By Melissa Antoinette Garza
I remember the first time I saw House of 1000 Corpses (2003) in the movie theater. It blew me away and I thought Rob Zombie was going to resurrect horror. The film reminded me of the old 70s and 80s movies that made me fall in love with horror. Of course, it was reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), but it wasn’t just that. The characters were well developed and had sparks of American Gothic (1988) and Race with the Devil (1975). It was just fantastic.
I wasn’t as impressed with The Devil’s Rejects (2005). I saw the similarities to The Last House on the Left (1972) and understood Zombie’s reasoning, but I thought if he wanted to go into such a different direction with the film, he should have made it an entity all its own rather than a sequel.
Next was his Halloween (2007) remake or reimagining, and I thought that was pretty good. I wasn’t nearly as hard on it as most John Carpenter fans and I adore Carpenter. I love little known Carpenter gems like the anthology Body Bags (1993) and his remake of Village of the Damned (1995). Still, I thought that Zombie did a respectable job. It was certainly better than H20 (1998) and Resurrection (2002). I can go my entire life without ever seeing Jamie Lee Curtis beat the hell out of Michael Myers again. The only good part of Halloween Resurrection was how quickly Laurie Strode died. I hate when an almost militant feminist approach is taken unnecessarily in horror. When I learned that Jamie Lee Curtis was behind the idea of Strode’s ridiculous strength, it aggravated me even more. H20 isn’t a horror film it’s a wrestling match and it sucks. It always comes back to the fact that if the victim or potentional victim doesn’t show fear the audience isn’t afraid and when Strode was kicking Myers ass she wasn’t afraid anymore. I always come back to Nancy in the original Nightmare on Elm. Street (1984). Even when she was fighting Freddy, she was scared to death which made perfect sense. She was fighting a monster. In the last 10 minutes she finds a level of strength that is also understandable as she believed that she found Freddy’s weakness. Nancy set traps. It wasn’t a physical fight as Freddy could have killer her, like Myers should have easily taken out Strode. Had Laurie used her brain rather than false brawn in the film, I would have been all for it. I seriously blame critics like Siskel and Ebert who claimed that the horror genre constantly made women into victims ignoring the fact that in reality women are victims of violent crimes far more often than men are. They made it into this huge feminist battle when it should have never been one.
Anyways – off the soap box – Zombie’s Halloween was decent and without having the brilliance of Donald Pleasance, Malcolm McDowell was the perfect choice. He’s always amazing. Even when he’s in a horrible film, he shines. Speaking of a horrible film – then there was Zombie’s Halloween II (2009). How he could have made something worse than H20 is beyond me. There are rumors that he didn’t want to make this movie and did so just for the money, much like Wes Craven did with The Hills Have Eyes II (1984), but I don’t excuse either of them. If those rumors are true, and Craven has even been quoted as saying such, it’s a jerk move. If you are being paid to do something – do it right. If you know that you are artistically unable to give an audience something worth watching, then keep the respect of your fans, and walk away from the payday.
So here we are with Lords of Salem (2012) which brings out both the best and worst of Zombie’s abilities. First, it’s filmed really well. There are several really cool shots in the movie. It’s a pretty film.
Second, he pays homage to a lot of the classics. The problem is that any one of those classics is so much better than this film. The plot below is going to include spoilers because it’s really the only way I can properly analyze the film, so I apologize in advance.
Our protagonist, Heidi Hawthorne (Sheri Moon Zombie) is a former drug addict turned deejay in Salem MA. She obtains a record in a wooden box from a group known only as the Lords. No one has ever heard of them before. One of her cohosts, Herman (Ken Foree), guesses that they are local and coins the term The Lords of Salem.
The music played ends up being a subliminal calling to the descendants of the witches. Suddenly, Heidi begins to see strange images. She gets confused and turns to drugs.
Her landlord and two other women (including the absolutely ravishing Patricia Quinn) are in on this cult and lead Heidi in to this large room where a baby who looks a little like Buddha (no offense to Buddhists – it’s just what I thought of when I looked at it) and has an umbilical cord coming at her.
