Having spent more than a decade in the realm of music promotion, I say with experience that receiving shitty, unsolicited albums is all part of the job. Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem gets that right. Where it veers from reality is that one such package — left at reception for late-night radio DJ Heidi LaRoc — triggers mass hallucinations upon listening. (Possible timely exception: One Direction.)

Letting the needle drop on the satanic-looking slab of vinyl from The Lords, the dreadfully dreadlocked LaRoc (Sheri Moon Zombie, 2004’s Toolbox Murders) is plagued by memories involving the sacrificial rituals of a coven of witches. Strange goings-on increase exponentially at her apartment building, where a supposedly unoccupied room down the hall is alight with unspeakable activity.

Even with all its intestines-pulling, blood-puking and full-frontal nudity, Salem marks a step up the maturity ladder for Mr. Zombie, who shows more restraint in the aggro department than any of his previous films, especially his pair of Halloween remakes. The trade-off is that it doesn’t radiate the pervading sense of menace that House of 1000 Corpses and its more intense sequel, The Devil’s Rejects, possessed in proverbial spades. Armed with a strong eye, Zombie makes up for it in visuals, particularly in the nightmare/flashback sequences; he’s really a terrific director and designer.

Although certainly confined to a limited range, Mrs. Zombie holds her own as the film’s anchor. She’s surrounded by many a horror vet — Ken Foree, Meg Foster, Dee Wallace, Michael Berryman among them — who actually contribute to the project, rather than rest on the stunt casting you see in so many lesser movies. By the same token, Bruce Davison (X-Men) invests in his role with as much sincerity as he does prestige pictures. Salem is more than artful enough to deserve that, even if we know Zombie can — and will — do better. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Since 1982’s Slumber Party Massacre worked so well for producer Roger Corman, he not only wrung sequels out of it, but commissioned Sorority House Massacre as well. It’s basically the same concept, only not as much fun; still, you’d slip it a roofie. It’s also basically just John Carpenter’s Halloween, if instead of babysitting, Laurie Strode joined the Greek system.

Considering pledging Theta Sigma Theta, the quiet, Peter Pan-haired Beth (Angela O’Neill, Vicious Lips) stays the weekend at the sorority house — the kind of only-in-the-movies sorority house that appears to have about four members, one of whom decorates her room with a giant Smurf piñata. Beth has no clue that she once lived there with her family, whose members big brother Bobby (John C. Russell) slayed years ago.

Coinciding with Beth’s weekend tryout — thanks to telepathy — Bobby escapes from the state mental hospital, as slasher villains are wont to do. Stealing weapons and a station wagon, he makes his way to Theta Sigma Theta. Meanwhile, an orderly tells the cops exactly whom to look out for: “I’d say he’s 6 foot, 190 pounds, blue eyes, real pale fucker.” Meanwhile, the girls demonstrate their sisterhood in a gratuitous clothes-trying-on montage scored to what sounds like a Mike Post reject.

First- and last-time director Carol Frank clearly paid attention while serving as an assistant for Slumber, because she took the Sorority gig seriously and plugged in all the slasher genre’s necessary elements: blood, boobs and … well, that’s about it. Although she tried, one need not be paying full attention to see how padded her movie’s mere 74 minutes are; let’s just say Beth has lots of slow-moving nightmares.

Speaking of padding, it’s more than a little disappointing that not a single female in Sorority House Massacre comes close to approaching the sex appeal of its poster model, Suzee Slater (Savage Streets). Theta Sigma Theta must be that one house on campus with a stellar GPA. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Bearing more than a passing resemblance to the Mickey-Hargitay-goes-bonkers B-fave Bloody Pit of Horror, Piero Regnoli’s Italian erotic-horror number The Playgirls and the Vampire plunks five easy-on-the-eyes dancers and their Norman Fell-esque chaperone in a spooky castle during inclement weather.

The castle’s host, Count Gabor Kernassy (Walter Brandy, Island of Lost Girls), is all too willing to have these lovelies shack up at his place for the night, but warns them not to leave their rooms under any circumstances. Doing as women do, however, one ignores this piece of advice and gets bitten by a vampire. The next night, she’s already become an official member of the undead, sporting sharp new teeth as she walks around in her birthday suit.

