Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem: What the Hell did I just watch?

It's finally October and I've been more than ready to sink my teeth( or fangs) into the macabre, the eerie, and all the stuff that's downright spooky. The horror business.

I recently rented Rob Zombie's latest film, The Lords of Salem, I'm a big fan of Zombie and whether it be new music or a new film, I'm bound to check it out. All of Zombie's previous films: House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, Halloween, and Halloween 2, have been violent slashers and I welcomed the change of genre to the Satanic panic that is The Lords of Salem.

The story revolves around Heidi Leroc, a recovering drug addict and local dj for Salem, Massachusetts. Leroc is played by Zombie regular, his scream queen of a wife, Sheri Moon Zombie. Heidi is part of the "Odd Squad" with fellow djs Whitey and Herman, played by Jeff Daniel Philips, best known for being one of the Geico cavemen, and horror legend Ken Foree, who doesn't get a lot of screen time and this bummed me out a little; I would of liked more time devoted to Heidi's job and her interactions at the radio station.

Zombie is great at writing the everyday small talk and conversations that people have, which I feel is missing from Lords. Imagery and vision play the biggest role in this movie, it's a Satanic art house picture, like David Lynch dropping acid and quoting Anton Lavey.

The film doesn't jump into gear until our Sheri baby, Heidi, receives an unknown record from "The Lords", and doing the only logical thing a dj can do, she plays it on air one night. Thanks to cult researcher and Salem Witch trial authority, Francis Matthias, played by Bruce Davison, we find out that Heidi is a Hawthorne descendant and the Lords of Salem were a coven of witches who were killed by a Reverend Hawthorne, but not before they could curse the women of Salem and Hawthorne's descendants.

Heidi's mental state starts to deteriorate after listening to the creepy record, couple that with her creepy landlord and the landlord's two suspicious sisters, and the film's weird, but arty imagery of everything Satanic starts to run wild.

This wouldn't be a Zombie film without at least one shot of Mrs. Zombie's backside, which we get to see more than once.

The witches three have plans for Heidi- to give birth to the devil's child, which could be this little guy.

Yeah, did I mention this film has a lot of creepy imagery? 

I won't spoil the film, but I was a little let down by the ending, it was a moment that the whole movie built up to, that one grand scene that every horror movie should end on; Lords ended on a whimper,not a bang. 

Heidi's story was a sad one, the "sins" of her fathers wrecked her life and put her in the center of something no one should want. This movie is a horror tragedy, doesn't have a lot of substance to it, but is filled with flair and an eerie artistic atmosphere; Zombie had full creative control with  Lords and it shows.

I enjoyed it and plan on buying it in the near future.

Thanks for reading

- N.R. Perez