I've always been pretty outspoken about my dislike for a lot of the directorial work of Rob Zombie. I thought his take on HALLOWEEN and the character of Michael Meyers was close to a war crime, and showed a complete lack of understanding of what made the supposed-to-be-mute Shape work in the first place.
To be fair, I have also always said "The dude has a good movie in him...somewhere" so i kept watching. I wasn't a huge fan of his firefly family sagas, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, nor THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (which while a noble attempt, for me suffered from a Tarrentino-ish cut and paste syndrome, and pacing problems).
being a massive fan of the 70's satanic panic stuff, which I grew up on, I was cautiously optimistic when I heard RZ was going to be playing around in that sandbox.
THE LORDS OF SALEM came along, and seemed like a novel idea. Heidi Hawthorne, a DJ in drug recovery, becomes enmeshed in something sinister when a mysterious experimental-noise album shows up at her station. When the album is played, hell literally begins to break loose. The kindly landlady downstairs from Heidi, and her two sisters, are a little too forthcoming. hedi begins having visions and flashbacks of witches Sabbaths, and it seems like something is indeed readying to return to her hometown of, yes, Salem, Massachusetts.
A lot of RZ's original cinematic fanbase balked at the films slow pace, and the fact that his wife was put center stage as it's star. Strangely, she's always been one of my favorite elements in his work, and she does a fine job here as the troubled heroine. fan favorite actors like Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Bruce Davison (who nearly steals the film as a chronicler of the witch trials, and a cautious debunker of local myths) populate the supporting roles, but it never comes off as stunt casting. This time out, they don't distract the viewer into playing Six Degrees Of Sid Haig, but rather, enhance the proceedings.
In the end, I consider this to easily be RZ's most accomplished, unforced work, and the final arrival of his voice as a film director. Well worth catching if you like moody, atmospheric terror.
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