The Lords of Salem
Director: Rob Zombie
Writer: Rob Zombie
Cast: Sheri Moon Zombie, Bruce Davison, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn, Ken Foree, Dee Wallace
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) is a radio DJ in Salem – as in the witch trials. One day she receives a mysterious package with an even more mysterious record in it, a song by The Lords, subsequently known as The Lords of Salem. But there’s more to that record than just good marketing and the song starts triggering massive events.

There were quite a few things that I liked about this movie, but I have to say that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have because the soundediting drove me infuckingsane. I spent large portions of the film with my ears covered.

Witch movies are extremely hard to pull off from a feminist point of view. Witch trials were an inherently misogynistic, brutal affair that punished women for independence and knowledge; evil witches (female) have long been the counterpart to good wizards (male) and there is hardly another mythical figure that is at once as inherently female and as inherently evil.

So, yeah, you gotta tread carefully when suddenly all women become witches in a movie. And while Lords of Salem avoids many pitfalls (that Antichrist, for example, relishes in), it is not exactly entirely unproblematic either.

But honestly what bothered me most was the soundediting. I know people who regularly have to cover their ears during movies because they just get too loud. I’m not one of these people, generally speaking. But in this movie I was. Plus there were many moments that try to jumpscare you but in the end, it just felt like they were chasing after the scare without ever actually achieving it.

What worked really well for me were the images, though. There was many a beautiful moment, the production design was wonderful, the lighting, too and the costumes (Sheri Moon Zombie is so pretty, too). And the three sisters were great characters that I would have gladly watched an entire film about. Plus, I did like the witch song. But all of that just wasn’t enough to make me fall in love with the film.

Summarizing: meh.