The Lords Of Salem

Uh, wow okay.




Would not fully recommend this movie to individuals who are hardcore believers in the Judeo-Christian religions, like this movie gets deep into some occult shit and it sure as hellfire does not hold back. So our story follows a radio station host Heidi who is gifted a mysterious unknown record by a group called the Lords Of Salem, and pretty damn soon after that it tailspins into a visually rich, disturbing, and plain what the f*** kind of movie as she is haunted by ghosts and demons. Speaking as someone who is not religious by any stretch, this movie still unnerved me because it starts off pretty simply, you get your spooky figures in rooms, a few nightmares, there's this apartment you shouldn't go into and then it clobbers you with freaky imagery, blood soaked effects, effectively unearthly hellish creatures, and LOTS of nudity. I'm genuinely shocked this got an R rating, you get so many full frontal shots, and not just of lady women, I was seriously wondering if this got an NC-17 but I suppose this is the most hardcore R movie I've ever seen. It takes a tiny dash of Rosemary's Baby with Heidi apparently being targeted to become the anti-virgin Mary and birthing the Antichrist, this movie could not give a shit less about your feelings and morals, and showcases the...less earth loving and spiritual Wiccans and goes straight for the jugular of Satan worshipping foul witches. Which is very true of every religion, there will always be extremes on either sides of the spectrum, you will have hateful and shrieking nuts of Christianity but also very lovely and respectful Christians too. Same for Satanism, people view it as a liberating force of the self and a critique of how the church operates on many levels, but also there are people who cannonball into the pool of demon worship, black arts, and bile fused rage against religious symbols. This film deals with the latter, which sucks because I quite like our main characters. This is gonna sound a bit weird but Heidi who is played by Sheri Moon Zombie, legit looks like Jamie Lee Curtis but the weird part is she looks like a mix of Jamie and Laurie from Rob Zombie's Halloween series. But in all seriousness, her performance is good, she doesn't have to say much and indeed some people could view it as a more subdued performance, but I found she handled just the mindf*** of the situation and troubled emotions super well. She's just a likeable girl and of course you don't want bad things to happen to her but they do and thus is the tragedy. Jeff Daniel Phillips is more a background character, the film undoubtedly focuses primarily on Sheri, but the friendship is felt between the two and I really appreciated that emotional scene when they talk to each other on the phone, I can't explain it but that really struck me and I was just like, damn that was a good emotional scene! Great to see Judy Geeson again, she fit wonderfully into this movie and has that presence about her which makes her acting all the more effective. Bruce Davison, I was rooting for that guy, as a writer investigating the occurences and has some experience with historical witches, a very affable character to have in a veryyy gloom and doom movie. Shoutout of course to my man Ken Foree, I love you my man. Shame we couldn't have him punching witches and saying motherf***er but the day will never come when I'm not happy to see him in a movie no matter the size of the role. Production wise it's very solid, actually being shot in Salem Massachusetts and it does look pretty grand with that familiar exquisite fall atmosphere. It gets artsy, it flat out has imagery of Georges Melies' A Trip To The Moon, it features Requiem not once but twice, and the shocking imagery is a combo of hits near the end. My snob side is satisfied and reeling from the horror. I don't think this scenery is going to crawl out from under my skin for a few days, it's wedged in deep man. Wild ass movie, effectively creepy and disturbing, I give it 3 stars, 7/10. And we get more witches for the week, I'm pretty sure it's no secret at this point as to what comes next but why spoil a surprise for someone? By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.

Dawn Of The Dead

I find it pretty surprising this movie came out a full decade after Night Of The Living Dead.

