Oblivion / The Lords of Salem

I'm not going to sit here and try to convince anyone that Oblivion is some sort of revolutionary movie going experience. However, on Saturday, I did a double feature, and compared to the movie that I saw after, it made Oblivion look like The Godfather.

First things first, Oblivion takes place well into the future after America defeated an alien race hell bent on wiping the planet of our resources. As Tom Cruise's Jack says in narration, we won the war but lost the planet. So, now planet Earth is pretty much a wasteland and all of the human race lives on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Everyone except Jack and his partner Victoria, that is. Victoria mans the control tower (and talks to Melissa Leo's Sally who is on a space station named Tet) while Jack zips around on a dandy little space ship and mostly fixes drones who fight off the savages still on the planet during the night. Eventually, Jack learns that he and Victoria are not alone and instead the group of savages are actually human and led by Morgan Freeman.

So, plot wise, Oblivion is mediocre. I actually enjoyed the film a lot more until the plot began to thicken and thicken. It sort of felt like the filmmakers just wanted to get in every single sci fi cliche that they possibly could. And the movie really didn't need all of that, because what works for the movie - and it works well - are the breathtaking special effects and the high octane action scenes. I sort of feel about this movie the way I felt about Wanted a few years ago (also co-starring Morgan Freeman!!) - the less plot, the better. The plot in that movie just got in the way of Angelina Jolie throwing cars at buses. And while there's nothing quite that awesome in Oblivion, it still is a pretty decent popcorn movie.

And compared to the movie I saw immediately afterwards, well, damn...

Because next came The Lords of Salem. Here is a sort of diagram about the trajectory of Rob Zombie's directing career:

House of 1000 Corpses - Awesome!!!
The Devil's Rejects - Damn Good!
Halloween - Bad
Halloween 2 - Worse
The Lords of Salem - QUITE POSSIBLY THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE

Directors careers are supposed to go opposite. You are supposed to get your shitty movies out of the way first. I mean, geez, David Fincher's first movie was Alien 3 and now he's a goddamn rock star. But, no, Rob Zombie went in the wrong direction real quick. And it's a shame because there were moments in his first two films that really showed that he actually has potential.

But I digress. The Lords of Salem is actually the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. It's so bad that the city of Salem should probably ask to have its name removed from the title. In fact, the only thing I didn't hate about the movie was the fact that it was shot in Salem and I enjoyed noticing places that I had been. The plot of the movie follows Sherri Moon Zombie's Heidi who works the night shift at a radio station and gets a special delivery of a crappy album by a band called The Lords which turns the women of Salem into homicidal maniacs. Of course, Zombie tries to tie all of this to the Salem witch trials. Of course, the movie is offensive, disgusting, ridiculous, and above all, stupid. I almost think that maybe he was just messing with us. Maybe he wanted to see just how bad of a movie he could make? I don't know. I guess he was going for a Rosemary's Baby kind of vibe but, if so, he failed miserably. The Lords of Salem have absolutely no redeeming qualities and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone - not even my worst enemy (i.e. that bitch Amanda Clark).

Grades: Oblivion - C+; The Lords of Salem - F