Rock musician-turned-director Rob Zombie’s films have been mostly grungy drive-in fare, including “House of 1000 Corpses” and its superior sequel, “The Devil’s Rejects.” With his latest film, “The Lords of Salem,” he decided to make a more visually striking film that assaults the senses. He’s made it totally on his own terms, and the result is a completely bonkers head trip of a film (that’s high praise).
Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, plays Heidi, a radio DJ who lives in Salem, Mass. She has waist-length white dreadlocks, a hippie wardrobe and outrageously large and puffy fur coats. The fact that her appearance is relatively normal when compared to many aspects of the film is a testament to its nuttiness. She lives in an apartment building that has an ominous hallway with an empty apartment at the end. An older woman (Judy Geeson) who runs the building starts stirring up trouble when she gets a visit from her two sisters, played by Dee Wallace and Patricia Quinn.
Early in the film, Heidi receives a mysterious wooden box at the station which contains a record with “The Lords” written on it. She plays the record, and it triggers something inside of her. It is debatable whether the visions she has throughout the film are real or imagined. She has had drug problems in the past, and the recording pushes her back into a similarly dark place.
When a local author (Bruce Davison) comes into the radio station to promote his new book on the Salem Witch Trials and hears the recording, he starts digging into history again and unveils information that connects Heidi to the town’s infamous past. The film shows scenes of 1600s Salem, which features all manner of disturbing debauchery by a coven of witches, led by an androgynous Meg Foster.
While Zombie’s previous films have had a gritty “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” visual style, “Lords” has a very detailed and designed look. With so many found-footage films and sepia-tone horror remakes today (I’m talking to you, “Evil Dead”), it is a relief to see a film so refreshingly old school.
The film has a deliberate pace that doesn’t rely on fast cutting and cheap scares. It wasn’t made to be watched on an iPad either. To truly experience the film, one must see it on the big screen.
Zombie has said that while making this film, he drew inspiration from the work of directors such as Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, Ken Russell and Alejandro Jodorowsky. The film definitely owes a debt to Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” since it deals with demonic pregnancy and a female lead who lives in an apartment building with seemingly-pleasant elderly neighbors. The set design and camera work have a very Kubrickian look and feel. Not surprisingly, the film most closely resembles Kubrick’s only horror film, “The Shining.”
The meticulously designed and symmetrical shots, the claustrophobic dread and operatic grandness of that film come across in “Lords,” filtered through Zombie’s own sensibilities.
All of Zombie’s films include, not surprisingly, strong scores and music selections. The music is not just heard in the film, it is felt, viscerally.
He is also very well-versed in film. There are huge images from Georges Méliès’s film “A Trip to the Moon” on Heidi’s wall, and the silent version of “The Phantom of the Opera” starring Lon Chaney Sr., is on a television in one scene.
His love of film is also evident in his casting. Many of the supporting roles are played by actors from horror and sci-fi films. One of the other radio DJs is played by Ken Foree, best known for his lead role in the original “Dawn of the Dead.” Dee Wallace has been in “The Howling,” “Cujo” and “E.T.,” and Patricia Quinn is best known for playing Magenta in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Does the film make logical, narrative sense? Are all of the events and images from the film explained? Probably not. If you give yourself over to the film and go along with it, you’ll have a trippy, wild ride. Zombie has made one of the better, and certainly most memorable, horror films of the last few years.