Troubled disc jockey Heidi Hawthorne (a solid and appealing performance by Sheri Moon Zombie) receives a mysterious gift containing a record that has odd sounds within its grooves that trigger flashbacks to the violent witch-burning past of the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Pretty soon Heidi finds her life endangered by a coven of lethal witches.
Writer/director Rob Zombie ably crafts a potently spooky gloom-doom atmosphere that reeks of dread and unease, relates the absorbing story at a hypnotic gradual pace, grounds the premise in a believable workaday reality, goes all-out trippy in the surreal last third, and concludes everything on a bold downbeat note. Moreover, Zombie wisely keeps the cheap scares and graphic gore to a refreshing minimum as well as eschews the crude hick aesthetic of his previous films in favor of something a lot more subtle and sophisticated.
The sturdy cast of reliable genre veterans rates as another significant asset: Meg Foster contributes a superbly creepy turn as sinister head witch Margaret Morgan, Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn, and Dee Wallace are likewise excellent as members of the deadly coven, Bruce Davison makes a nice impression as amiable academic Francis Matthias, Jeff Daniel Phillips does well as the smitten Herman Salvador, and Andrew Prine has a cool, albeit minor secondary part as the stern Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne. The brooding score by John 5 and Griffin Boice further enhances the overall unsettling mood. Brandon Trust's striking widescreen cinematography offers a wealth of eerie and freaky images. A very effective slow burner of a horror film.
Writer/director Rob Zombie ably crafts a potently spooky gloom-doom atmosphere that reeks of dread and unease, relates the absorbing story at a hypnotic gradual pace, grounds the premise in a believable workaday reality, goes all-out trippy in the surreal last third, and concludes everything on a bold downbeat note. Moreover, Zombie wisely keeps the cheap scares and graphic gore to a refreshing minimum as well as eschews the crude hick aesthetic of his previous films in favor of something a lot more subtle and sophisticated.
The sturdy cast of reliable genre veterans rates as another significant asset: Meg Foster contributes a superbly creepy turn as sinister head witch Margaret Morgan, Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn, and Dee Wallace are likewise excellent as members of the deadly coven, Bruce Davison makes a nice impression as amiable academic Francis Matthias, Jeff Daniel Phillips does well as the smitten Herman Salvador, and Andrew Prine has a cool, albeit minor secondary part as the stern Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne. The brooding score by John 5 and Griffin Boice further enhances the overall unsettling mood. Brandon Trust's striking widescreen cinematography offers a wealth of eerie and freaky images. A very effective slow burner of a horror film.