Salem's Lot

The Stake’s Progress

Salem's Lot
USA 2024
Directed by Gary Dauberman
New Line Cinema

By my reckoning this must be the fifth time that Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (which should actually be, surely, ‘salem’s Lot, since it’s short for Jerusalem’s Lot) has been either adapted, sequalised or been inspiration for a TV or movie adaptation. Of those I’ve only seen three, including this one. So the original mini series with David Soul as Ben Mears (which I revisited and reviewed here) which I so loved in my childhood, the big screen sequel A Return To Salem’s Lot (which I’ve never seen, though I probably should because Sam Fuller is in it), another TV version of Salem’s Lot in 2004 (which, again, due to my memory of the classic version I saw when I was around 11 years old, I gave a hard pass... may come back to it), the brilliant, stealth prequel show Chapelwaite (based in part on King’s own prequel, Jerusalem’s Lot and reviewed by me here) and now this one.

This one is... well, it’s easy to say this one is not as good as the original TV mini series... so easy, in fact, that I’ll certainly say that now... it’s not as good. But that certainly doesn’t invalidate it as a movie and both versions I’ve seen tend to stray from King’s original novel somewhat. This time around it’s Lewis Pullman playing returning writer Ben Mears and he’s well matched by a great cast including Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, Jordan Preston Carter, Bill Camp, Pilou Asbæk as Straker (definitely not as good at playing an Englishman arriving from London as James Mason was, for sure... this guy seems to be playing him with a Deep Sourthern US accent if I’m not much mistaken) and Alexander Ward as Mr. Barlow (once again abandoning the book’s description of the lead vampire and returning him, just as in the original mini series, to the look of Count Orlock from Nosferatu).

Now, it has to be said that this doesn’t have the lurking, creeping fear of the original TV show... this one is more of an adrenalised romp which, perhaps is to be expected somewhat (the original show was around four hours long, after all) but, for lovers of B movie vampire pictures, this has a nice, fun atmosphere and it’s also set in the mid-1970s, around the year the original novel was released (which is useful because living in an age of mobile phones would definitely have given the main protagonists more of an edge against the vampires here).

And it has to be said, this film looks absolutely wonderful...

There’s a nice shot from inside a car where the two kids out the window are bookended by the driver’s head on the left and a reflection of his face on the right in the wing mirror, for example. Or a trek through a forest where all the twigs, branches and tree trunks... and the human figures... are all seen in silhouette and in motion while the sky is awash with blue and pink. That just looks great and the film is also full of wonderful transitions such a panning a camera down to a sign with an intricate pattern which then changes into a perfectly matching bird’s eye view of a staircase well in a house. It’s all great stuff, for sure.

And alongside a tonne of pop culture references like horror comics, Aurora model kits (I think the original used these too), posters for films like Trog and Sugar Hill and a whole raft of others, there are also references to keep Stephen King fans happy. Like an early drive through the town revealing a mechanic working on a certain 1957 red Plymouth Fury for example (yeah, we all know what that car’s called, right?). That being said, though, King enthusiasts may be a little disappointed in the final fate of Father Callahan here... no future appearance in The Dark Tower series for this iteration of the character, once again.

And I think that’s me about done with the new version of ‘Salem’s Lot. A well acted and well shot film. Not especially scary but certainly a heck of a lot of fun, for sure. Worth a watch if you like well made vampire movies but don’t expect it to be as good as either the original TV mini series, nor the splendid novel on which it was based. There are certainly much worse vampire movies out there though, for sure.