‘Lords of Salem’ Proved That Rob Zombie Was Capable of More Than Just Gore

The Big Picture

• Rob Zombie’s film The Lords of Salem deviates from his usual gruesome fare and takes on a more restrained and experimental approach.
• The film follows radio DJ Heidi, who begins experiencing disturbing hallucinations after receiving a mysterious record from an anonymous listener.
• The Lords of Salem is a visually stunning and character-driven film that explores addiction, trauma, and the cycle of abuse with supernatural metaphors.

As one of the most prominent horror auteurs of the past two decades, Rob Zombie has carved out for himself a style that is all his own. His films draw heavily from 70s horror and exploitation in the tradition of films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Last House on the Left. Basically, Rob Zombie is to grindhouse horror what Quentin Tarantino is to gritty Westerns and Blaxploitation. However, Zombie took somewhat of a departure from his typical gruesome faire with the more atmospherically-inclined The Lords of Salem, the follow-up to his two extremely divisive entries in the Halloween franchise. Lords of Salem dances delicately between paying homage to classic Satanic Panic tropes and a more restrained, even somewhat experimental approach that hasn’t been seen in any of Zombie’s films before or since.

What Is ‘Lords of Salem’ About?

In true Rob Zombie fashion, The Lords of Salem is a heavy metal fever dream. The film follows Heidi, played by Zombie’s wife and muse Sheri Moon Zombie, a radio DJ and recovering drug addict who begins experiencing disturbing hallucinations when an anonymous listener sends her a record to play on her show. The record is attributed to a group known only as the “Lords.” Heidi and her fellow DJs (one of whom is played by genre character actor and Rob Zombie regular Ken Foree) listen to the record on their talk show. The music is discordant and abrasive, and they are immediately put off by it. Despite listening to only a few seconds of the recording, Heidi is immediately and deeply affected by the strange music. She goes home and begins having distressing nightmares (or visions?).

The film spends a lot of time patiently getting to know Heidi and the overwhelming sense of doom that she faces on a daily basis. As a recovering addict, we see her coping in different ways, as well as struggling not to isolate herself from her coworkers and friends. This proves difficult as Heidi seems deeply disaffected with her place in life. The movie is filled with moody long takes which essentially just follow Heidi along in her daily turmoil as she walks her dog and lives a life she’d rather not be living. It isn’t until the film takes a dark and sinister turn that she eventually turns back to the real, life-ruining horrors of addiction.

How Is ‘Lords of Salem’ Different From Other Rob Zombie Movies?

While The Lords of Salem has gore aplenty and some of the gnarliest imagery in any of Rob Zombie’s films to date, there is undeniably a restraint here that distinguishes it from his Firefly Trilogy or his follow-up to The Lords of Salem, 31. Those films all have a blunt brutality to them, and as critics of Zombie often point out, aren’t exactly subtle in their execution. Lords of Salem, on the other hand, has a patient, melancholy tone that builds tension and forces the viewer to live in the world that Rob and Sheri Moon Zombie have constructed. Of all of his films, The Lords of Salem sees Zombie at his best in terms of world-building. Even the score is a simple but brooding theme that just sort of pulses underneath, never drawing attention to itself but still effectively building tension.

The Lords of Salem is also by far the most beautiful-looking Rob Zombie film (which may on the surface appear to be an oxymoron). The cinematography is genuinely stunning at times, showcasing Zombie’s clear affection for the town of Salem and its notorious history. The movie is also much more character-driven than his previous films. The Lords of Salem takes its time to develop and understand Heidi’s character. The horrors that she experiences at the hands of witches are clearly metaphorical for her own struggles with addiction, as well as for her unspecified but obvious trauma. The ways in which she isolates herself and becomes a powerless vessel for evil is perhaps the most disturbing part of a film that contains multiple scenes of babies being birthed and damned in truly grotesque fashions. The movie goes to dark places, and the edges of the abuses that Heidi has been the recipient of are wisely hinted at instead of blatantly shown.

‘The Lords of Salem’ Is Rob Zombie’s Most Surreal Film

The Lords of Salem goes to artistic and stylistic places that had only previously been teased by the director. The final act of The Lords of Salem is an all out blasphemous fever dream. It is delightfully perverse and revels in its ugliness. It has some truly twisted and memorable imagery that will leave you feeling like you just completed a bad trip. The film undeniably takes a lot of influence from classic occult films like Rosemary’s Baby, yet it takes story elements that have been done before and tells them in ways that only Rob Zombie could tell. The kaleidoscopic horrors that unravel in the final act are truly terrifying on both a spiritual and psychological level. The manifestation of evil that has been building up the entire movie explodes in ways that are both ambiguous yet satisfying.

The Lords of Salem has real implications for its characters, especially Heidi. Zombie has often been criticized for his lack of substance and for recycling genre conventions. However, with The Lords of Salem he really stretched creative muscles that most wouldn’t have guessed. The horrors battled in the film are much more real in this film, despite the myriad of fantastical occult imagery. Like all great horror films, The Lords of Salem takes real-life fears and struggles and explores them with supernatural metaphors. In the grand tradition of films like the aforementioned Rosemary’s Baby or even contemporary classics like The Babadook and Hereditary, The Lords of Salem is a surprisingly thoughtful film from a director who is often accused of stewing in the vile nature of his films a little too long. The film is a substantive look at addiction, trauma, and the cycle of abuse that persists despite a desire to move on. Heidi is one of Zombie’s most empathetic characters, if not his most empathetic. Sheri Moon Zombie sells the character and proves that she is much more than just Rob Zombie’s wife but a talented actor in her own right. The Lords of Salem is a true gem not only in Rob Zombie’s filmography, but also in a decade that produced some of the best and most innovative films in the genre.

The Lords of Salem is available to stream for free on Tubi.

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