The Lords of Salem

I'm extremely disappointed to be inducting this movie into my DVD Hall of Shame category.  The latest film conceived and directed by Rob Zombie, it had all the potential to be a 70s throwback horror chiller and something a bit different.  But something went very wrong and I blame the scripting department!

Lords of Salem is, obviously, set in Salem where the witch trials happened centuries earlier.  It is the modern day and Heidi (played by the always gorgeous Sherri Moon Zombie, although in this she looks a lot older than in previous films) is a single woman who DJs at a rock radio station with her two friends both named Herman.  Heidi seems like a cool chick (Rob Zombie's usual eye for cool props and bizarre imagery smashed together is fully intact here). But after seeing some weird things going on in the apartment just up the hall from hers, Heidi then receives a package with a record from a band called "The Lords".  Upon playing the record, it has a weird effect on Heidi and other women in the town who go into a bit of trance and seem to see flashbacks of a coven of witches trying to summon forth the devil at the birth of a fellow witch's baby.  Does Heidi, a recovering drug addict, tell her friends or anyone or try to do anything about these weird events?  No.  She just tries to go on with life, staring sadly around or crying.  Events escalate as The Lords become a hit band and arrange a concert in Salem.  Heidi just slides deeper into sadness.  Her friend eventually tries to help her but his attempt is pretty pathetic as by now Heidi is already under some kind of spell that seems to have something to do with her suspect landlady and her two mates.

An initial sense of creeping dread soon turns into boredom, which converts into total "what the hell?" confusion as things get quite weird but still pretty boring.  Are long slow shots of hallways deemed scary?  They're not, but they're about the scariest thing about this alleged horror film.  All the scenes of the witches coven in the past go for way too long.  The character of Francis Matthias (Bruce Davison) who is an author specialising in Salem history and who does really try to help Heidi, is really just a lazy plot device to attempt to make it seem like there is a storyline here.  There isn't.   The only plus sides would be the music (chilling beauty from John 5ive and presumably Mr Zombie) and, according to my man, Sherri Moon's bare backside in several scenes of her sleeping.

The film just has no point and nothing to say that I could work out.  The ending is trying to be a cool twist but is really a total disappointment.  I can't even figure out whether the explanation for it was that she was possessed, cursed, weak-minded, on drugs or hallucinating.  Just a total waste of 90 minutes.  Oh and depressing too - I just felt like crap afterwards.  Hopefully the guy who has brought us a lot of cool movies before (House of 1000 Corpses, Devil's Rejects, Halloween remake) can bounce back from this pile of rubbish.  If anyone disagrees and/or has any theories on what this was trying to say, please do share.