Radio DJ Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) receives a record from the self proclaimed “Lords of Salem” which features a strange mixture of notes repeating themselves. When played, it places certain women in Salem in a trance in addition to having an adverse affect on Heidi. Is the DJ going insane, or is she being targeted by a coven of long dead witches for a specific evil purpose?
The Lords of Salem is a “but” movie as in, this would have been really good…but. There’s something off about the film, even though I really appreciate what director Rob Zombie was going for here. It’s got that creepy vibe that’s present in some of the great (or at least more interesting) films of the late 1960s and early 1970s that I love like Rosemary’s Baby and Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.
But…
At times the film feels a little self indulgent with excess that, if toned down a bit, might have resulted in a far superior film. As it stands, The Lords of Salem, like all Zombie films, is interesting but it doesn’t quite reach the level of greatness that House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects (the latter of which is not just Zombie’s best film, but an exceptional horror film overall) did. Zombie seems more interested in style over substance here and it damages the finished product.
I’d recommend The Lords of Salem because I truly think Zombie is an interesting visionary whose films deserve an audience. However, I’d like to see him invest more time in developing a script with a stronger story and characters that we care about before applying his unique talents to committing it to film.
Annabelle begins with the same scene that opened The Conjuring, with three people relating their supernatural experiences involving a possessed doll to Ed and Lorraine Warren (here unseen). This time, however, the film follows the titular doll and how it affects the lives of John (Ward Horton) and his pregnant wife, Mia (Annabelle Wallis).
John and Mia Form live an idyllic lifestyle in the suburbs as churchgoers and friendly neighbors to the Higgins, an older couple whose estranged daughter eventually returns with a fellow satanic cult member to slaughter her parents. When they turn their sights on the Forms, John fends them off until the police arrive to save the day. The Higgins’ daughter (named Annabelle) commits suicide while holding the doll John purchased for Mia as a gift.
And now the terror begins with both the possessed doll and maybe even Satan himself attempting to lay claim to the souls of both Mia and her newborn daughter.
Annabelle is by no means disappointing…but it isn’t anything spectacular either. Director James R. Leonetti (cinematographer on The Conjuring) helms a decent horror movie that’s more evocative of the much better (and far more terrifying) Rosemary’s Baby (with similar scenes basically lifted and slightly altered from the classic). Whatever authentic “feel” The Conjuring had as a 70’s period piece is absent from Annabelle which takes place in 1969. Sure, the look of the time is there but take away the costumes and, to a small degree the sets, and this film could have been representative of any era.
There’s nothing really terrible about Annabelle. The acting is solid, the direction more than competent, and the story standard genre fare.
But I felt as if I’d seen Annabelle before. Even disregarding the film borrowing heavily from Rosemary’s Baby, nothing about Annabelle makes it a memorable horror film. Sure, there are some genuine scares, but it failed to elevate itself above literally hundreds of other films that relied upon demons, possession, scary dolls, and pregnant women being threatened by supernatural forces as fodder for story. The characters are little more than horror stereotypes even though the cast does its best with the material provided.
I suppose my main issue with Annabelle is that it falls into the trap that so many horror sequels do (even though the doll was a minor part of The Conjuring)–it explains how the evil began in a backstory.
And that ultimately undermines what makes anything scary.
Nearly every major horror “saga” has suffered from this mistake with Rob Zombie’s take on Halloween being the most memorable perpetrator of this offense*. It was always more terrifying to not know why Michael Myers snapped that day but Zombie (whose House of 1000 Corpses and particularly The Devil’s Rejects are fantastic entries into the horror genre) felt as if he had to give him a rough childhood as explanation. Once you provide a reason, you remove the mystery and that lessens the impact.
*That said, I liked parts of the film and thought his vision of Halloween would have been better served had it not been a reboot and, instead, an original idea with a new twist on it. He should have just done his own thing and created a new character and story altogether.
Annabelle can be best viewed when you’re not expecting much out of a sequel and want a film that delivers a warmed over version of your favorite horror tropes.
Oh Spider Baby, if there was any lingering doubt I wouldn’t love you, it was washed away when your theme song kicked in.
The orphaned Merrye children–Virginia (Jill Banner), Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), and Ralph (Sid Haig, House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects)– live in a dilapidated mansion and are looked after by their guardian and family chauffeur, Bruno (Lon Chaney, Jr., The Wolf Man, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein). The kids are afflicted with “Merrye syndrome”, a genetic disorder that causes them to regress emotionally and physically thanks to family inbreeding.
Though Bruno is loving toward the children, his authority over them is tenuous at best. Their condition causes them to deteriorate and they start to exhibit murderous tendencies. Virginia, the “Spider Baby”, enjoys trapping people in a “web” and then using butcher knives on them to sting her prey. Ralph is simple minded and lecherous, especially when an attractive female is around; he communicates only by grunts and groans. Elizabeth is the one usually put in charge of the others when Bruno runs an errand, but she’s just as demented as the others.
When two cousins, Peter (Quinn Redeker, whom I remember fondly as Alex Marshall on Days of our Lives) and Emily (Carol Ohmart) arrive along with a lawyer (Karl Schanzer) and his assistant (Mary Mitchel) to take control of the property, the children become even more unstable leading to even stronger murderous impulses.
Spider Baby is one hell of a good time and it’s easy to see the influence it had on House of 1000 Corpses and other genre films thanks to its combination of horror and very black comedy. Though it was released in the late 60s (but filmed in the early part of the decade and not distributed until later), it almost feels timeless.
Writer-director Jack Hill has created a classic that is as effective today as it was when released. I can imagine Spider Baby threw audiences for a loop back in ’67 and it might actually have the same effect on some today considering its morbid subject matter. The acting is first rate with all of the players contributing their own brand of oddball humor yet balancing it out with the right amount of dramatic weight to make the film as believable as possible.
Spider Baby has endured all of these years not only in the hearts of filmgoers, but also in various incarnations (as a stage show, for example) and rightly so. It’s a definite must see and highly recommended, especially as a double feature with The Rocky Horror Picture Show or one of Zombie’s films. It’s a perfect little film any time of the year, but might just be added to my permanent Halloween rotation in the future.
Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told grade: A-
This Old Haunted House 