A new feature from writer Duane Finley and this week he’s taking aim at Rob Zombie’s latest movie “Lords of Salem”
By Duane Finley — Featured Writer
Let me start off by saying, we are going to have a good time.
When the Zeus of Mount Nerdcore himself Mr. Damon Martin, gives you a column to write whatever the hell you feel like getting busy on, then you know it’s in your best interest to bring the heat every time out.
Where this site brings you the best and latest news and exclusive features on all things comics, movies, music and nerdery, this little space will be filled with complete randomness. On some installments we’ll cover the previously mentioned categories, but on others, I’ll take you on a wild ride through the weird and wacky just for because we get a group discount.
For my first trip around the sun, I buried the hatchet on my long-standing grudge with Steve Sanders form Beverly Hills 90210. His curly headed locks of ignorance have been a thorn in my side since the formative years and a proper lashing was well overdue.
This next installment will be a movie review, and with Halloween right around the corner, I thought I’d take a crack at Rob Zombie’s latest The Lords of Salem.
Let me start by saying this: If Salem is a loose translation for “shit” in some language or dialect, this title is remarkably fitting.
Where Zombie has come out solid in his previous film efforts and managed to hold even the craziest plot arcs together, in T.L.O.S. he essentially mailed it in. Whether it was for a paycheck or to get his wife Sheri Moon-Zombie another batch of film time is unknown to me, but what was painfully clear, is the movie and the man behind the camera has zero ideas of what the film is supposed to be.
Heidi (Moon-Zombie) Hawthorne is recovering drug addict and part of a disc jockey trio in the fabled town of Salem, Mass where some dark moments in American history played out. The town is notorious for being the place where the Salem Witch Trials were held and the Quaker collective burned rambunctious girls and women at the stake.
It just so happens Heidi is the descendant of Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne, the man who ultimately charged the suspected witches to death.
A package arrives addressed to Heidi from a band named “The Lords of Salem”, and one night during her shift, the trio plays a strange instrumental from a mysterious band. After hearing the song, Heidi becomes haunted by demonic visions in her dreams and day-time hallucinations involving satanic nuns and priests.
Her only refuge from the chaos is holing up in her apartment which (no pun intended) just so happens to be run by three elderly spinster sisters. Strange things begin to happen around the joint and a late-night palm reading while the gals are enjoying a few glasses of wine shows the Golden Girls may not have the best intentions for Heidi’s fate. Other things are introduced in this time, a goofy metal singer and a wax museum owner who is fascinated with a book written about the witch trials, but Heidi is the main point of focus.
While the opening act was tolerable, the next two installments were a total shit show. As Heidi descends into madness and confusion at the hands of the elderly coven, Zombie attempts to link what is going in the present day to a curse put on by one of the dying witches during the infamous trials. To his credit, the visuals work at the beginning, but cut shots and sophomore level suspense builders (lighting tricks, now you see, now you don’t reveals) all fall flat.
The final act is a mash up of the nonsensical as Zombie goes the Rosemary’s Baby route to work up to the reveal that Hawthorne is carrying the spawn of Satan…or perhaps Satan himself, and this is where things break out into downright comedy. Where Zombie has proven to be lights out with gore and effects in the past, his demonic Satan toddler comes off with the ferocity of the baby from the 90’s sitcom Dinosaurs.
The movie is trying to build up to a climax with a montage ripped out of a Marilyn Manson video, and when the credits roll, rather than taking a breath the way you might have after The Devil’s Rejects, with Salem, you will simply be happy it is over.
Adding insult to injury, a newsroom voice over comes in during the credits trying to explain the pile of bodies lumped up at the end, but it is just more of the useless.
My official rating for The Lords of Salem is: “Oh shit that was awful”, and here are a few more thoughts.
I’ve always been a fan of how Zombie presents a story in every medium he’s worked in. I’ve particularly dug the way he splices in bits of old monster movie mash ups and works unique angles to set the tension and mood. That being said, with his latest endeavor, nothing works. Furthermore, I believe it failed to work because Zombie never had a grasp on what he was trying to accomplish. The opening 30 minutes prove the story and movie have potential, but rather than sticking with the creepiness of the Salem setting, Zombie attempted to plunge into the macabre and came nowhere near the strike zone.
An artist is judged by his entire body of work and based on some of the great things he’s done in the past, Zombie’s effort in T.L.O.S. cannot be excused by saying his incapable. The exact opposite is true and while the opportunity was sparse, there was opportunity to make the movie into a watchable film.
Wrapping up my take on the movie, I wanted to share a few thoughts on the performance put on by Sheri Moon-Zombie. While some critics crack on the Hellbilly Deluxe musician for constantly cramming his wife into roles in his films, I am actually a fan of her talents. While her range is certainly limited, she has a grasp on crazy and pulls off borderline psychosis at Juliette Lewis levels. Now, I know that is a hefty compliment, and let me be clear that I’m not giving Moon-Zombie Natural Born Killer Lewis credit, but she certainly has that Kalifornia vibe to her.
She’s easy to look at on screen and while she may not have a Batman utility belt filled with acting tools, she has a genuine nature which translates onto the screen. In T.L.O.S. the viewer is supposed to feel sympathy and compassion for a flawed character (strangely enough being a white girl with dreads isn’t her worst plight in the film) but the lack of delivery in the story prevents the viewer from feeling anything for her.
Personally, I was more interested in the spinster trio of tea-sipping, man-bashing (literally) witches, but there wasn’t enough of a pulse anywhere in the movie to put too much care in any one direction.
With Halloween coming up, this is a movie you will think you want to watch, but after reading this, I hope I’ve at least saved a few souls from the misfortune.
