I picked up a copy of The Lords of Salem a while ago after seeing the
Red Letter Media guys give it a
pretty good review and finally got round to watching it the other night.
I've not seen any of Rob Zombie's other films and, despite the decent review the film got, I kind of half expected, at best, a crappy shlocky horror flick, or, at worst, a jumble of images and visuals with no plot or sense to hold it together. Happily, it was neither! The Lords of Salem was a pretty good film with enough of a plot to keep it going and some of the most stunning visuals I've seen in a film in a long time.
Sheri Moon Zombie (Rob Zombie's wife in real life), plays a tattooed, dreadlocked DJ and recovered meth addict. Not only is she not your typical movie heroin, but the character wears glasses for almost all of the film which, as a recent convert to speccy-pride myself and admirer of all glamourous spectacle-wearing ladies, I was unreasonable happy to see!
I don't want to give much more away, to be honest. The plot is silly, but enough to hold the film together like I say (radio station is sent a mysterious, unmarked record that, when played, has a strange effect on the women of Salem. Flash back to old witch trials of Salem yadda yadda), but it's the weirdly symmetrical visuals that really make the film something special. Especially compared to so many "horror" films these days relying on jump scares rather than haunting images like these. With a comparatively small budget, it's clearly a film made with a lot of care, love and skill.
