Shocktober 2024 - 'Salem's Lot (2024)
“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary in the Lot recently?” – Ben Mears
Why yes, Ben. Yes, I have. Mainly, I’ve noticed there’s a new version of ‘Salem’s Lot at the multiplex which differs radically from both the book and my beloved TV adaptation from ’79 – I double billed it with Terrifier 3 on opening day and I actually enjoyed it. That’s unusual given the fact that the ’79 version is one I ritually watch most years. I take this as a sign of personal growth, especially given my disdain for the 2004 mini series with Rob Lowe.
Comparisons with both the book and the 1979 version are inevitable and I guess unavoidable. So, let’s get things going. The trouble with Stephen King’s books when adapting them for either a movie or a TV mini series is their length. King writes epic sized novels, which completely absorb the reader in a wealth of detail, twists and turns. Movie adaptations have to ditch around 70% of the source material and tend to be kind of a highlight reel of the book. Mini series tend to do a little better due to a greater running time. Most of King’s novels suffer this way. Even the ones I really like, Christine being a great example – little more than a quarter of the book is actually in the film, and I love that film. (I love the book more, though). Kubrick’s The Shining is another example – though to be honest, I prefer the miniseries by a wide margin.
This version of ‘Salem’s Lot breezes through the first 90 minutes of the original adaptation in around 35 mins. Initially, I thought this was a mistake on behalf of the director. It comes at the cost of a lot of scene setting and character development. The two parter spent a lot of its first episode exploring the town of ‘Salem’s Lot and some of its characters at a leisurely pace, with a slowly increasing sense of otherworldly menace pervading the sheer ordinariness of the town and its people. The second, concluding episode is an out and out vampire movie, with the bloodsuckers expanding their numbers exponentially. The book, or course takes even more time and is even more effective because characters we’ve grown quite fond of are turned.
So, as the film opens, we have Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) an author, coming back to Jerusalem’s Lot where he spent his early childhood. He’s there to research his next book. Also on the scene are newly arrived Straker (Pilou Asbaek) and Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward) who are opening an antique shop, and have bought the old Marsden house, an imposing structure with a bad history, which overlooks the town. Now, their story of how they have left London is quickly and efficiently told over the title sequence.
It's no surprise that Straker is the front man, Barlow’s guardian and Barlow himself is a traditional, feral vampire in the Nosferatu mode and they’re in this small New England town to feed. As they feed, the vampire numbers are increasing. We all know the story, if you’re reading this, it’s more than likely you’ve read the book and have seen one or both the previous adaptations.
What IS a surprise is that the vampires and their existence is pretty easily accepted by the normally practical minded townsfolk in this day and age. This plays into how quickly the story is told, with little time for any character development, we’re more or less straight into the action. There’s literally no plodding here – it’s a vampire movie with no pretence about being anything else, building up to a grand finale set, of all places, in the town’s drive-in movie theatre, a place where the townsfolk regularly gather. As vampires, rather than stay in their homes, or basements wherever – they’re locked in the back of their spacious cars. (Spacious because the film is set around the mid-seventies, when the book was published.) Mears and his band of local vampire hunters scour the town, finding it totally deserted and discover them in their cars, dormant until the sun goes down – and those shadows are creeping, getting ever longer.
Although a new element in the story, it makes sense, and it’s a taut sequence as our heroes engage in a race against the inexorable sunset, as soon as a car is in shadow, the trunk or boot (depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on) and there’s another hungry, angry vampire needing to be put down.
Overall, it’s an action-packed movie, a sure crowd pleaser for those of us who’ve grown weary of the romanticised vampire love stories of Twilight, Vampire Diaries or True Blood. These are predatory and animalistic. Despite being yet another adaptation of a familiar story, it brings with it a fresh new take on that story and makes me wonder if maybe it’s time to give that 2004 version another chance.
Rob Rating = 8