Trivia / The Lords of Salem

• Creator's Oddball: While it bears many of Rob Zombie's hallmarks otherwise (gritty horror, a '70s-inflected retro atmosphere, Sheri Moon Zombie in a major role), it's a cerebral Religious Horror film rather than a throwback to '70s exploitation films.
• Deleted Role:
  • Udo Kier filmed a movie with a movie as witch hunter Matthew Hopkins (of Witchfinder General infamy), but the scene was deleted.
  • Originally, Richard Lynch played Jonathan Hawthorne and Andrew Prine played a character called Judges Samuel Mather. Due to Lynch's worsening health condition (Lynch was half blind and had memory issues) he could not perform his scenes properly. This lead to Rob Zombie quickly filming new shoots for the burning scene with Prine as the reverend and omitted the judge. With most of the material with Lynch being unusable and the production being unable to procure new funds to reshot the already filmed location scenes, most of the Salem flashback plot had to be deleted, reducing Sid Haig and Michael Berryman roles as witch hunters to cameos. This also led to Rob Zombie cutting down and deleting several other subplots involving the descendants of the judge and the witch hunters in the present.
  • Making it even worse was that Rob Zombie did not audition Richard Lynch and wrote the part with him in mind, based on their previous work together. Sadly, this was not the last time that would happen.
• Self-Adaptation: Rob Zombie wrote and directed this movie then wrote its novelization.
• Troubled Production: As per the deleted role-entry above.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Goldie Hawn was considered for the role of Margaret Morgan.
  • Bruce Dern was originally cast as Francis Matthias.
  • Richard O'Brien was originally offered the role of Virgil Magnus, but was unavailable.
  • Caroline Munro was considered for Lacy Doyle.

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