That movie probably was the most succesful independent picture ever at that moment in time, but George really got screwed over with his profits from the movie so maybe he took the time to better his knowledge of the film industry and better himself as a director before returning to make a sequel. I think that's the biggest question of all these Dead movies, is each subsequent movie following the events of the last or is it just a standalone film? And to me personally, I think this is a follow up to Night with the zombie epidemic spreading, nobody knows what in the hell is going on, groups of hunters and soldiers are patrolling the woods, I totally can see this as a continuation. We meet up with some new characters, a TV newsperson, a helicopter pilot, and two SWAT officers who meet up and decide the best place to hide out is a shopping mall. I find it incredibly interesting how much malls have changed in the ensuing 40 odd years, it really was the place to get everything and not just clothes, entertainment, and beauty products. They had food shops, hardware stores, arcades, banks, it truly was the one stop place if you had the scratch, so it's rather an ingenious place to hole up. The pacing of the film I feel was perfect, I'm not sure which cut of the movie I got, it clocked in past 2 hours and had a lot of the soundtrack by Goblin which is a great soundtrack by the way, so was it the theatrical cut or like a director's cut? Well I looked into it. The history of this movie is completely f***ed, there's so many different versions since it premeired depending on where you lived due to censorship, but yes the version I watched was the theatrical cut which apparently Romero preferred the most so I'm happy about that. But anyway, the film takes it's time showing these people survive in the mall, it takes about half an hour for them to get there which helps set up how the public is dealing with the situation and the pandemonium experienced by news crews, and when there's less than 30 minutes before the end is where the climax starts. It's pretty great, with a motorcycle army led by Tom Savini crashing their sanctuary and going wild, there's so much that happens it's difficult to recount everything that occured but instantly memorable at the same time. Good ol' Ken Foree is back and center stage and I flat out stated early in the movie, if he lives I'm gonna love it, and this film got me jumpy to see if he made it. In fact I really liked all our main characters, each having good personality and inner workings with the other characters that made them really click. Christ, they never even argue and start going at each other's throats, isn't that nice? Cooperation, it's grrrreat! I heard Tom Savini wasn't very pleased with how the zombies looked cause they had a slight blue tint to their skin tone, but honestly I never had a problem with it because the blood spurts and gore was divinely disgusting with once again the intestines being the real gross out moment for me, I mean I kinda felt queasy watching that, but I like the way they look once again being very minimal and I find the blue tint logical, if you lose oxygen you start turning blue so it makes sense why they look sort of ashy grey mixed with a smidge of pthalo blue. But before I start telling you what we wash our brushes with, let's continue. I really really liked it, maybe even more than the first. I still loved the cinematography, I really loved the soundtrack, acting was great, effects were great, the story was interesting and had it's suspenseful moments, I can't wait to see Day Of The Day which many now consider to be the best of them all so sign me up. 4 stars, 8.5/10! Hell you think this is how store employees feel on black friday? I'd take a machete to their brains too guys...

The Devil's Rejects

Man I really will have to wait until 3 From Hell to pin my favorite here.

Now I know this has always been the favorite out of quite possibly all of Rob Zombie's movies, and I can totally see why. I'm not sure if this is a straight up sequel to House Of A 1000 Corpses because I really doubt 3 From Hell follows after this, but regardless how is it? Well pretty damn good, while the first movie was more style over substance this takes the opposite stance, substance with a bit of style, both of which having their place of course but despite my amazement at the style of the first the story and progression is what really made me like the second. It's pretty much a hunt movie with our three killers Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding being pursued by a sheriff hell bent on taking them in or taking them out. It's not often you see any kind of movie let alone a horror movie where the killer is always on the run from being put down by the law, so it gives a lot more downtime between killings and thusly more character. Not to say you don't get some gruesome and nightmarish visuals, but it's more about their journey together than the killings themselves. Before, Bill Moseley was very much akin to Chop Top from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 but with this he gets to expand and put in one of his strongest performances and I just love that guy so any movie with him is A-okay by me. More fun times with Captain Spaulding, I'm still honestly grappling with Sid not being here cause if there was ever a horror star I wanted to meet, besides like Heather Langenkamp, Edwin Neal, and Felissa Rose, it would be him! If I was being honest, Baby was probably the least interesting of the bunch in the first movie but boy did that pull a 180° in this movie, I mean damn you rock that part lady. Even William Forsythe who I haven't really seen in anything besides this, did mighty good and I'll be looking out for him in the future. So cast gets A's across the board, story is definitely good, I like the very grounded and more brutal style of this movie once again proving that Rob knows how he wants his films to be. Now I did know parts of this movie before I actually saw it but it really didn't detract from anything, I was just aware of the more humorous quotes. So still gets 4 stars from me, another 8/10, well done to all who worked on it! And next time we get to talk about the incredibly recent third installment so stick around to see if it possibly tops them all. Until next time, I'm gonna go get me some ice cream.