The Lords of Salem

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.