She sort of accepts her position while all the other women who were descendants end up giving themselves as a sacrifice. Heidi then gives birth to what I assume is Satan’s baby though it just looks like a deformed octopus. She then stands above them dressed as some sort of satanic Virgin Mary.
That’s the movie in a nutshell. It’s just empty. There’s a plot but it’s just like the A,B,Cs of old-school horror. The worst callback was to Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). Over and over again, it shot images of the long hallway in the apartment Heidi was in, and it was just a ripoff of Kubrick’s style. I think it was intentional and meant to be an homage, which is fine; but then do it once or twice, not twenty times.
There were also elements of other great movies meshed together that though similar in plot never should have been merged. Everything from Rosemary’s Baby (1968) to Messiah of Evil (1973) to Witchcraft (1963) seemed to be copied in certain ways. It was almost as though scenes from these films were just inputted.
Even at the end as Heidi is in a theater and all of the individuals are sitting, the scene is an attempt at creepiness but rather just made me remember how great Messiah of Evil is and I wanted to watch that instead.
All of that said, I will say the acting is good. I really do like Sheri Moon Zombie because I think she’s genuine. Without naming names, there are some women that rip off the work of others and try to enter the horror community, without knowing the first thing about horror. They give the real women in horror a bad name. Zombie isn’t like that. She is as real as they come. She is as authentic as they come and her acting has improved quite a bit since Halloween.
The supporting cast also did a great job. Everyone seemed to be cast very well and it appeared that each one understood their role, but it was the lack of depth in the plot that made these characters get lost in the mix and become immaterial to all that was going on.
I know that there was a lot cut out of the film, so I wonder if there is a longer cut that delves more into the background of the witches which would help differentiate from all the films it seems to borrow from.
I don’t mind homages to old movies. I enjoy them. Even in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) when one of the characters yelled “you damn dirty ape” I cheered as my husband cringed. I’m a nostalgic girl who loves films that do things like that. That said, when it’s just a series of horror images and scenes that are basically reenactments of scenes from other movies without any real plot behind it, we end up with horrible parody movies like Scary Movie (2013) moving into the horror genre. We need more than horror skits, the horror community desires an intricate story that creates tension and apprehension in the viewing.
I think it was Zombie’s intention to make something effective like James Wan’s recent hit The Conjuring (2013) but he failed. The sad thing is I really do think Zombie is a capable director and has the potential of being a great writer. He just needs to stop being horror’s answer to the slightly more original Quentin Tarantino. He also needs to understand that horror imagery doesn’t scare or invoke fear in the audience without context or a story built around it. Seeing an old witch in the corner of the room doesn’t really frighten unless we’ve seen some damage that she’s done or have some sort of understanding as what she intends to do to the main character. Though it’s easily guessed it’s not shown, and this is a movie. I can tell you that “there’s a witch and she’s scary and she’s going to ruin this nice girl’s life” and that wouldn’t frighten a three year old. That’s basically what this film does. Nothing is truly explained and it more-so depends on the audience going along with what isn’t said which is fine. Any horror fan can deduct what is going to occur but without seeing it, there’s no emotion or feeling from the viewer.
Zombie really needs to find his own voice and a level of originality that when the viewers watch the movie it’s as though they are watching something they’ve never seen before. Maybe for younger audiences who haven’t seen the above mentioned movies, they wouldn’t feel the same way and they would think it was original, but true horror fans know what they’re watching.
It was still great to see Patricia Quinn. I adore her. I love Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and her portrayal of Magenta goes in the history books as one of the greatest performances of all time. I’ve seen RHPS live over a hundred times and though I’ve seen some great actresses, I’ve never seen anyone come close to the caliber of her portrayal. I also adored her as Dr. McKinley in the Shock Treatment (1981) which was basically a sequel to RHPS though not recognized as much as it should be.
Overall, for RHPS fans, I’d suggest renting it through Redbox and just fast-forward to watch her. It would be far more enjoyable than sitting through the whole film.
Scared Stiff Rating: 4/10
