By the time Rob Zombie was done lighting the world on fire for better and much worse with Halloween 2, he was fed up with playing in someone else’s sandbox. Whether that be the sandbox of Halloween, Dimension Films, or fans with preconceived notions of what they wanted to be shown. He was scheduled to yet again enter the world of remakes with a Zombification of The Blob when Jason Blum walked in, wearing his full-on M3GAN Halloween outfit, and offered an alternative. Which was weird considering M3GAN hadn’t even been conceived yet. But that’s the way we’re telling this story. Jason Blum offered Rob Zombie full power over the script, cast, and final cut of his very own Blumhouse film. He also offered what was by far the lowest budget and most grueling shooting schedule of Zombie’s career to that point. Zombie, desperate to do his own thing, accepted the challenge and would make a film that was a complete departure from anyone’s expectations. The Lords of Salem would be an attempt to make his magnum opus. But it would end in him almost completely blowing up his intended script, calling friends to let them know they were no longer in the film at all, and even horrifying his wife. It was a race against time that left him feeling like he was, much like the main character, losing his mind. This is the story of what happened to The Lords of Salem.
Like any good Rob Zombie film, the idea for The Lords of Salem began at a wedding. He had purchased a book on the Salem Witch Trials to read while he was bored and thought it would be a cool idea to flip the script. What if some of the women who were killed weren’t actually innocent? What if some of them were real witches who had cursed the bloodlines of those who hung them? He started writing the story but eventually shelved it, busy with other projects. He even used a part of the name for a 2006 song and animated video dubbed “Lords of Salem.” But it wasn’t until Jason Blum and friends levitated towards Zombie with an offer he couldn’t refuse that he decided to dust off the script and get to work. Blum had approached Zombie, asking him if he had anything supernatural in nature they could produce for him. Zombie was relatively fresh off the not always pleasant experience of working with Dimension Films and the Weinsteins at the time on Halloween and Halloween II. So, when Jason Blum promised him full control on everything from casting to final cut… he knew it was time to fire up the Dragula and dig through some ditches. Probably even burn through some witches. Maybe go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I don’t know.
Zombie even canceled plans for his remake of The Blob, which had been circulating in the news for some time. Of the cancellation, he cited an overabundance of remakes in Hollywood and fan complaints over his Halloween films. He bemoaned everyone being upset that either his Halloween takes were too much like the original or strayed too far from the source material. Understandable. Even if it is a hard sell to convince people that you weren’t aware you were going to piss people off when you gave Michael Myers a beard, speaking lines, and turned his mom into the Courtney Love version of Mufasa in the sky. My point is, I think everyone would agree it was time for Rob to do his own thing again.
Zombie went home and dusted off his Salem script that, at that time, was not much more than the bare-bones story about some old-school witches and a modern radio station. He did a lot of research on the Salem Witch Trials if only to make sure he avoided telling the same story in any capacity. He wanted to know the facts so that he could avoid them and give an original take.
Blum had given Zombie all the free rein he could ask for but was only willing to risk a small amount on the venture. A very small amount that ended up somewhere around $2 million. For reference, the lowest budget he’d worked with up until that point in his career had been $7 million. Even worse, the budget would barely allow for four weeks of filming, which would turn out to be detrimental to the script he’d written.
In the original script for The Lords of Salem, Zombie had an abundance of screen time dedicated to two storylines that had to be taken out completely. By his own admission, the director and musician was never fond of sticking to a script religiously, knowing how quickly things could change on the fly. But this was a different monster altogether. He found himself waking up early every day during shooting and rewriting entire pages when he realized they didn’t have the time or money to shoot what everyone had planned. He said himself that the actors didn’t know what the hell was even going on half of the time. Even his wife, Sherri Moon Zombie, was frustrated when she’d wake up to find the new pages printed out on their counter. Sometimes he would leave before she saw them so that he didn’t have to look at the horror on her face upon reading everything that had to be cut from the film.
For the most part, the IMDb for The Lords of Salem reads as your typical “Zombie and friends,” Happy Madison-esque production. There’s horror royalty in the likes of Meg Foster, Dee Wallace, and Ken Foree, who gives an underrated performance as a concerned colleague trying to help his co-host stay clean. There’s also great pick for a Dave Grohl biopic, Jeff Daniel Phillips, fresh off having his face squished like a pumpkin by H2’s Michael Myers in the strip club parking lot. He also gives a heartfelt performance that deserves a little more credit. Newcomer to the world of Zombie, Bruce Davison, is fantastic as the charismatic scholar Francis, whose character could have been a lead and deserved far better than a frying pan to the face. But the story of the casting for The Lords of Salem was in who you didn’t see on screen. Victims to the shooting schedule were piling up left and right as Zombie had to cut multiple flashbacks to the Salem Witch Trials era to save time. As a result, actors’ roles were heavily cut short or removed entirely. These casualties included Barbara Crampton, Sid Haig, and Michael Berryman. Revered actor Richard Lynch was supposed to play the character of Reverend Hawthorne but was in rather poor health and unable to complete the task at hand. Eventually, the actors on set that day (including Berryman and Haig) were sent home and Zombie was never given another shooting day to return to the scene. Zombie had to cut around it. Andrew Prine, originally hired to play a different character entirely, was switched to the role of Reverend Hawthorne and Lynch sadly passed away while they were filming. Another scene, a mini faux film called Frankenstein and the Witch Hunter that featured Zombie cohorts Clint Howard, Udo Kier, and Camille Keaton, fell victim to the cuts entirely as well.
