Well...I am without a doubt Rob Zombies target market for this film as occult themed horror is my favorite though this plays for and against me as a viewer. I can understand the slower pacing to create suspense, i think this was achieved to a greater level of effectiveness in House of the Devil. Rosemary's Baby is one of my all time favorite movies, and I can almost forgive the blatant rip off if there was more of a pay off. Granted I want to watch this again ...at least the end as I began dozing off during what was supposed to be the movies climax though I think I caught the fit of it it was all done of a Satanic carrot. I would think the witches would want to get more of a return for the work they put into this diabolical plot would want more than a carrot baby , though the perfectly fine baby they did get back I the baby they spit on so what was the end game you might wonder, other than a mass suicide for the women of Salem.
This Sheri Moon vehicle displayed a balance of her naked ass and acting chops, I would prefer her with a little more meet on her bones but I guess she is alright for what she has to work with. The junkie routine cold use a little fine tuning. The rest of the acting worked around dialogue that didn't seem like the sharp crude banter found in his other films. The perverse Priest dream seemed a little forced. The subtle moments worked the best the masked man taking his goat for a walk I think the creep factor is what this film could have stood to have played up.
If you have seen the posters with the corpse paint on the, , this movie has nothing to to with black metal, promos for leads you to believe it's like a remake of Trick or Treat and that's not the case at all. The Lords sound more like a Jarboe album. For the radio station to suddenly have a big ticket push for a Lords concert after only play a track of Ambient dissonance once doesn't make sense and even with a solid dose of suspension of disbelief in tow , there are still a lot of dots that don't connect.
What I liked about the movie, the cinematography was sometimes brilliant it the use of color in some of the shot to create a Kubrick feel at times. Here though it was stylistically all over the place. When this was done in House of a Thousand Corpses it worked as it created more of a Natural Born Killers feel, the movie was taking a more serious tone and would have made the more surreal visuals stand out more . The random goat appearances I like and think the goat alone would have worked better than the devil yeti or the turkey dwarf. The faceless men were ok and worked better than just showing us monsters. When the witches became more protective of the strung out Moon, I think it worked, this could have taken a creepier tone perhaps.
The movie was worth watching, I just feel that what I watched could have had more impact. He knows how to scare you so why are there no scares in this. There was eye candy sprinkled about, he knows how to dress a set for sure. It was a pretty movie for the most part a few slips in the fx dept, the turkey demon costume and the devil yeti, were both out of a 50's b film at best , which would have been fine if it fit the tone of the movie. The budget looks like it was taxed more in post-production. I applaud Zombie for indulging himself and making this movie which he clearly wanted to make as there was no appeasing the studios on this one. I do think that making a horror movie that just isn't scary doesn't make sense and if that's the intention them they should have gone in a more David Lynch or Croenberg route and been stale more often than not.
If you are bored and/ or stoned on a Saturday night and this comes on Cable it's worth a watch but not really even a trip to the theater because I don't want Hollywood to think that I am voting for horror that just isn't scary, in truth I was more afraid for the dog to get eaten by the wrinkled witch at the sink than any of the characters all were hindered by the rough dialogue for you to care about them as it was a collection of jerks and smug bitches. I'll give the ending a another watch and if the parts I slept through change my mind get back to you but im thinking they more than likely won't . Color this the disappointment of the year. I suppose while I'll check out the Purge Nurse is the next one I'm hoping for big things out of.
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