Responses to Rob Zombie's movies are always polarized. Not surprisingly, critics revile them, but many horror fans have similar opinions while others love everything he does. Although I hated his Halloween remake, my opinion of Zombie's movies falls close enough to the latter group that I highly anticipate their releases and have to see them on opening night. Unfortunately, his latest, Lords of Salem, has such a limited release that it played at only one local theater that is about a thirty minute drive for us, so Vicki and I skipped the opening weekend hoping it would be playing at a closer theater in the coming weeks. We soon learned, however, that it would be gone the next weekend, so we endured the drive and saw it on a Wednesday night. We walked away highly satisfied but amazed that it was able to receive an R-rating and that it is having even a limited theatrical release.
One of the reasons I like Zombie's movies so much is because they are made by a horror fan for horror fans, and this is especially true of Lords of Salem. Whereas his earlier movies could find a potential audience in anyone who appreciated The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, or 70's horror in general, LoS probably won't appeal to many viewers who lack an appreciation for European horror and its tendency to favor intriguing visuals over narrative coherency. As Zombie himself has acknowledged in interviews, LoS is a bit of a departure for him as it relies on psychological horror and lacks most of the brutality of his other films (although there is a cast-iron skillet to the head murder scene).
It does, however, preserve his interest in familial relationships, which feature prominently in all of his movies. This time it's the relationship between 17th century witchhunter Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne and his last living descendent in present day Salem, Heidi Hawthorne. Heidi, who hosts a late night radio show, is sent a vinyl recording of a discordant instrumental by a band known as The Lords. After playing the record, Heidi begins experiencing visions and nightmares of naked witches performing black masses and other blasphemies. The events unfold slowly over the course of a week, and the first hour or so of the movie is a tightly structured linear narrative that could be mistaken for a mainstream psychological horror film. We learn that modern day witches are in communication with their 17th century sisters in darkness who were burned at the stake by Heidi's ancestor and that the strange recording is part of their plot to drive Heidi mad and implement the curse that the burning witches cast on Reverend Hawthorne. However, as Heidi descends further into madness, the narrative unravels and the linear structure collapses into the irrationality of a nightmare.
LoS is filled with eerie images of witchcraft and devil worship. Some of the most effective appear as Heidi is walking her dog through a cemetery. She stops to rest on a bench and sees a zombie-like figure approaching her while walking a goat. She then enters a chapel where she has visions of a priest forcing her to fellate him while his eyes turn black and black liquid oozes from his mouth as he praises Satan. Bodies of dead witches appear randomly in the background of scenes in Heidi's apartment, a monstrous baby with tentacles shows up in her bedroom, and in a climactic scene she enters an abandoned apartment where other infernal creatures impregnate her with a demon seed while she looks at a buzzing neon cross on the wall. The last half hour gets so bizarre that it's difficult even to describe, which might explain how it was able to get by with an R-rating: the MPAA representatives tasked with rating it were probably so shocked and confused that they probably overlooked the multiple shots of topless witches and didn't realize that they were seeing bishops masturbating penises.
I often complain that the only horror movies that get funded are sequels, remakes, or imitations of well-known franchises, but as I was walking out of the theater after seeing Lord of Salem, I had to admit to myself that the state of the American horror film is actually in much better shape if a movie like Lords of Salem could get made and have a wide enough theatrical release to play in Columbia, SC, even if it was in only one theater and for only a week. It won't appeal to casual horror fans, but any fan of 70's European horror who would revel in the opportunity to see a movie made in the same style on the big screen should make every effort to catch Lords of Salem during its limited release.
oooohhhhh. I'll have to check it out!
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