The Ladies of Salem

To apply a broad label grouping Rob Zombie's influences, House of 1000 Corpses (2003, Rob Zombie) is very similar to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper) with its faux-final girl structure amid a backwoods cannibal family's home; The Devil's Rejects (2005, Zombie) feels a lot like The Hills Have Eyes (1977, Wes Craven) in that wholesome-valued type tourists are abducted by sadistic murderers in a Southwestern desert.

However, the Halloween films showed Zombie transitioning into a more cohesive visionary, in the sense that he turned more serious--Halloween II (2009, Zombie) is cold, and the violence isn't playful. And that film also benefits from Zombie's addition of a subjective dream in Myers' head that runs along with the actual chronological progression of the narrative. For those are his strengths (so far): visualizing fucked up rock n' roll/classic horror inspired set pieces, and, a straightforward plot of terror encroaching upon a final girl.

The Lords of Salem (2012, Zombie) is an onslaught of images for the sake of shock, violence, sex, satanic ritual, metal, and art--the pictures on display at this exhibition are fun, provocative, and inspired by classic Golden Age European horror. Rob Zombie respects vintage horror.

Plot is minimal. Sheri Moon Zombie stars as Heidi Hawthorne, a local DJ for a Salem, MA radio station who discovers a mysterious record by a band simply called "The Lords." The record has a strange effect on her and brings about strange hallucinations of a sacrilegious nature.

Once that's been established, nothing else really happens.

But, I'm not disappointed. At 90 minutes, and with a low budget, the tone is consistent: messed up. Let's say someone took Rosemary's Baby (1968, Roman Polanski) and decided to eliminate all of the plot except for the part about a coven abducting a young woman for a satanic ritual, and try to stretch out that ending and make it into its own spinoff. Because that's what The Lords of Salem is. The urban alienation is there, but Zombie doesn't know how to craft characters. His turf is exploitation though, so I'm not faulting him--I enjoy his stereotypes because at least they're markedly his own (even if I am a little over that Tarantino/Smith/Cody style of pop-naturalistic dialogue that has nothing to do with the plot.)

I admire the brazen quality of this sideshow, but I really can't stand all of the sequences that are imaginary in the first half seamlessly blending into those in the second half. I mean, this movie really doesn't commit itself to much aside from the aforementioned imagery.

So, I'd recommend this to anyone who's up for naked women, goats, chanting, and bizarre pagan fun. What little there is here works for me.

The music is excellent overall, especially the "Lords" drone metal track played several times throughout the movie--I got a kick out of its heaviness.

--Dregs

The Adventures of Alvin & Lance

In the summer of 2012, after severe forest fires ravaged the rural town of Bastrop, TX, David Gordon Green snuck under the radar of the press and quickly got together with his cinematographer on every-film-he's-ever-done Tim Orr to film a loosely and spontaneously captured comedy with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in the burnt and overcast backdrop of Bastrop State Park.

 

Green has crafted Prince Avalanche (2013, David Gordon Green) as a simple, short, camping trip/men at (road) work ballad about loss, survival, and rebuilding. The opening title card places the narrative in Bastrop, 1988, after the wake of a devastating forest fire. A dark, sombre undertone constantly supports a minimalist and bleak menagerie of odd Texas wildlife, with virtually no signs of civilization, except one---

--The road

Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) are assigned the task of painting and placing signs along an 8 mile stretch of highway, and they are always moving, fighting, laughing, or getting drunk on that same blacktop.

So here's the twist:

Green takes these two distinct male characters and constantly pinpoints details about their contrasting characters in wide stretching intimate forest vistas--and almost every few minutes this becomes classically, essentially archetypal broad comedy that feels fresh and sincerely sweet, with a hefty resolution right where you'd expect it--the end. Yet, David Wingo & Explosions in the Sky have created a prog rock spacey fun concoction that continuously makes the film something else. The film becomes a score-propelled, shiny, bright, electronic, somewhat 80s new wave ironied adventure that never lags. Additionally, Orr's constant slow-as-molasses zooms cut together in a way that turn this trip practically into a music video. This reminds me of David Fincher's collaborations with Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross because like Explosions in the Sky, Reznor & Ross were already in a band, and also because the music is post rock electronic stuff that is wall to wall and dominant, as opposed to the only other director I can think of who uses that kind of music--Michael Mann; but, Mann uses his cues traditionally in an emotionally underscoring way, unlike Fincher and Green, who show real balls with their sonic experimentations.

The film's themes are etched out by a woman named Joyce, who first appears to Alvin in a trance. (After Lance leaves into town for the weekend and Alvin decompresses, reality becomes subjective.) Joyce's significance in the plot isn't worth mentioning in detail because it's up to the individual viewer to find their own response. However, it is reasonable to say that the film has a kindness that never approaches cruelty, as if it chooses to keep looking until it desperately finds what it needs to survive with a will to love and build.

Paul Rudd works marvels within the role of uptight, anally retentive nerdy outdoorsman against a frequently brilliant Emile Hirsch as shallow, woman-crazy, but really too sweet for his own good underneath all the vanity dude.

And if I would say the film had a centerpiece, it's the drunken montage. Green made a serious comedy that's actually hilarious--rare.

--Dregs