The Lords Of Salem (2013) - A Rob Zombie Joint

 

Ok, so let's get this first thing out of the way before I start this review. I know that this is a controversial movie in the sense that it has strongly divided opinion and there's alot of negativity out there about it. The following review is my thoughts, pure and simple, on this film. SO, thanks for reading, let's get on with it shall we?

 

Rob Zombie is someone who I like, but I don't love his stuff for the mostpart. I really liked The Devils Rejects for what it was, a slice of nostalgic violent filmmaking with a hint of Americana and grindhouse. House of 1000 Corpses was mediocre but I watched it and accepted it as Rob's love letter to the horror genre, a genre he is obviously passionate about. The Halloween movies were just ok, not as bad as some people painted them to be in my view, but not too special either. When the trailers began surfacing for "The Lords of Salem" I was fairly uninterested and not really bothered about following the production of the film.

 

It was released at a small number of movie theatres in the US and Europe and hasn't done good business. It was released April 2013, last week, here in the UK on DVD. No BluRay release has been mentioned.

 

I was open minded walking in to this experience. I didn't expect the sea and the mountains but I didn't expect the dogshit on the pavement either, and you know what? I got neither, as I thought. But what I did get was something much more interesting, I got a film that was much more than House of 1000 Corpses, The Devils Rejects or the Halloween movies were. Here's why I say that...

 

The Lords of Salem, follows a character named Heidi Hawthorne, played by Sherri Moon Zombie, wifey of Rob. She is a late-night radio talk show host and she lives in Salem, MA. Sherri Moon Zombie, what a strange actress she is. Her performances have always been passable and at times funny and brash. Here though I was suprised at how varied her performance was. She mixed it up for the first time in her film career and that is something that should be praised. Her mixture of normal, run-of-the-mill girl, happy-go-lucky and spunky DJ and then anxious, confused and depressed victim is done with subtlety and a sense of clam I didn't expect from her. I liked her in this film because I believed her in this film. Something I have had trouble doing with any previous character in any previous Rob Zombie movie. They're all very cartoonish and silly without any real layer work being done with their characters. This changes with Heidi, she is a much more real and honest presense, at least for the mostpart.

 

The story itself isn't really too deep or hard to follow. It has a slow build which I liked alot and the tension mounts over the first half of the films 95 minutes. The setting where most of the story takes place is the apartment building in which Heidi lives. It's a typical New England building and works well as a place that is normal and cheery yet could plausably host something strange. The internal shots sometimes reminded me of "The Toolbox Murders" and "The Shining". Am I comparing this film to those films? No.

 

In the past Rob Zombie has taken to being very close-up with his directing. His camera was always in the face of the subject, sometimes even acting as the eyes of a vicitm as they ran away from a villainous character. The Lords of Salem does things differently and this is the main reason I will gladly heap praise on Rob Zombie for this film. He has stepped out of his comfort zone and done something truly different and unique. You dont think so? Look at the long, slow and tense shots on doors, expressions, walls, windows and other things. Rather than being "all up in there", Rob has chosen a more fly on the wall appreoach which adds tension and allows the viewer to see much more of the surroundings as the film unfolds.

 

The film follows Heidi as she takes a listen to a record that had been sent to her at the late-night radio station. The record plays like strings being abused, drums being battered and it's an incomfortable sound and one that works well for it's purpose in the film. I think it had a chance to be very clique wiht chanting or whispering voices and it didn't, it stuck to a very vivid banging and sounded like something that could really become uncomfortable if you listened to it for long enough. The music itself becomes a character in the film and allows you to see change come over Heidi as she listens to it, holding her head like it's forcing it's way inside her mind.

 

We see sporadic flashback sequences with naked witches and the familiar song playing over it and these are effective. The witches too remain subtle in their execution. We don't get over-the-top horror makeup or long warty noses. We get mixed age, mixed size women who are out for blood. It worked well in my view.

 

Now, this is not so much a horror film as it is an "arthouse" picture with satanic imagery, psychedelic sequences and eerie overtones of sinister goings-on. There's no "gore" so to speak, there aren't any jump scares which have become all too common in horror films these days and there aren't any big iconic horror film moments, or at least not obvious ones. Personally, I liked alot of the scenes in this, when Heidi first listens to the record it shows, just with reactions, how powerful it is and it set's up the rest of the film in just that moment. The scenes with the withes are well done and get better as it goes on.

