REVIEW: The Lords of Salem (2012)

Posted on July 10, 2013 by BloodCrypt Keeper

The Lords of Salem: F

I like Rob Zombie. I liked his Halloween remake and Devil’s Rejects. I thought House of 1,000 Corpses was interesting and I would even call myself a White Zombie fan. That being said, I don’t know what the fuck he was going for with The Lords of Salem. I respect that he is challenging himself as an artist to create something a little different but this film was not fun to watch.

If you think you would like a slow moving, relatively unoriginal story punctuated with Zombie’s sensational carnival/sacrilege vibe, maybe you’ll dig it.

Oh, and are you a fan of hallucinatory dream sequences that climax as the protagonist suddenly wakes up? You are? You’ll love this movie!

What starts out as a semi-creepy ghost story quickly reveals itself to be a Rosemary’s Baby ripoff. By the end, we were convinced the title of the movie should be I Love My Wife: A Film by Rob Zombie. Zombie’s wife plays Heidi, a radio DJ who lives in Salem (Basically 3/4 of the movie is close-ups of Mrs. Zombie looking sexy/nauseous/confused). She unknowingly plays a song on the radio that casts a hex on all native female Salemites and appears to summon some witches (who were actually fucking witches, wtf?!) who avoided execution during the famous Salem witch trials in the 1600’s.

Okay. Seems legit. There are some naked nasty witches stalking Heidi in her apparently haunted apartment complex.

Then that stuff all stops and the story shifts to focus on a Satanic conspiracy to impregnate Heidi with the anti-Christ. Aaaaaaand: Cue Rosemary’s Baby plot. Tenants of the apartment complex are secret Satanists aiding in the pregnancy plot. Heidi’s health mysteriously declines. Anyone who is suspicious is tricked or murdered. A hallucinatory love scene between Satan and Heidi occurs. Heidi wakes up panicked multiple times.

Zombie garnishes the unoriginal story with some over-the-top imagery. There are demented bishops jacking off. Close-up of Zombie’s wife crying. Topless nuns escort a demon through the halls of a temple. Close-up of Zombie’s wife screaming. A dying priest gets a blowjob. Close-up of Zombie’s wife suddenly waking up. Some of this stuff was interesting to watch but it seemed like Zombie was trying to sprinkle in the perverse in an attempt to make up for the entire movie being poop.

Yawn. The pace was slow. The characters were boring. Nothing new to see here.

REVIEW: Season of the Witch (2011)

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Big Z

Season of the Witch: B+

I originally wanted to give this movie an F-, but after thinking it over, I realized I was entertained and was basically laughing the whole time.

Nic Cage looks awful; every scene literally looks like they roused him from an overnight coke binge, threw him in a costume, and had him deliver his lines. Perlmen looks better but clearly cares so little about the movie it looks like he is having sexual fantasies the whole time while acting.

Needless to say the story was predictable, lame, full of plot holes, and uninteresting. Its sad attempt at political and religious commentary was so weak and transparent that the few lines that were delivered in this vain fell on deaf ears. The CGI was abysmal, lurking in Spawn level indecipherability, and in the end, Cage beats up a CGI Satan. Pretty whack but see it anyway; it will not disappoint.

REVIEW: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Big Z

Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters: F

I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but what I got exceeded even my expectations of awful.

Let’s start with the 3D. There was no reason for it to exist. There were probably like 7 shots in the movie for which 3D was used and it all was scraps of wood or stone flying at you after some CGI explosion.

Secondly, the plot and character development were about as thin as tracing paper. The reason H and G are killing witches is given like 11 seconds of attention, and outside of a brief explanation at the end you have no idea why they have some of their powers.

Third, the weapons they use are fuckin ridiculous. I thought for like the first 15 minutes of the movie that H and G were from the future or some shit, but it turns out they just have weapons that don’t exist yet for some unexplainable reason.

Hansel had diabetes from eating too much candy at the witches house when he was a kid. NOT A FUCKING JOKE. And it really became a key plot device. His diabetes played a central role in developing him as a character, explaining his relationship to his sister, and was woven seamlessly into future conflicts that helped add drama and tension…..

SIKE! NOT AT ALL!!!!! THERE WAS NO REASON FOR HIM TO HAVE DIABETES!!!! IT ADDED NOTHING TO THE MOVIE!!!!!

The action scenes were all right, the movie had no down-time and at least they wrapped up this shit fest in like 86 minutes, but the rest of the movie was so poorly developed that I can not give it higher then an “F.”