THE LORDS OF SALEM (2012) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Rob Zombie
Sheri Moon Zombie, Meg Foster, Bruce Davison,
Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn,
Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Maria Conchita Alonso,
Andrew Prine, Sid Haig, Brynn Horrocks, Lisa Marie
A 17th-century witch's curse starts to manifest itself 300 years later, targeting a radio DJ in (where else?) Salem, Massachusetts. The movie starts out with a colonial coven dancing naked in the woods, and before you know it, the witches are all being burned to death. (Historical footnote: The real Salem witches were hanged, not burned, and probably weren't even witches.) So, anyway, it's all coming down on this radio girl with the dreads and the tattoos and the attitude and the retro-hippie wardrobe, but there's nothing very original or even all that interesting in the story. We've seen these witches before, or witches just like them, in other movies, but the movie's not bad to look at (Rob Zombie shot it without digital effects), and Meg Foster and Judy Geeson, checking in as two of the witches, are effectively unnerving.
