This is a film that will divide critics, casual film-goers, fans, haters - pretty much any audience you could imagine. Zombie isn't redoing his particular brand of immature schlock cinema (as he'd done with the likes of House of 1000 Corpses and his first Halloween remake)... he's not even redoing his more ambitious, though obsessively violent schlock cinema (a la Halloween II and The Devil's Rejects)... No, with The Lords of Salem I think we have Zombie at his most personal, if that makes sense. The main character is a woman, but this is the first time you can really see all the things he's been writing about in his movies and songs - demons, possessions, psychopaths, killers, generally anything perverse and unholy - coalesce into one astounding whole.
I've always enjoyed Zombie's output, but only to a point. Even with The Devil's Rejects - by all accounts, a pretty great movie, and one of my favorites of the last ten years - there was always some particular scene or touch that got in the way. Something that could have been taken out, or edited differently to better effect... With The Lords of Salem, this just isn't true. It's not perfect, but it's nevertheless extraordinary.
The Lords of Salem (dir. Rob Zombie) - 4/5
But we've seen movies like that before... In fact, within the horror genre - indeed within just about every genre - you could list tons of movies about madness and the devil and the war between dark and light.
This is where Zombie comes in and shines. It's his little touches that make the film extraordinary.
When I mentioned Rosemary's Baby and The Shining, I wasn't just talking about plot and/or stylistic elements (the idea of birthing the devil, numerous photographic references), but the also the tone and the pace. This I think is the most maddening thing for the modern film-goer: Rob Zombie takes his time. The film is about 100 minutes, and it's a slow 100 minutes. But it's his deliberateness - his refusal to ramp up the pace and indulge in modern-day cliches - that sets his film apart. That and the absolutely unrelenting, permeating sense of darkness and dread. There truly is something evil going on here; and while it may not be startling or "scary," it is nevertheless horrifying. Oh, and there's the fact that this is an incredibly calm horror movie. Witches are burned at the stake, yes, and there's one murder, but even then the film is more obsessed with what's not shown - with the disturbed and deranged experiences and psychologies of its characters - than just the physical things that happen.
This is the story of Heidi Hawthorne, a former drug user and current DJ, who has been chosen. She is the lucky recipient of a new record - yes, actual record - from a group simply referred to as "The Lords." She listens to it dreamily, at work and at home, and while she doesn't like it, she is inexorably drawn to it. There's something about the recording that gets under her skin - that sinks in further than music should.
Constantly, Heidi isolates herself... She lives alone. She seems to have no friends. Only interacts with co-workers and her landlady... She goes to support group meetings for her former drug addiction, but even there she doesn't speak. She doesn't interact. Only listens and nods politely. Who is she? ... Who is she, really?
When Heidi meets a palm-reader near the middle of the film, she makes the offhand comment that she'd like to have her palm read to help find out who she is, but she always thought palm-readers were a scam... Think through that... She wants to find and fulfill her identity, but she casually rejects those who try to help her do just that. Is this some kind of defense, or is she putting up a front? Is she just kind of naive? And what of her dearest "friend," a fellow DJ who clearly has a crush on her and whom she clearly has fond feelings for... Will their relationship ever be consummated? Does she want it to be? And what of that door at the end of the hall?
Intriguing questions abound throughout The Lords of Salem, and it's a film so psychologically rich and unusual it almost requires multiple viewings... Seriously. This isn't something to just watch for fun because you like the action or suspense, or you're kind of a horror junkie - there's a lot going on here, and the film is so mired in occult (and blatant) sexuality and sexual and religious theory, that it deserves more a treatise than a critical review. Even without the bizarre-o-sexual dream sequences (sure to draw gasps of shock and cries of "WTF" from an audience), Freud would have had a field day with the film's subtext. Fans of Zombie will recognize his fondness for Jung from Halloween II, but this time he really delves into Jung's more complicated ideas of persona and individuation - and their consequences - rather than simply quoting him.
Heidi is constantly having bad dreams... Her life is kind of a bad dream. She's constantly waking up, dozing off, getting up to get water, crawling back to bed... At first, things are innocent enough - she walks her dog, she watches old movies, she listens to Rush - but that damned record... It just keeps playing, calling to her, and it just completely perverts whatever life she had. (Latch onto that word: "perversion" is a big, big theme in The Lords of Salem. Religious perversion, sexual perversion, social perversion.)
And then there's that door, and her landlady's sudden sisters, and the darkness on the other side.
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