Is The Lords of Salem Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 5 out of 10. It's a slow, strange film built on dream logic, with some jump scares and unsettling imagery.
🐱THE SCARE SIGNAL
SCARE SCORE
5 /10
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
DREAD LEVEL
Medium
The strange imagery tends to stay in your head through the next evening.
DOG
Dog: fine
fine, no dog dies.
Ruling: It is a slow, hallucinatory film, so watch it if you enjoy being unsettled.
The Lords of Salem runs one hundred and one minutes and spends most of them in the head of a radio DJ who has a bad week. It starts when a wooden box with a record in it turns up at her station.
The premise, briefly
A recovering addict who works as a radio DJ in Salem, Massachusetts receives a record from a band called The Lords, and its sound starts triggering visions of the town's witch trials.
How much do you want to know?
🐱
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
🐱CUT TO THE CHASE
How it ends
Heidi joins the coven's ritual at The Lords' concert, where she gives birth to a crawfish-like creature. The next day the radio reports that 32 women died by mass suicide at the concert, and that Heidi has disappeared.
The scene you're dreading
Near the end, at the concert, the female audience members take off their clothes while Heidi has visions and gives birth to a strange creature on top of the bodies. Expect nudity and a disturbing surreal sequence.
The dog
No dog dies in The Lords of Salem. Heidi's dog warns her about danger and is kept out of harm's way.
The Lords of Salem is a slow descent into a hallucination, and its worst scenes are strange and sexual.
THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A record nobody asked for
Heidi is a recovering drug addict who works as a DJ at a hard rock station in Salem, Massachusetts. Her co-workers are Whitey and Munster. A strange wooden box arrives with an album by a band called The Lords. When she and Whitey play it, the record is a series of ominous string and woodwind sounds, and Heidi sees women devoted to Satan perform a ritual birth, after which they condemn the baby. The next day she interviews Francis Matthias, who has written about the Salem witch trials. Afterward the station plays the record on the air, and every woman in Salem falls into a trance. Megan, who reads palms and is Lacy's sister (Lacy is Heidi's landlady), tells Heidi she is fated to give in to her dark sexual desires.
Heidi goes into the empty apartment 5, where she sees a demon and a nude witch who orders her to bleed them a king. She wakes in bed and decides it was a nightmare. Still shaken, she goes to a Catholic chapel and dozes off, and dreams that the priest sexually assaults her. She runs away and meets a ghostly figure. Meanwhile Matthias researches the Lords and finds the same music in a book. He tracks down the author, who explains that back in the 1600s Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne accused a coven of writing the music so it could rule over Salem's women. Hawthorne had the women executed, but their leader Margaret Morgan first cursed Hawthorne's bloodline, saying it would carry the devil's child into inheriting the earth. Matthias then learns that Heidi descends from Hawthorne.
Tea with the landlady
Heidi's visions get worse and she relapses. Lacy and her sisters Sonny and Megan come into Heidi's apartment and take her to apartment 5, where she sees what looks like a huge opera house and a demon on a throne who embraces her with tentacle-like limbs. When Matthias tries to tell Heidi the truth about her family, Lacy and her sisters invite him in for tea, ask what he wants, and kill him with a frying pan. Heidi hears it happen and does nothing. Whitey is still checking on her, and he goes to her apartment so they can attend the concert together. Heidi ditches him to go alone.
A concert with a very involved audience
This is the scene people dread, and it is near the end. At The Lords' concert, Lacy, Sonny, Megan and the ghosts of the coven perform a satanic rite, and Heidi joins in. The music makes the women in the audience take off their clothes. While surreal visions play out around her, Heidi blissfully gives birth to a creature that looks like a crawfish, on top of the naked bodies of the audience. Heidi is blissful throughout, and the mass suicide is only reported the next day.
The ending, explained
The next day, Heidi's station reports that 32 members of the Salem Historical Lifer Society, all women descended from Salem's original settlers, died by mass suicide at the concert. The report adds that Heidi has disappeared. Matthias is dead, killed by Lacy and her sisters. At the concert Heidi joined the satanic rite and gave birth to a creature that looks like a crawfish.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is The Lords of Salem scary?
Yes. The Lords of Salem is a 5 out of 10 with medium dread. It is built on slow hallucinatory imagery and unsettling sound, and the disturbing scenes are dreamlike.
How does The Lords of Salem end?
Heidi joins the coven's ritual at the concert and gives birth to a strange creature. The next day the radio station reports that 32 women died by mass suicide there and that Heidi has disappeared.
Does the dog die in The Lords of Salem?
No dog dies in The Lords of Salem. Heidi's dog alerts her to danger and is kept out of harm's way.
Is there a post-credits scene in The Lords of Salem?
Nobody has confirmed either way whether The Lords of Salem has a scene after the credits.
Why is Heidi at the center of The Lords of Salem?
Heidi is a descendant of Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne, who had the Salem coven executed. Before the executions their leader Margaret Morgan cursed his bloodline, saying his descendants would carry the devil's child into inheriting the earth.
BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
The whole plot of The Lords of Salem is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
The Lords of Salem takes one hundred and one minutes to get a DJ from a strange package to a strange concert. Install Scaredy Cat and it will blur horror before you see it.
