Review of The Lords of Salem (2013) by Manny C — 23 Sep 2013

Rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie is now five films into his directorial career and he seems to have gotten a bit tired. Zombie can still compose some stunning imagery, but his latest, Lords of Salem, has no real kick to it.

Lords of Salem is far more interesting than his Halloween remakes, but lacks any of the thematic, assured punch of 2005's The Devil's Rejects, still his best film. In Lords of Salem, Zombie's wife Sheri Moon, is Heidi, a radio DJ with sass in Salem, Mass.

, not far from where zombie himself grew up. One night Heidi, a recovering drunk, finds a wooden box containing a creepy LP from a band called The Lords, and when she puts it on it literally has sinister hisses and ominous incantations.

With the aid of a local author and expert on witchcraft (Bruce Davison, where's he been) overhears the record while on Heidi's show and becomes suspicious. He starts investigating who the Lords are as spirals into some sort of possession mode.

From that we get a cacophony of Lucifer-invoking images that could have adorned the latest Black Sabbath record. It all looks pretty cool. But the scares aren't there. Imagine what Dario Argento could have done with this.