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Lords of Salem, 2012
Radio DJ Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) receives a strange record in the mail from a band she's never heard of called Lords of Salem. On playing the record, Heidi begins to experience strange visions and sensations. When the radio broadcasts the song, other women in Salem are impacted. Meanwhile, a local historian (Bruce Davison) is shaken by the band and the music and looks into where the record came from.
Okay, good call, Horrcrammers.
There were two things that I really dug about the film.
The first was just the slow-burn nature of it. On one hand, this is the kind of film that I think of as a misery spiral. Like, ten minutes into this film you're like, "Oh, okay, this main character is going to give birth to the antrichrist by the end of the run time." But the development of the main character's experience and the way that it was conveyed visually was really neat.
Related is the second thing I liked, which is the way that the film crafts its own witch mythology. Witches can be tricky. As we have discussed many times before, presenting a reality in which witches are real has the troubling effect of essentially justifying the torture and murder of many women whose only crime was being a little weird or unmarried landowners. Witches are villains in this film, but they have a clear point of view and a somewhat coherent internal logic. The story and the images make sense together, and that elevates both of them.
I also was a fan of the music---the general soundtrack and also the "witch track". The idea of a song "activating" the women of Salem could have come off like some sort of dumb Satanic panic element, and it's to the credit of the film that it comes off as fun and spooky.
On the downside, well, I did find the story a bit predictable. Films with that "dark" vibe sometimes have the effect of feeling too obvious, and that's how I felt here. I knew the ending of the film after the first ten minutes. It takes away some of the stakes to feel as if everything is predestined.
My only real complaint was the character of the historian. At one point, he just turns into an exposition machine. I couldn't tell if this character was meant to be a parody of this type of character, but it didn't matter. The character of his wife was great, and I really liked their scenes. But the scene where he's researching on the internet was painful. And he's also talking to himself?! Like we watch him google "family tree" and then he says out loud "Let's see who you're related to." Dude, WE KNOW WHAT THIS MAN IS DOING ON A WEBSITE CALLED FAMILYTREE.COM! I did feel like this character was meant to be meta commentary, but he mostly felt like a huge waste of runtime.
Generally speaking I thought that this was a neat little flick. I dug the imagery and I liked the mythology it built around witches, even if it wasn't entirely complete.
Lords of Salem, 2012
Radio DJ Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) receives a strange record in the mail from a band she's never heard of called Lords of Salem. On playing the record, Heidi begins to experience strange visions and sensations. When the radio broadcasts the song, other women in Salem are impacted. Meanwhile, a local historian (Bruce Davison) is shaken by the band and the music and looks into where the record came from.
Okay, good call, Horrcrammers.
There were two things that I really dug about the film.
The first was just the slow-burn nature of it. On one hand, this is the kind of film that I think of as a misery spiral. Like, ten minutes into this film you're like, "Oh, okay, this main character is going to give birth to the antrichrist by the end of the run time." But the development of the main character's experience and the way that it was conveyed visually was really neat.
Related is the second thing I liked, which is the way that the film crafts its own witch mythology. Witches can be tricky. As we have discussed many times before, presenting a reality in which witches are real has the troubling effect of essentially justifying the torture and murder of many women whose only crime was being a little weird or unmarried landowners. Witches are villains in this film, but they have a clear point of view and a somewhat coherent internal logic. The story and the images make sense together, and that elevates both of them.
I also was a fan of the music---the general soundtrack and also the "witch track". The idea of a song "activating" the women of Salem could have come off like some sort of dumb Satanic panic element, and it's to the credit of the film that it comes off as fun and spooky.
On the downside, well, I did find the story a bit predictable. Films with that "dark" vibe sometimes have the effect of feeling too obvious, and that's how I felt here. I knew the ending of the film after the first ten minutes. It takes away some of the stakes to feel as if everything is predestined.
My only real complaint was the character of the historian. At one point, he just turns into an exposition machine. I couldn't tell if this character was meant to be a parody of this type of character, but it didn't matter. The character of his wife was great, and I really liked their scenes. But the scene where he's researching on the internet was painful. And he's also talking to himself?! Like we watch him google "family tree" and then he says out loud "Let's see who you're related to." Dude, WE KNOW WHAT THIS MAN IS DOING ON A WEBSITE CALLED FAMILYTREE.COM! I did feel like this character was meant to be meta commentary, but he mostly felt like a huge waste of runtime.
Generally speaking I thought that this was a neat little flick. I dug the imagery and I liked the mythology it built around witches, even if it wasn't entirely complete.