Is there a Deal in the Works For Rob Zombie's "Lords of Salem"?

Rob Zombie should be waking up in Toronto this morning a happy man.

It appears that he has a little bidding war on his hands for his newest featured film “Lords of Salem” that premiered at Midnight Madness on Monday.

So far Anchor Bay is at the top of the running with a 1.5 million dollar (guaranteed) minimum offer for distribution. Image & Millennium are also in the mix along with Lionsgate and Open Road of trying to get their greedy little hands on what is being touted as Zombie’s biggest & most mature film to date.

Yes, I said mature.

If you’re expecting of along the lines of the craziness of “House of a 1000 Corpses” or the gallons of blood spilled by Michael Meyers in “Halloween” or the handheld 70’s grittiness we saw in “Devil’s Rejects” you are going to be greatly disappointed. Zombie this time around has gone from gore to  actual scare with “Lords”.

In an interview hours before the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival for “Lords of Salem”, Zombie said: “All the movies I have made in the past are these sort of very raw, handheld, physically violent type movies, where the violence is really in your face. And this movie [LORDS] is not violent at all, or bloody, or anything like that.”

HUH? Is Rob Zombie starting to get mellow in his age?

“I wanted to make something that was sort of slow paced, psychological mindfuck,” [Rob] Zombie went on to say.

For those who have had the pleasure of seeing “Lords” are saying that this may be his most darkest, most unnerving film yet.

Back in the day when [Rob] Zombie was more commonly known as Rob Cummings, growing up in Haverhill, Massachusetts (A town not to far from Salem) his elementary school used to take the students to see the reenactments of the witch trails for field trips. (how awesome would that been? The best I ever got was a trip to the JAY’S Potato Chips & got to watch them being made) So I guess we have to blame the education system of Massachusetts for giving us the likes of Rob Zombie.

However, the story for “Lords of Salem” still reminds from something out of  1970’s big budget horror we would find with guys like Cronenberg  or even in the 80‘s with the likes of Lynch (reportedly Zombie had a 2.5 million dollar budget, incidentally Zombie’s  smallest budget thus far for a film) with the premise of a DJ named Heidi (Sharrie Moon Zombie)  receives a mysterious wooden box containing a vinyl record, assuming (one should never assume…lol) that the box has come from the band “Lords” as part of their promotional package, but as Heidi plays the record to her surprise it starts to play backwards -and we all know where that leads, right?

And things just go bad from there as the next arrival (another wooden box) from the “Lords” presents Heidi and her team with free tickets, posters and records to host a gig in Salem. Soon, Heidi and her cohorts are far from the rock spectacle they're expecting. The original Lords of Salem are returning and they're out for blood.

I guess will just have to wait and see when it comes to this new, kinder, gentler Rob Zombie…lol.

Up next for the horror master? A little movie about hockey & the 1970’s Philadelphia Flyers.