 

I don't want to spoil things so I am avoiding telling of the ending of this film. The story speaks for itself, witches out for blood and Sherri Moon Zombie is the one they need to get where they need to be. It's not the most exciting or fresh premise, but the way it is presented is genuinely new and different and I liked that. I liked that alot.

 

This movie won't be for everyone. It obviously isnt as I've read some scathing reviews in the past month or so. Still, there are some people who will enjoy this and some who might even give it another chance after disliking it the first time. This is the sort of film where a fresh perspective will allow a viewer to see new things they had missed before.

 

The setting is nice, I've visited this area of New England and it's lovely and looks just like it did in the film. The inclusion of Ken Foree as the co-host on the radio show was nice. I like Ken Foree, he is a horror icon and though his part wasn't big it was still nice to see him on screen in something that fit him well. The part of Judy Geeson as Lacy Doyle, the apartment owner, is standout and she plays it perfectly. I was suprised to see her name seldom mentioned in reviews of this film, she did a brilliant job in her role. But I wont say why. The obscure sequences near to the end are just what they intend to be, but I couldn't help but want a little more narritive at those points, just a little more closure and explanation would have been nice. I liked having backstories but I thought it would have been good to have had more character development with the other characters in the film such as the radio co-hosts and the sisters of the apartment owner. I would have liked to have spent more time with them in order to get a better feel for them, but those are minor gripes in a film that for many was hopelessly crap. For me though, it was intriguing and enjoyable. Especially the first half which slowly built the story in a way I always enjoy and have since I first saw "The Legend Of Hell House".

 

See this for yourself because no word from me or anyone else will really help. You might hate it with passion or love it, or like me you might enjoy the experience and respect the decision of the film maker to do something truly different for a change.

 

Not for everyone, but really...what is?

 

7 our of 10 (for now)

 

 

Movie Review Time: Tower Block (2012)

 

The writer of this film also wrote a couple of other cult british horror comedies, Cockneys Vs Zombies and Severance. His name is James Moran, that's all I really know. His name and two films he's also written the screenplay to.

 

I liked Severance I guess, though I can't really enjoy Danny Dyer in any way whatsoever, but he is ignorable if you try hard enough. Tower Block was released in 2012 and got a decent enough nation wide cinema release, though it was only on for a couple of weeks. It looked decent enough but there was too much to see at that point so I waited for the DVD release instead. Well, months on and one BluRay purchase later and I sat down on my couch, coffee in hand, to watch this small budgeted British thriller. Here are my modest thoughts.

 

The movie begins with a look at the various characters that exist in a pending-destruction tower block in East London. It also shows a young man being beaten to death by two masked thugs. The police try to get some information from the people in the tower block about the attack that happened in the halls of their residence. None of them would speak. None of them had any information, and so the thugs went free and the residents carried on with their lives, in a run-down block of flats where only the top floor is lived in. The remainder of the block has been emptied and re-homed. So, thats where the tale begins.

 

Sheridan Smith is the headliner in the movie. Fans of UK sitcoms like The Royle Family, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Gavin & Stacey will know her well. She plays a character called Becky who saw the attack on the boy happen and attempted to save him, but she was beaten up too and didnt have an information for the police. She is the "good" person in the mix, and the film tends to focus on here mostly, which is a good idea because she is likeable and familiar with no real reason to dislike her.

 

I dont know any of the other performers in the film, except for a guy from Gavin & Stacey who plays an alcoholic loner named Paul. The other main character is called Kurtis, a thug-wannabe Derby-voiced drug dealer who has spent years theratening the people of the block and making them pay him money with a promise that if they do he wont attack them and wreck their homes. Nice. So we are introduced to this extremely annoying chap early on. His performance as the skinny little prick chav is well done but the type is done so often in british films that it's getting old and annoying now. I understand that people like this exist, sadly, but it seems that alot of urban films based in Britain have this chracter in them. I know people like this exist, especially in the more downtrodden areas of the country, but it is so typical and over-the-top that it seems too obvious now. Am I supposed to eventually like these one-dimensional nasty characters? Really? I don't.

 

So, months later and the residents of the top floor of the block are going about their lives as usual. An older couple living normally, a couple of little thuggy lads pretending to be "gangsta", a single mother who yells at her kids constantly, a family with a son who plays Battlefield 3, alot. And so on.

 

Suddenly, as the people are in their flats going about their lives, bullets fly through their windows and kill certain people. We see a sniper rifle reloading and aimed at the tower block. The residents all run into the halls, freaking out. They're being picked off and they don't know why.

