The Lords of Salem (film)

The Lords of Salem is a 2012 supernatural horror film written, produced, and directed by Rob Zombie. It stars Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Ken Foree, Patricia Quinn, Dee Wallace, María Conchita Alonso, Judy Geeson, and Meg Foster. The plot focuses on a troubled female disc jockey in Salem, Massachusetts, whose life becomes entangled with a coven of ancient Satan-worshipping women.

The film started shooting on October 17, 2011, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2012. Rob Zombie's novelization of The Lords of Salem was released on March 12, 2013, and the film was given a limited release on April 19, 2013. The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot
In Salem, Massachusetts, Heidi, a recovering drug addict, works as a DJ at a hard rock station with her co-workers Whitey and Munster. She receives a strange wooden box containing an album by a band named The Lords. She and Whitey listen to the record, which is a series of string and woodwind instruments. Heidi has a vision of women who worship Satan ritually birthing a baby, then damning the child.

The next day, Heidi interviews Francis Matthias, who has written a book about the Salem witch trials. The station plays the Lords' record, which causes all of the women in Salem to enter a trance. Heidi's landlady's sister Megan, a palm reader, tells her that she is fated to succumb to her dark sexual desires. Later, Heidi enters the vacant apartment 5 and experiences visions of a demon and a nude witch which commands she "bleed us a king". Heidi wakes up in bed and assumes the events in apartment 5 were a nightmare.

Troubled, she visits a church and falls asleep, dreaming that she is sexually assaulted by the priest. She flees but is faced with a ghostly entity. Meanwhile, Matthias researches the Lords, and discovers some music in a book. He confirms that it is the same music heard on the record and tracks down the author, who tells him that in the 17th century a Rev. Hawthorne accused a coven of Satan worshippers of creating the music to control the women of Salem. As a result, Hawthorne had the women executed, but not before their leader, Margaret Morgan, put a curse on the Salem women and Hawthorne's descendants, calling his bloodline "the vessel by which the devil's child would inherit the earth". Heidi is a descendant of Rev. Hawthorne.

Heidi has more strange visions that disturb her. Distraught, she begins using drugs again. Her landlord Lacy, and her sisters Sonny and Megan take Heidi to apartment 5. Inside, there appears to be a huge opera house with a demon on a throne. He screams and embraces her with tentacle-like appendages.

The next day, Matthias tries to tell Heidi the truth about the Lords and her lineage. Instead, Lacy and her sisters kill him. Heidi hears his murder taking place, but does nothing. At The Lords' concert, Heidi joins Lacy, Sonny, Megan, and the ghosts of Margaret and her coven in a satanic rite. The Lords' music causes the female audience members to strip off their clothing. In the midst of surreal visions, Heidi blissfully gives birth to a strange creature which looks akin to a crawfish, atop the corpses of the naked audience members. The next day, her station reports on a mass suicide at a rock concert, as well as the disappearance of Heidi.

Production
The Lords of Salem is the third film from Haunted Movies, the first two being Insidious and The Bay. After directing the remake of Halloween and its sequel, Rob Zombie stated that he wanted to try something different and original. Also factoring into Zombie's decision was that he was offered complete creative freedom for the project, something that he did not have for either of his Halloween pictures. Zombie had the idea for the movie before starting on the second Halloween movie; however, as he puts it, "it wasn't really like I was working on it. I was like, 'Oh, this would kind of be a cool idea. Like, Salem radio station, blah blah blah, music', and then [I] forgot I even wrote that down." After Jason Blum came to Zombie asking for something "supernatural in nature", Zombie was reminded of the Salem idea. Despite this, Zombie stated that much of the original concept changed significantly, noting that once the project got underway that he "basically started writing it from scratch".

