noting other movies. Things like Sheri Moon Zombie being referred to as "Baby" for a quick spot in the story, just to name one of these. But yes the cast was perfect, the graphics were very good, and we cannot leave out John 5 for his music contribution and acting.