Review of The Lords of Salem (2013) by Jacob G — 12 Oct 2014

The big problem with The Lords of Salem is it is frustrating to watch Rob Zombie tackle the subjects of Salem and witchcraft (subjects not unfamiliar to cinema, of course, though it's not been mined to death like zombies have), subjects ripe for his visual aesthetic and looney-duck ability to create an insane cast of characters, only to see all of that go by the wayside in favor of cheap horror imagery.

In fact, when you throw in the music connection here, it seems like it would have taken more effort for Zombie to screw this up, yet here we are.

The premise is basically Rosemary's Baby, except with grungy adults instead of prim, high class, perfect-American-dream-representatives. And that could be cool, but as with everything, the devil is in the execution.

Right from the beginning this starts to feel like a shady ride, with a much-too-long ritual scene, marked by being completely stereotypical, ridiculous, overblown, and in-your-face.

These are problems that mark many of the scenes here. They go on too long. They lack subtlety in every way (except how they contribute to the plot of the movie). And they fail to really get into the characters and let them stand out. Zombie seems comfortable allowing the surface level be the person. Sometimes shorthand like that works when the rest of the movie is done really well. Certainly not the case here.

Sadly, the biggest arena in which Zombie earns his stars here is through the music. Several well-placed Velvet Underground songs, not to mention the droning sludgefest that (seems to) jumpstart much of the plot here. ("Seems to" since there's nothing intimately linking anything in this movie.) But even this Zombie bungles since it could have used much, much more of the music. Accentuating music culture (beyond some radio station scenes, which are largely more annoying than anything) would have gone a long way in presenting a more sensible tone for this movie.