Review of The Lords of Salem (2013) by Jason F — 26 Apr 2013

If someone were to come up to me and complain about how much they HATED The Lords of Salem, I probably wouldn't argue with them. That's one of the funny things about Rob Zombie. He doesn't make movies that people will unanimously praise, he makes movies for him and his wonderfully twisted fanbase only. If you didn't "get it" before, you won't "get it" now. And even those who "got it" during the last few ventures will still finish the movie confused and nauseated. But Zombie clearly doesn't care about you, and he doesn't have to either.

Now I'm not saying that The Lords of Salem is some kind of masterpiece, because it's not. The film has some truly boring characters, something that Zombie used to be very good at avoiding, and certain bits of immaturity that sully certain sections of the film. However, the film is very good at creeping out, hypnotizing and sickening it's audience. The influence of earlier filmmakers, especially Kubrick, is blatant, but still very effective. There's great technical film-making going on here, with some great music and jaw-dropping cinematography to heighten the hypnotic nature of the film. And Sheri Moon Zombie FINALLY gives us something subtle. Wow... That's new!

I think Lords is Zombie's best film by far. There's gonna be a lot of backlash to prove me wrong, but I was really impressed with what I saw. I feel like, somewhere inside of him, Rob Zombie has a cinematic masterpiece. This film is showing us echoes of that.

Oh and Halloween 2 still sucks... Yeah... Sorry.