The Lords of Salem
One thing is clear when watching a Rob Zombie film. The man is a classic horror fan, as his influences can be heavily felt throughout his latest work, The Lords of Salem. His subtle homages to films such as “The Devil Rides Out” and “Rosemary’s Baby” could go completely unnoticed by anything other than a died in the wool, or rather washed in the blood horror fan. For those of us in the know so to speak, each one of these hidden nuggets produces a wry smile. Without further ado, here’s the recap.
Sheri Moon Zombie stars as Heidi Hawthorne, a late night DJ, living and working in Salem, Massachusetts. She works with two funny co-host dudes Herman Jackson – Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead and slew of other genre films) and Herman ‘Whitey’ Salvador – Jeff Daniel Phillips (Halloween II) whom they only refer to as “Whitey” in the film. The trio seem to be genuinely friendly and a romantic relationship between Heidi and Whitey is implied. It’s also implicitly implied that Heidi has a history of chasing the dragon. I had the feeling that Whitey was her sponsor for sobriety. Leaving the radio studio after the show, Heidi receives a package which inside holds an old school vinyl record.
That night as she and Whitey party together back home, they listen to the very strange music. Whitey suggests that they play in the “make it or break it” portion of the show the next evening. When they do, it seems to have a visceral effect on Heidi who asks Herman J to mute it in the DJ booth because it’s giving her a headache. Meanwhile, we see Heidi’s land lady, Sonny (Dee Wallace) and her sisters, each in their own setting, drop their respective tasks and seemingly go into a trance upon hearing the tune. From this point on the sister 3 seem to have an ominous agenda.
The two Hermans make one final attempt to save their friend whom they sense is spiraling back into addiction, but she gives them the slip in a poignant scene where she pauses at the side door to say in an almost sad way, “Bye,” before locking their positive influence out of her life and embracing the horror that awaits her.
At this point I have to drop the play by play approach for risk of spoiling the film for you. Actually, it doesn’t really matter because about 2/3rds of the way through the film the traditional narrative is almost completely dropped in favor of surrealistic, Polanski-esque nightmare vision of events as poor Heidi sees them after she slips off the wagon. Stanley Kubrick would surely be proud of the use of the use of classical music and slow, painfully slow panning master shots through this portion of the film. Easily some of the most beautiful cinematography I’ve seen in any Zombie film the final moments of the third act, for me, really moved this film into an instant classic category. Also the lighting of these final gothic set pieces really harkened to Suspiria for me, a film that by all accounts was very ground breaking for its use of colored lights.
The one caveat I must mention is that in an attempt to visualize a nightmare scenario, L.O.S. might go just a tad too far in the disturbing arena for some. Tons of religious iconography will surely put many off, but I think if the story is truly given a chance, folks will see that the Satan of Rob’s movie universe is a pretty bad guy with some very nasty harpies on team Satan, saying all kinds of perverse things about Christ. This was off putting to me as well, but it does serve the story and leaves the audience with no doubt as to whom or what the antagonist is.
The brilliant sequence that ends the film is over all too quickly as the credits roll. We’re given further exposition via the voice of a radio dj reporting the recent slayings in Salem and one is left with the sense that they original witches shown in a brief open sequence has been up to no good in Salem.
After reading various fan reviews around the internet, it bugs me that so many misinterpreted the films’ thrust as pro-Satan or Anit-Christ. From one Amazon.com reviewer, { it was almost gleeful in it’s satanism, and really kind of poses questions like “why do we just assume satanism is worse than and more barbaric than christianity?” man, go satan!}. Sigh, I guess people see what they want to see in such a film. For me the film was anti-addiction if it was anti anything, addiction to drugs or addition to anything that prevents you from seeing the world as it. Mostly, I think it was meant to entertain people who like real spooky movies, which in my case it did very well indeed.
Rob Zombie continues to do his own thing and horror fans continue to ignore it. I don’t listen to DeadPit anymore because I’ve sworn off independent horror talk radio, but I imagine that they will indeed hate this movie! I loved it. Check out the DVD and make up your own mind, or go watch the next Friday the 13th remake if that’s what you prefer.
Peace out, Mutants!
