Dir. Rob Zombie
With
Halloween II (2009),
Rob Zombie
got interesting as a director. It was, reflecting back on it since covering
within the first months of this year, a frustrating film but this was where the
meatiest, fascinating pieces were, the parts that made the film more rewarding
than straight forward horror movies praised by those who trashed
Zombie's film. At this point,
Zombie intends to make
The Lords of Salem his last horror film
for at least a while, which could expand his directing skills but could affect
whether his work is just as interesting from beyond now.
The Lords of Salem admittedly is more frustrating, out of his work
this time, but that doesn't mean virtues aren't there.
The problems with this film
really surround the fact that the stereotypical Satanism and evil witches being
drawn from cinematic history are not that interesting in this film's context.
Considering how the symbolism in Halloween
II was in no way as interesting as having the gall of making Laurie Strode,
once played by Jamie Lee Curtis, an
incredibly damaged character, the really interesting aspects of two-thirds of
this film is the incredibly casual nature of it all. Set in Salem, a radio DJ Heidi
Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) finds
herself, along with her co-hosts, with a recording from an unknown band from
the town called The Lords which, from the moment it is first played to her, throws
her into a slowly distorting world linking back to a mass witch burning that
took place there and connects to her. The film for most of it scraps pass fully
with an ominous mood more engaging than other movies. It's not really a
"horror film" in the traditional or perceived sense of it as in
recent times. Jump scares linger far too long, showing too much, but it feels
purposeful, as much the eliciting of a jump from the viewer but far more creepy
in how, say, a living corpse waits impatiently in the corner of a kitchen wall
for when the evil curses of the town eventually get the control back. It says a
lot about the film that the cursed song that sets it all off is a languid,
ambient percussion piece, not black metal with lyrics straight from Dimmu Borgir that is almost satirised in
one of the first scenes. You're introducing Captain Obvious to the film by
saying perverse, evil witchcraft and demons will eventually raise hell, and the
first three quarters of it embraces this fact. The references too establish
this and are removed from the usual Texas
Chainsaw Massacre aesthetic Zombie
has used before. Song choices lay more with The
Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs,
slow, dense sensual strings, disturbingly calm. Its referencing silent cinema
and showing black-and-white crime thrillers on the televisions in scenes. The
obsession with long corridors and densely patterned wallpaper is à la The Shining (1980). It sets up a compelling
tone.
The film is far more interesting,
like with Halloween II, when it tries
to be more subtle and goes against the expected horror tropes, the potential to
become something spectacular there as it builds up to the final act. When it starts bringing in a potential romance
between Heidi and fellow DJ Herman 'Whitey' Salvador (Jeff Daniel Phillips), and Heidi's history of drug addiction. The slow pace. The bizarre, tiny demon with
flippers like a penguin in a scene that melds Federico Fellini, Ken Russell,
black metal corpse paint and potential tentacle porn in a strange centrepiece.
The fact that the real villains of the piece have reasons to be as angry as
they are, and are so nonchalant in their behaviour, like villains in a Hammer
movie at their best, that when they bludgeon someone to death, they shrug it
off and fancy another pot of tea afterwards. Then the finale of the film takes
place, when The Lords play a concert, and it sadly becomes a disappointing conclusion
to a movie that needed a good ending to actually work as a whole. The problem
with the choice of material eventually cannot be ignored - the po-faced, black
metal version of Satan is frankly silly. It goes against what the silent
docu-drama Häxan (1922) did, bringing
the reality of witchcraft out and pushing the fantastical further than the per
usual. Considering some of the interpretations of Satan, including one where
his sin was loving God too much and
developing ego and jealousy from it, making the version depicted here, in a
very serious film, this comic book and music video take on it feels out of
place. Its sticking a cartoonish goat devil in a film that could all be a
metaphor, if altered a little, of Heidi's mind falling to pieces, and
psychological and drug effected psychosis. The shift to completely abstract,
heavily edited images is when the film loses its point, what I don't expect as
someone who wishes films did this more often, as it becomes completely
uninteresting and generic in what it actually shows. Undead cardinals
masturbating red, gummy penises is too obvious and feels out of place in a film
that is trying to be subtle rather than a crazed, heavy metal film with a sense
of humour.
As a result of this, it's
difficult to say whether The Lords of
Salem was any good. Unlike Halloween
II which ended very well, The Lords
of Salem unfortunately moves Rob
Zombie closer back to the uninteresting films he made like House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil's Reject (2005). Those films were
about shocking the viewer and music video aesthetics without any sense of
impact to them. Halloween II left you sad, depressed and melancholic with
real emotional weight in it, taking a franchise that got terrible or at least
completely uninteresting when Halloween
III: Season of the Witch (1982) was rejected for safe slasher scares, and
turning it inside out with some power. With The Lords of Salem however, like a lot of films being released this
year in Britain alongside the few great ones, the promise it has is squandered
by the ending, doing everything expected of it without any interest and failing
to live up to the virtues of the rest beforehand. It's still better than most
horror films, but the failure in its end leaves me with a conflicted view of it
that hurts immensely.
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