Ken Russell and Dario Argento live in Rob Zombie's satanic panic throwback, The Lords of Salem. Here's an easy to hate film of the year - a simplistic story, choppy progression with an overt style over substance complex - but it's also the most noteworthy horror film of the year. Zombie has put out something original to himself and to the current stream of contemporary horror cinema - a bombastic, stylized, psychedelic slow burn with the most bold use of satanism I've ever seen on film. As mentioned above, Zombie is echoing the disturbing eclectic works of the likes of Russell and Argento. There's an underlying essence of oddity and ambiguity that makes this film something more than a run-of-the-mill spook-fest with all of modern horror's poor qualities. All of the Zombie "haters" really should be thanking him for being unique to the scene - I mean, how many generic ghost stories and paranormal crap-tivities can we endure?
Review of The Lords of Salem