With not much to do, the four remaining gals practice their dance steps, but each in a different style, reminding one of that rehearsal scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas. One decides to break out into an impromptu striptease. You’d think their goofball manager might take advantage of his position, but he’s perfectly happy sleeping next to a girlie magazine that he props up on a pillow and calls “Sweetheart.”

In the underground-catacombs climax, Count Kernassy and the vampire duke it out, with the latter becoming impaled on a conveniently wall-mounted spear. Via the magic of cheap animation, he degenerates into a skeleton — easily Playgirls‘ coolest scene. Only a smidgen less talk and a helping more of nekkid vampire chicks could make this obscure, black-and-white tale more fun than it already is. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Once you’ve electrocuted a woman through her nipples and sucked brains through a straw, what do you do for an encore? Blood Bath, the sophomore movie of Joel M. Reed, director of the rightly notorious Bloodsucking Freaks. As extreme as that phlegm film was, Blood Bath stands on the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s even rated PG, which should give you a good idea at how successful it is as a horror anthology: not.

The great character actor Harve Presnell (Fargo) is unrecognizable as a fright-flick director who states on set his utter disbelief in the supernatural, black magic and fate. That night at dinner, his cast members share stories to convince him otherwise. Nary a single tale is worth the time; the third is notable only for its appearance by future sitcom star Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond).

The first follows a professional killer on his unbeknownst-to-him final hit; the second, a henpecked novelist who wishes to disappear into his own fiction to escape his shrew of a wife, who gets off Blood Bath‘s lone amusing line from their marital bed: “I am not one of those cheap, immoral swingers who work in accounts receivable!”

The aforementioned third segment centers on an unscrupulous businessman locked in a vault with an African-American ghost who looks like he leapt off the poster of The Harder They Come. Finally, a Wonder Bread-white master of kung fu infuriates his shaolin masters by opening a supermarket; Reed stages martial-arts sequences as well as a pre-K class could Pippin. The entire project is dull and incompetent — a tough sit that disproves that ol’ showbiz adage of, “Any movie that ends with a rampaging goat boy can’t be all bad.” —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Without question, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is the funniest of the trilogy. Shark Attack 2 director David Worth returns, this time shifting the action from South America to Mexico (although, strangely, 95 percent of the names in the credits are Eastern European).

In this unrelated installment, a resort security patrolman (John Barrowman, TV’s Torchwood) and a natural history museum researcher (Jennifer McShane, playing a different character than she did in 1999’s original Shark Attack, yet still looking as if her plastic surgeon beat her cheeks with a ball-peen hammer) team up to rid the Mexican shores of a (fictional) Megalodon shark and its 60-foot mother. The sharks, which growl, change shape constantly, depending on whether you’re seeing live-action footage, noticeably grainier stock footage or cheap CGI.

You get to see a guy get an arm and a leg bit off, as well as a shark swallowing a boat or two whole. There’s a drunk couple who waterslides right into the shark’s mouth, and that would’ve been the best scene, if not for the one where Barrowman hits the shark repeatedly with a baseball bat. Or the skinny-dipping duo that nearly becomes lunch while screwing underwater. Or when the evil communications mogul Jet Skis directly into the belly of the beast. Or when said mogul’s partner-in-slime steals a life jacket from his own girlfriend and jumps from a boat right into Meg’s open jaws. That was pretty cool.

I’ve never experienced a Kirk Cameron vehicle, so this is the only movie I’ve ever seen where the protagonists pray in church before the final showdown. While the sentiment is appreciated, its awkward uniqueness just makes the movie goofier. This is also the only movie I’ve ever seen where the male lead is able to coax his female counterpart into bed with the misogynist (and now-famous) line, “What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?” But again, I admit to my deficiency of the Kirk Cameron filmography.

And speaking of quips, before blowing the smaller shark to smithereens, McShane says, “You’re extinct, motherfucker!,” but the final shot predictably screams Shark Attack 4 (supposedly made as 2003’s Shark Zone). Just before that, having bested the oversized creature with a torpedo and a mini-sub, Barrowman gets all cocky: “Megalo-who?” he asks with a smile … but, sigh, not with a wink. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.