Principal photography for the film itself started in April of 2011. Luckily for Zombie, his frequent collaborator and friend Wayne Toth had been hard at work on creating the SFX work long beforehand. And it shows. Toth, like Zombie, had been given permission to let his freak flag fly, and he takes advantage of it, providing a Golden Corral–sized buffet of practical effects and Satanic imagery throughout. Something you had to imagine was a godsend for Zombie, who often would have to film his shots in a single take due to the unrelenting schedule.
The look and feel of The Lords of Salem has a much more intentional and controlled aesthetic than most of Zombie’s previous work. Working with cinematographer Brandon Trost, who he had worked with on Halloween 2, Zombie successfully aimed for something more cinematic and composed. Despite how you may feel about the film overall, it’s damn impressive to look at. Zombie called the look of The Lords of Salem “gigantic” compared to his previous work. He wanted to make a movie that looked like a Stanley Kubrick picture, with the mood of a Roman Polanski film, that felt as if Ken Russell himself had directed The Shining. The atmosphere of the historically haunted town of Salem is also present at times, with some of the exterior locations being shot on site, although most of the interior shots took place on set in Los Angeles. Flashback sequences of naked witches getting down with the sickness took place in the canyons of California during relatively frigid temperatures. Zombie recalled feeling guilty as the crew stood with huge coats in front of heaters while actresses like They Live’s Meg Foster were forced to film scenes naked in the dirt.
For the sounds of The Lords of Salem, Rob Zombie enlisted his own guitarist, known as John 5, to score the film. Zombie expressed that he wanted a depressing piano or guitar that conjured the score from Suspiria and that he knew his colleague would be able to make it memorable. Luckily for them both, Zombie’s press tour for The Lords of Salem coincided with the band’s new album, and they were able to promote them both at the same time. Getting the film edited while also touring with the band, however, proved to be quite difficult. Zombie recalled feeling like he was losing his mind going on tour and coming home and editing before going back on tour and coming home only to edit repeatedly. Time management seems to be an understandable issue with the bearded one.
Finally, The Lords of Salem was released upon the world, or rather, the Toronto International Film Festival, on September 10th, 2012. Between this and other test screenings, Zombie was unsure how to gauge the audience’s reactions at first. He recalled that no one seemed quite aware of what they were about to watch, behaving as though they were about to screen another typical Zombie picture. He felt a weird shift in the originally laid-back audience when they realized how serious the tone would remain. This is something that would reverberate through audiences watching when the film released in theaters a few months later. Rather than an upfront, brutal assault of your senses, The Lords of Salem is a slower, more personal haunt. Many consider Heidi’s plight in the film as an allegory on addiction, which makes sense depending on how reliable the narrator of the film is. Are these awful things happening to her real? Or just her mind succumbing to her deadly drug habits? And did she ever have a choice either way? It’s a far cry from “Tooty F*ckin Fruity.”
Theatrically, The Lords of Salem opened in only 354 theaters (what the hell, Blumhouse?) and in turn would barely recoup just over $1.5 million at the cinema. Just in the ballpark of its minimal budget. As can be expected with a Zombie film, both critical and audience scores are a mixed bag. Some lauded Zombie’s restraint and maturation as a filmmaker while others found it to be all style and no substance. Meanwhile, some of his most ardent admirers either appreciated the big swing or were bummed to find out it was such a departure from the work they had come to love over the years. The film currently sits on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes with a 47% Rotten critics score and a 30% Rotten audience score.
Thankfully, a novelization with author B.K. Evenson would be released in 2013 that featured Zombie’s full vision for the film. Zombie worked hand in hand with Evenson in writing the novelization and declared it to be the restoration of his original script, which was apparently completely different than what ended up on screen by the time it was said and done.
In the end, Zombie was indeed able to make the film he wanted to make. At least the film he wanted to make if he were only given just over twenty-two days and a very small amount of money. Still, he didn’t renounce the experience entirely and even vowed to make more of his films the same way in the future. His competitive nature had previously led him to seek having a #1 hit at the box office and he’d accomplished that with Halloween. Now, he doesn’t care about that anymore and is happier doing films like this.
For instance, when it came down to the very final shot of The Lords of Salem, a shot featuring Heidi playing with her Golden Retriever, the moment tested horribly with audiences. Rob Zombie knew that everyone hated it and yet still demanded it stay in the film. Because he liked it. And he was the one who was going to have to live with it. And that is what happened to The Lords of Salem.
A couple of the previous episodes of this show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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