Lords Of Salem | 2013 | Rob Zombie | Anchor Bay Films | April 19, 2013
There’s a remarkable line spoken in Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects (2005) by its psychopathic main character Otis. Standing above a dying, terrified man and mocking his feeble prayers, Otis swipes his matted white hair out of his face and proclaims “I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil’s work.”
The utterance could just as easily double as Rob Zombie’s watchword, as he has done the devil’s work as both a musician and a filmmaker. Zombie represents not pure evil, but rather the madcap, outlandish mischief of the devil you recognize from kid’s cartoons and hot sauce bottles. This approach worked surprisingly well in both the technicolor dungeon of pain that was House of 1000 Corpses (2002) and it’s bone-dry, Manson-soaked sequel The Devil’s Rejects. Unfortunately, his first original theatrical effort in eight years trades in parody and pastiche for a more expressive and surreal tone which simply can’t keep up the fun.
Lords of Salem is not a bad film, and I expect it to age well with the inevitable release of an uncut version which could expand on its more obtuse points, yet it is not something I think most audiences will find entertaining. The story is catalyzed by the arrival of a mysterious box at a radio station in Salem, Massachusetts. The package contains a record by a local band called The Lords. When the DJs decide to play the record on air, the resulting broadcast sounds like a cross between a funeral dirge and the intro to an old Butthole Surfers album. It consequently puts every female listener in a mysterious trance which gracefully ushers in a great and powerful evil.
Heidi Hawthorne, (a DJ and our main character) is played by Rob Zombie’s wife Sheri Moon Zombie, for whom the director apparently has an infinite number of roles written for. We meet her during the opening shot, in which she nods out behind the wheel as her consciousness is punctuated by the black and white void of the opening credits. Intelligently framed and edited scenes like this one are in good supply throughout the film, lending itself to a cerebral and macabre atmosphere which serves to build the story.
A keen eye will notice plenty of visual allusions to classic filmmakers and heady horror films. In addition to the cameos by exploitation and horror veterans Sid Haig and Ken Foree, there are nods to the satanic neighbors from Rosemary’s Baby (1968), frightfully deformed characters as in Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre (1989), and the psychological torment of Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf (1968). There’s even a visual similarity between Heidi’s bedroom and the inter-dimensional dwelling from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the former even being decorated with a large print from Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902).
Eventually the gimmick wore off and I was faced with a movie that really lacked a strong story or enough suspense to sustain its intended slow burn intrigue. Lords of Salem differs from Zombie’s previous work mostly in that it abandons the gonzo absurdity in favor of a more unnerving and surrealistic tone. It was a mature move for Zombie’s career, but unfortunately it comes at the expense of excluding what was good about his films in the first place. There are attempts at fleshing out plot points, such as Heidi’s drug addiction and the relationship between her and a coworker, but it all just fizzles in the wake of the supernatural events later in the film.
However fun it was to play I Spy with Lords of Salem’s feats of mise en scene, the experience still felt a bit artificial and patronizing. I was reminded of the recent Evil Dead remake, which crammed so many sly references to the original film while remaining so stylistically different from it that the whole thing felt like the audience was being stroked and manipulated. And although I was glad to at least see an original horror story brought to the screen in Lords of Salem, I found myself dwelling on a question I heard a fellow audience member asking his friend on the way out: “Was that really worth it?”
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