Sunday 13 October 2013

Representing the USA: The Lords of Salem (2012)

From http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1-lords-of-salem.jpg

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.

From http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/2-the-lords-of-salem-060712.jpeg

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.

From http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/4-the-lords-of-salem-060712.jpeg

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.

From http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/6-lords-of-salem.jpg

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.

From http://www.zekefilm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/16-the-lords-of-salem.jpg

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