Filming was done quickly, at a rate faster than Zombie was used to for his movies and as a result much of the script was changed to adjust to the abbreviated schedule. Between the film wrapping and editing Zombie embarked on a tour with his band, which he stated "was a great idea on paper, but in execution it's been insanity." The trailer debuted at Zombie's concert on May 11, 2012, at the PNC Bank Arts Center. In an interview, Zombie said that the film would be his cinematically biggest film and described it as "if Ken Russell directed The Shining". Lords became the last film of veteran actor Richard Lynch, who died in 2012 – though, due to Lynch's worsening health and being close to blindness, Rob Zombie could not film his scenes properly and was forced to re-shoot the scenes with Andrew Prine. Later, actor Michael Berryman provided further insight in the problems on set: the opening sequence involved 4 pages of scenes that called for Berryman, Lynch, Haig and Prine (in another role). However, Lynch did not remember his lines, and he was called to read a declaration of judgement out loud, but as Lynch had trouble seeing, that did not work either so the actors were sent home. Rob Zombie was not given another shooting day on location and the situation was further complicated with Lynch's death. Not given the funds to film the sequence, much of it was dropped.

Reception
The film has a 47% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 66 reviews, and an average rating of 5.3/10. The consensus is, "The Lords of Salem has lots of atmospheric portent, but it's unfortunately short on scares." It has a score of 57 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 21 professional critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

The initial response at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival was overall positive, with Fangoria and The Playlist giving the film positive reviews. Horror-Movies.ca compared it favorably to Dario Argento films like Suspiria but felt it would not appeal to mainstream audiences. Twitch Film expressed enthusiasm over the film and recommended it to horror fans. Charlotte Stear of HorrorTalk was slightly cooler, giving it three stars and saying "Within Rob Zombie I do believe is a brilliant, original horror movie just waiting to come out but sadly, The Lords of Salem isn't it." Fearnet also panned the film, criticizing the choice of Sheri Moon as the main character and focus. Bloody Disgusting posted two reviews, one panning it and the other praising it.

Nick Schager from Slant Magazine wrote: "Rob Zombie understands horror as an aural-visual experience that should gnaw at the nerves, seep into the subconscious, and beget unshakeable nightmares." New York Post's V.A. Mussetto praised the film: "Movies by Rob Zombie, the goth rocker turned cult filmmaker, aren't for everybody. But he couldn't care less. He makes movies exactly the way he wants to, with no thought of pleasing mainstream audiences. They can like it or lump it. His latest effort, The Lords of Salem, is true to form." Zombie's fifth feature film received approval from Mark Olsen (Los Angeles Times), who admits The Lords of Salem "is like some queasy-making machine, a chamber piece of possession and madness that exerts a strange, disturbing power." Simon Abrams gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, feeling Rob Zombie "tested his considerable skills and tried something different" in his first film with full creative control and describing Sheri Moon Zombie's performance as her best yet.

Novelization
A novelization of the film, written by Zombie and contributor B. K. Evenson, was released on March 12, 2013. Zombie and Evenson began working on the novelization after Zombie's manager had been approached by Grand Central Publishing about a potential book tie-in. The idea interested Zombie, who expressed a fondness for movie tie-in novels as a child.

Of the book, Zombie has also commented that it "offers a different experience from the film since it can obviously go into much more detail" and that the book is based on the original screenplay for Lords of Salem, which differs significantly from the final script used in the film.

The book also marks Rob Zombie's first time appearing on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Critical reception for the novel has been mixed. The Boston Globe praised Zombie's novelization, saying that the "writing throughout is graphic—definitely not for the squeamish—but the pace escalates compellingly". In contrast, Publishers Weekly gave a negative review for the book, criticizing parts of the book as "predictable", "unengaging and not particularly scary".

Soundtrack
In October 2012 Zombie stated that he had hired guitarist John 5 to create the movie's score. John 5 remarked that he wanted to create "material that wouldn't distract audiences but also wouldn't be easily forgotten". Zombie later released the soundtrack's central song, "All Tomorrow's Parties" by The Velvet Underground & Nico, commenting that "Every RZ movie has at least one song that gets stuck in your head and changes the way you will forever hear the song". The Lords of Salem's soundtrack was released by UMe on April 16, 2013. Although not on the soundtrack CD, the film makes prominent use of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem and Johann Sebastian Bach's Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig, BWV 768.