As Senhoras de Salem

Rob Zombie has made another movie, and its not as great as his previous works of art. The Lords of Salem is completely different from his other films, but it is still done pretty well. When you watch this you feel like you went back in time to the 1970s. It is a weird, art horror flick that shows graphic images and scenes of all different sorts! I guess I recommend this dark film, especially if you can handle controversy, satanism, and nudity. The jist of this movie is about a radio DJ (Sheri Moon) that receives a record from a group called "The Lords", and when the song plays, she gets gruesome visions of witches and witch torture that took place plenty of years ago. Thats pretty much all you can say because this movie is so hard to summarize. When its over you think to yourself, "what the f**k just happened." Lords of Salem takes you on a crazy journey that you'll remember for a while. One thing that got me a little upset was how Sid Haig's scenes got cut from the movie. However, Zombie has a great cast of the past including Meg Foster, Judy Geeson, Dee Wallace, and Patricia Quinn. Rob Zombie has disappointed me a little with this film. But still, it's not bad, worth a try I guess. and I give this film a strong 6/10.

When it was first announced that Rob Zombie was working on another movie, I was thrilled, as I had thoroughly enjoyed his previous movies, and as I am also a big fan of his music. And it was with great expectation that I followed the bits and pieces of information leaked/released about the movie up until it was finally released.

And now having seen it, I sit here with my expectations and hopes totally shattered. The movie was mostly an odd mixture of bits and pieces of incoherent imagery that had the usual Rob Zombie trademark touch to it, yes, but in overall the story got lost along the way in the imagery. And as such, the movie was a rather dull experience.

Storywise, then it wasn't particularly captivating or innovating. The story is about Heidi Hawthorne (played by Sheri Moon Zombie) who receives a strange record at the radio station where she works together with Herman 'Whitey' Salvador (played by Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Herman Jackson (played by Ken Foree). The haunting tune on the record opens up to the dark and sinister past of the witching era of Salem, unleashing power that were better left in the past.

Out of the entire cast, then I think it was actually Bruce Davison (playing Francis Matthias) who did the best job, and made the most memorable impact with his acting. The rest of the cast did good enough jobs, but it just didn't fully shine through.

Don't get your hopes up too high, unless you are into weird imagery that doesn't necessarily need to have a solid supporting story to be interesting. But, personally, I wasn't entertained by this movie, and I actually had my smartphone out at a point and was playing Jewels Star.

I suppose everyone throws a swing and a miss every now and then, and for me, then this was one such instances from Rob Zombie.

Before I begin my review, I should probably start by saying that I'm actually quite a big fan of Rob Zombie the musician (including White Zombie), and I also liked his first two movies (House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects) very much - and I hated the first Halloween-remake so much, that I didn't even want to see the second one he directed, which allegedly should be even worse.

So, with that in mind, here's my review: The film is about a young, trendy rock-radio DJ, Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie), who suddenly finds herself in the middle of an occult Satan-worshiping witchcraft scheme, because her ancestors did something bad 400 years ago or something.. She's sent an old, crusty LP, which she (of course) plays on the radio, even though it's just a bunch of creepy, monotonous notes, played over and over again, giving all the local women in the town zombie-like headaches.

Now, this isn't just all there is to the story, but it just as well might have been, as the plot doesn't really seem to develop much from that point on. The movie is all about setting a mood, showing creepy images, and basically just making the viewers generally uncomfortable - which it actually succeeds doing. I felt bad watching this, but strangely attracted to it at the same time.

The cast is pretty good actually, with Jeff Daniel Phillips and Ken Foree as the other two radio-hosts, and Bruce Davison as the historian who tries to get to the bottom of this whole witch-thing going on. The problem is just, that the movie doesn't really go anywhere with it's plot, and it's not really a slasher-movie or exorcism-movie, which you could expect. It's purely about making you feel miserable, and that's not (always) a good thing.

Oh, by the way... if you're expecting to see a lot of Sid Haig and Michael Berryman, think again, as they've only got small non-talking, not-interesting cameos. Meg Foster is pretty good as the witch-"queen", though.

I'm not exactly a Rob Zombie fan, but the three films I've seen from him (Halloween remake, House of 1000 Corpses, and Devil's Rejects) still have something in them that makes them memorable and not totally unworthy. I had no idea what Lords of Salem would be about but I expected the usual "Rob Zombie overload".

Much to my surprise, the film starts off pretty effectively. Although the annoying "loud sound" cliché is used here whenever there's something spooky in the background (HINT filmmakers- stop putting a loud noise over a great scare moment in an atmosphere such as this. It just ruins it) there was enough great build-up of atmosphere and the story was evolving nicely, not to mention many of the visual imagery really got under my skin. However, as I probably should have expected, Zombie's just not that smart of a film-maker to create a film like this. There's a really great version of this story to be told somewhere, but Zombie, as usual, over-indulges and just keeps on assaulting our senses starting in the second half that by the time the third act starts, I was honestly bored out of my mind and just rolling my eyes at all of the "visuals". The film just starts off great and burns out the more it goes on, and by the end it ultimately just leaves a very bad taste in your mouth and the second half just basically erases everything the first half build so cautiously to create. It feels pointless and redundant.

I've never disliked Moon Zombie, but her acting range has always seem limited. Here though, she's pretty impressive and I actually think Zombie did her a disservice. He should have just given a basic summary of this storyline to more talented filmmakers to write and direct it. Because it's definitely ambitious and definitely something that could have been truly amazing, that's what makes this film his most disappointing. I never expected anything unformulaic out of his other films, but because this started off with such potential and by the end I had to force myself not to fall asleep, it's just disheartening. A Rob Zombie film that is self-indulgent and stupid? Expected. But a boring one? Now that's a new low.

So nice to own every film directed by Rob Zombie, I'm a huge fan of his! A very odd witch film with a peculiar demonic vibe and sounds that are twisted. I love this film for what it is, I appreciate how different it is; I know others don't which is unfortunate. I have ASD/Autism I oddly love all of Rob's movies, I hope he does more work in any form!