Lords of Salem: Fun If You Aren’t Expecting Much

With a name like “Zombie” there comes a certain expectation. Even for those of us who aren’t horror fanatics, we’ve heard of Rob and his affinity for all things terrifying. The Devil’s Rejects and House of 1000 corpses deliver a dose of gore and screams. So when he comes back to the scene with a new film, we’re all expecting just that.

When the film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival last month, it was one of the hot films on the line up. People were stumbling off 6^th street to see it before midnight; the perfect nightcap. Let’s just say I braced myself to take a cab instead of walking the two miles home. I get spooked. But The Lords of Salem isn’t that scary. In fact, it’s actually disappointingly conservative.

The premise is admittedly enticing: Salem witches. But Zombie sets the main story in the present day. We meet Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) who lives alone and works as a radio station DJ with two other dudes, Herman (Ken Foree) and Herman Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips). Both Hermans seem to be her only friends, the latter of which wishes for a more romantic relationship. But Heidi keeps to herself.

The film opens with some sort of sacrificial ceremony amongst the witches of Salem, so we’re pretty sure they tie into Heidi’s life in some way. When she receives a mysterious LP to play at the station from a band dubbed The Lords, the music entrances her. It’s a simple tune, perhaps the eeriest part of the film in general, and quickly puts her under a spell. She descends into the witches’ musical hypnosis, having strange dreams and becoming more and more mentally and physically deranged. She can’t tell if she’s becoming her own enemy or if something else possesses her. From there, the story unwinds in the way we expect. Will our heroine give into the demonic calling of the Salem witches or will her inner strength defeat the curse?

The film plays out more like a drama than a horror film. There’s plenty of exposition where normally horror films give us only a few fun loving scenes before flipping the switch. But Zombie progresses the terror slowly. It allows us to feel slightly more connected to Heidi than we normally would our female protagonist, who in all classic horror films, we usually just want to see whacked or stabbed to death. It is too bad Sheri’s performance is lacking. It makes perfect sense for Zombie to choose his wife as his muse, but the emotional acting requirements aren’t fully fleshed out. When she cries on the toilet, we’re more interested in the wallpaper than her psychological distress.

It is clear Zombie is tapping into a whole new genre in his work. When he introduced the film as the festival he acknowledged that people would love or hate it and frankly, he didn’t give a damn. That’s always rang true with his endeavors, and kept them from tipping into the abyss of commercial-horror-films. He’s really not aiming to please anyone but himself and his own journey as a filmmaker. But Zombie’s attempt to try something new makes the film suffer. It’s a work in progress and some of the best moments, including the image of Heidi on the posters, are purely reminiscent of his past power with imagery.

Even though Zombie’s been on the scene for years, he’s primarily been a music guy working on countless famous soundtracks like The Matrix. It’s no surprise that the music in The Lords of Salem is one of the richest elements. Griffin Boice and John 5’s soundtrack grounds the film stylistically with in an ancient, warped score that oozes into reality with tunes like Venus in Furs.

The Lords of Salem resembles European Horror films more than a shocking thriller like Halloween. It doesn’t provide but one or two opportunities to jump out of your seat. Only once did I actually scream and then laugh…I think I was just mostly laughing. In particular there’s a scene with a midget (but let’s not give away the best part). Perhaps if audiences enter the theater knowing they won’t get a needle full of adrenaline and good bloody fun shot into their system, they may enjoy Zombie’s latest. But no matter what film, it’s never fun to expect the end before you even get to the middle.