All tomorrows parties

There’s something about witches that will always be intriguing, especially to me. The idea of living with no rules, under the guise of darkness without a hint of patriarchy. In Rob Zombies 2012 film The Lords of Salem, these dark desires come to the surface, in what I would call his most tame but no less visually stunning film. Leah Butler, the fearless costume designer on this captures that dark whimsy that we’ve come to love from the mind of Rob Zombie, and executes it with what I can only describe as a punch to the face. Her use of color, pattern, and that vintage 70’s flair, gives each look of our main character Heidi LeRoc (aka Adelaide Elizabeth Hawthorne played by Sherri Moon Zombie) a distinct tracking of her journey. Our witches or three weird sisters, are the perfect example of not judging a book by their cover, and the men in the story have taken a back seat to the women but have no less style. Rob Zombie has easily become one of my favorite horror film makers over the last few years. Not only are they dark, creepy, and filled with occultism, but there is a humor and wit in them that I believe goes unnoticed because of those overtones. By working with the same people behind and in front of the camera on the bulk of his projects, there becomes a creative language that is born, one that is unspoken. His creative team knows his mind well, and as a director he allows the collaboration to release the demons within the designer’s minds, making for one gritty masterpiece. Stoked in the fires of 70’s filth, his film creates this feel of that time just after the lifting of the Hays Code in 1968. Filmmakers began to push the envelope and you were seeing things on film that we never done before. Once news casters of the 1960’s started broadcasting footage from Vietnam into the American home, all bets were off with what the public was desensitized too. The first film to really push this boundary in 1968 was Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. For the first time you were not only hearing the actors curse, but sex and rape ran rampant on the screen. You can see how heavily those themes have influenced Lords. What followed suit in the 70’s was like the wild west of filth and mayhem. Texas Chainsaw, Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, along with many others have come to define the brutalization of the horror genre. This was a clear response to what people were seeing in their own homes and filmmakers were commenting on it. With that homage in mind and Zombie’s own life, seeing the violence in the carnival upbringing and what was happening in NYC in the 1980’s, he with the help of his design teams has been able to bring all these elements into the 21st century.

On the surface The Lords of Salem appears to be a tame Zombie film, but within the third act it delivers the wild fever dream we have come to know and love from him and his designers.  Women not only dominate the screen in this film but behind the camera as well, with a production design by Jennifer Spence, set decorator Lori Mauzer and of course costumes by Leah Butler. Leah has worked with Rob Zombie on a few music videos as well, and she is no stranger to the horror genre, having designed Paranormal Activity 3&4, Annabelle: Creation, and Annabelle Comes Home, plus the newest instalment in the Conjuring universe that is in its postproduction now. While perusing her website you can see from the catalog of work that her style is not only fun and creative but amplifies her specific voice as a southern California woman. She does not shy away from bright colors and patterns from Mexican heritage that has influenced a lot of SoCal’s culture. Leah brought her experience from on and off set to Lords in that way.

The films follows radio DJ Heidi LeRoc (who we later learn is Adelaide Elizabeth Hawthorne descendant of Rev. Jonathan Hawthorne) a recovering addict that lives and works in Salem MA. One night after finishing work Heidi receives a mysterious package, a wooden box with an unnamed LP inside. When played the haunting music begins to bewitch the women of Salem who have direct lineage to the witches wrongfully condemned at the trials. The coven we see at the opening of the film, have cursed the town and the descendent of their accuser Rev. Jonathan Hawthorne, that his air will produced the next spawn of Satin himself. As Heidi falls deeper under the spell of this mysterious record, her landlord Lacy Doyle (Judy Geeson) and her weird sisters, Sonny and Megan (Dee Wallace and Patricia Quinn) direct descendants of the witches who have laid the curse, start to use Heidi as a pawn in her so called “fate”. As Heidi’s colleagues begin to suspect her falling into relapse (Jeff Daniel Philips and Ken Foree), local author and historian Francis (Bruce Davidson) begins to uncover Heidi’s strange behavior and its link to her lineage. But when he uncovers the truth it is already too late, and when he comes to bring this information to Heidi, Lacy intercepts and she and her sisters brutally murder him with a frying pan. A mass murder has already been arranged for the women of Salem with Heidi, now the mother of Satin at the helm.  This film is most definitely a slow burn until we reach the third act inside the theatre where we see trip type images of Heidi and the witches from the past. Goats, creatures, and nods to the dark lord bring the mayhem lurking with inside the mind of Heidi into our view.

For most of the film, Heidi is wearing bright colors and patterns. Yellows, maroon, browns, and creams, quintessential of a 70’s color pallet. Although the atmosphere of the city appears to be cold Heidi’s fashion sense pulls us into the warmth of who she is as a person. Wearing dressing with short sleeves and thigh length tunics, what one would deem a “summer wardrobe” she has brought to this cold landscape of New England’s coast. She is fun, bright, and clearly someone with eclectic taste, what we would expect from a rock radio DJ. With nods to Rush and The Velvet Underground playing as undertones Heidi is a bohemian. I would personally like to own every one of these pieces, especially that beautiful faux fur Janis Joplin style coat that she is seen in in one of the most pivotal hallucinations she has inside the church. When the music begins to consume her, the visions of Heidi become much darker. When she is wheeled down the hall and pushed into room five, we are given that iconic look of her face painted and sporting that tattered black and white sweater (which has also become the movies poster). She is using again, defeated, and the sweater captures that perfectly. Tattered with holes and unfitted to her petite frame. Peeking out from beneath it is her plaid sleep shorts, the last bit of color we see on her until she is immortalized like Jesus at the end draped in cloth atop the pile of bodies. She is gripping to the last pieces of who she was through these shorts, this colorful woman who has now been defeated by this coven. Almost as if the unseen nature of the shorts is the true Heidi hidden under this curse.

When talking about the design of this film we cannot count out the set design. The black and white (or grey tone walls in some places) perfectly contrast the pops of color on the set. Then Heidi herself becomes those pops of color. This is the perfect example of color collaboration between both designers so that what you are seeing is perfect harmony. One does not outshine the other, but rather work together to create the feeling that is present in the arch of this journey. This slow burn into madness that Zombie has crafted for us, we feel. Not just with the all-consuming music that echoes in ours and the characters minds, but this claustrophobic feeling that emerges through color as the movie progresses. Almost as if we to are traveling through the birth canal with the antichrist, till the outset when we are finally born, we are shown how delicious it is to live in Satin’s image. Look how bright and neon the world is. There is sex, fun, and a disorienting imagery we cannot help but succumb too. I know that the phrase “live deliciously” did not come into this vernacular till Robert Eggers 2015’s film The VVitch, but I do believe that a delicious effect is what this team was going for in creating this film.

When you fuck with women you don’t always get the horns, but you will get a slow and painful existence that culminates in a supernova. We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn, and we will come after you will all that we have.