 

I'll stop there. Thats where the story begins and I wont spoil it. It tells the story of a group of people trying to escape from a sniper aimed at their tower block who has set traps around the building. It's about the way the characters interact as well as why they are being terrorised in such a manner.

 

It's a fun premise and the performances are mostly good. Some are passable but none are actually bad, which I didn't expect. I found the character of Kurtis to be too irritating and obnoxious to tolerate and at times it made me grit my teeth. It was a little too much at times. I enjoyed the film, basically and honestly, it was fun and didn't drag during it's 90+ minutes. My main issue is that there are gaping inconsistancies and plot holes the size of a stella artois factory. It is in these issues that the film let me down. They were obvious plot holes that I cannot fathom how someone could miss. I wonder if the director was even that bothered towards the end. It is one of those films that gives too much away too soon and ends in a very unsatisfying way. Still, the actors did a good job with the mediocre script, the story, or 50% of it, was interesting and at times tense and it was a decent urban brit-thriller of which the country doesn't produce many.

 

I would recommend it to anyone who might like the idea of survival thrillers but the chracter models are dated and the story falls short on many occassions. Still, not all bad and worth a watch.

 

SCORE - 5 pints of cider out of 10.



Review Of Ruby Sparks

 

Zoe Kazan wrote Ruby Sparks and she plays Ruby in the film itself. Her co-star in the movie is Paul Dano who you might know from the cult indie comedy "Little Miss Sunshine". As a real life couple, the two of them present an on screen chemistry that is so strong it carries the movie from being a decent fantasy-rom-com into being a truly special motion picture that has gone under the radar for reasons I can't pinpoint or understand.

 

The story is one of hope, one of social anxiety leading to ideals that are pretty impossible to ever find, to ever meet. It is in this that we meet the main character in the story of "Ruby Sparks", Calvin. Calvin is a young man with social anxiety who wrote a book and it became an american literarature classic and due to that he had been unable to think of the tale in which to follow it up. He was in councelling since he was a child and lived alone in an apartment that appears to be designed for solitude in order to help him to find whatever his second novel would be. One day Calvin begins to have dreams about a girl and in this he begins to fantasise about her. His councellor, played in a loving and knowing way by Elliot Gould, tells him to write about this girl and see where it takes him.

 

Calvin writes about the girl, how she looks, what she smiles like, how her voice sounds to his ears and that her name is Ruby Sparks. He is rejuvinated by his writing and begins to write more and more, loving his time with the girl he is creating on his typewriter. The typewriter becomes a symbol of Calvins' reluctancy to accept his success and attempt to move forward.

 

To cut bits and pieces from the whole story, Calvin eventually wakes up, goes downstairs and sees the girl of his dreams, literally, cooking eggs in his kitchen with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. He immediately thinks he is going mad and hallucinating until eventually realising that other people can also see, hear and touch Ruby. The girl of his dreams had come to life and was in love with him as much as he was with her.

 

The story takes many turns from here, and this is where I'll leave it to you to see where it goes. I wouldn't want to spoil it. It does, however, involve the ability of Calvin to write more detail about Ruby and immediately effect her with the use of his keyboard and his ideas.

 

The mixture of fantasy, romance, drama and comedy is wonderful and makes for a fresh and interesting take on a romantic tale of finding love and coping with all it has to offer, both good and bad, not forgetting the in-betweeny parts.

 

Paul Dano is great in his role, conflicted, messy and troubled by his own mind and the pressure he places on his own shoulders regardless of his loving family. Zoe Kazan adds a childlike innocence and a sparky honesty to the character of Ruby.

 

The supporting cast of Annette Bening and Antonio Bandaras as Calvin's Mom and Step-Dad, Elliot Gould as Calvins therapist and Chris Messina as his brother are top notch and add a variety of interesting dynamics to the story as it goes on.

 

I loved this movie, it was truly entertaining and heartwarming whilst hovering over sinister and dark at times in a way that all great tales of love should do. There is darkness in life and in love and to leave it out is to ignore human emotion at it's truist. This doesn't ignore, it explores and it makes for a wonderful independant dark comedy with fantastical elements seeping through it's edges.

 

Lovingly crafted and beautifully acted, this was one of my favourite films of last year and since it's DVD and BluRay release I've seen it plenty more times and enjoyed it more and more with each viewing.

 

There have been people in other reviews I've read saying that it could have been much more sinister and thus more interesting but I disagree, taking too many dark steps in a film like this would be completely bizarre and wouldn't really make sense.

 

9/10