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.

Annabelle Comes Home

Dolly Go Lightly

Annabelle Comes Home
USA 2019 Directed by Gary Dauberman
UK cinema release print

Annabelle Comes Home is the seventh of the movies set in The Conjuring universe and for the most part, these have been successful films (I’m not talking about box office here, although that’s been good for them too on most of these, is my understanding). This one is the third of what had been a series of stand alone spin offs featuring the Annabelle doll from The Conjuring but this one also has the added bonus of having opening and closing sequences featuring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprising their roles as Ed and Lorraine Warren. Lorraine Warren passed away earlier in the year and there’s a nice little ‘In Memorium’ type statement at the end of the film before the end credits roll.

In terms of the doll centred films in general, I’m going to start off by saying that this is not as bad as the first prequel, Annabelle (reviewed here) but by no means as good as the second prequel to that prequel, Anabelle Creation (reviewed here). This one, though, is set after both of those films and starts off with the Warrens bringing the doll back to their house so they can put it in a glass case and keep the evil contained. So it’s kind of set before the bits of The Conjuring where the Annabelle doll gets out near the end and this is a whole ‘adventure’ involving the doll that somehow wasn’t mentioned in those earlier movies. So wedged in between the various installments, it kinda doesn’t help that the main protagonist of this film, Lorraine Warren’s young daughter Judy, is played by somebody totally different... a young actress called Mckenna Grace. Not that she doesn’t do a great job... it’s just confusing but, with the way child actors' faces change so quickly, probably a necessity of setting this one back a bit before the events of some of the other films.

Grace is ably supported by two other teenage antagonists played by Madison Iseman and Katie Sarife as Judy’s babysitters while the Warrens are away for an evening and if you’re thinking that this movie seems overly teenage oriented for a franchise that has, with the two main movies at least, proved to be a mature, well made series of horror films... you’d be right. This is kind of a ‘Conjuring light’ movie and the plot revolves around something which we’ve seen since the opening of the very first movie in the sequence, the Warren’s ‘trophy room’. The writers have always made it clear that the things in this room should not be disturbed in any way lest the 'evil spirits' within return to their demonic ways so, of course, this is a film about what happens when one of the three protagonists goes on a rampage of curiosity within the forbidden room and lets out, not just the Annabelle doll but a load of other nasty characters too... since the Annabelle is known for being a conduit for all things demonic.

So, yeah, spooky things are afoot and it would be remiss of me not to mention that this movie does feel a lot less like an Annabelle movie and more like Nancy Drew Meets The Conjuring. However, saying that, it’s still very good at laying on the unbearable suspense and not always so obvious jump scares which, frankly, makes it a lot more scarier than some of the other movies I’ve seen at the cinema lately (cough... Midsommar... cough... In Fabric).

In fact, right from the opening ‘mini-adventure’ involving Ed and Lorraine Warren trying to drive the Annabelle doll home before she can kill them, we have the director deliberately playing with the conventions of the horror movie format by setting up not one but two view obscuring moments which he completely doesn’t use to deliver the obvious shock moments. They follow on from each other very quickly and the first of these is when Ed pops the bonnet of his car, thus obscuring what’s going on behind the windscreen from inside, where Lorraine is seated. Straight after, Lorraine opens up a large map of the area which completely blocks out our view of her side window. So, the director already knows we are expecting at least one of these two things to be hiding a jump scare and cleverly skips these... only revealing a cast of spirits from one of the views when we already know what’s happening out there.

Later on, when the film gets into full flow, the usual horror movie rules apply, where things are consistently obscured from the camera or deliberately used to foreshadow action which doesn’t actually come from the usual, on screen sources... and it’s a nice touch which shows that the film makers are at least thinking about the way an audience can second guess where the scares are coming from and, in this way at least, the film is consistent with the two main Conjuring titled movies. So yeah, one of the strong points of these films is that they respect the audience’s knowledge of the visual and audio semantics of the horror movie enough to be able to play around with things from time to time.

Another nice thing was the appearance of the brand of rag doll which was the actual Annabelle doll from the real life case make another minor cameo in this film. I think this has happened at least twice now.

Joseph Bishara’s score is, of course, another strong element of the film and it’s another case of a modern horror film giving us some effective and listenable scoring which isn’t just about extensions of the sound design. Alas, so far there’s only a stupid electronic download of the thing but if ever a CD comes out, I’ll be first in line to buy it. In fact, if a CD doesn’t come out then it will be the first movie in The Conjuring universe to not have one... so I really hope they don’t go the Marvel route with this by not releasing ‘much wanted’ CDs for some of the films.

Ultimately, as I’ve possibly oversold here earlier, the film is like a crazy fun house ride for kids in terms of the mix of teenagers with a whole load of different demonic entities after them but it does, at least, introduce us to some characters which I feel would be nicely explored in other spin offs. The spirit from the last movie in the series, The Curse Of La Llorona (which I reviewed here) makes a brief, fleeting appearance near the very start of the movie but, alas, there’s no reference to The Nun that I could easily spot. However, I think promising characters like a spooky ferryman demon, a killer bride and a big, ferocious werewolf spirit could be happily explored in future spin offs and, I suspect, be more effectively used than they were able to be in a movie which was trying to cram them all in together before we’ve already met them all properly.

At the end of the day, if you loved The Conjuring movies and the Annabelle spin offs then you should have a good time with Annabelle Comes Home. It’s not exactly intense horror but it did procure some screams from the audience I saw it with and fans of the genre in general shouldn’t have too much of a bad time with it. Not an essential watch but if you’re a fan of the cinematic incarnation of The Warrens then you should probably give this one some of your time.