The new Salem’s Lot, directed by Gary Dauberman, is a strong remake of the classic 1979 TV mini-series directed by Tobe Hooper.
In case you haven’t read the 1975 Stephen King book, or seen either of the two miniseries (the other one is from 2004), here is a quick rundown of the story:
Author Ben Mears (here played by Lewis Pullman) returns to Jerusalem’s Lot, a small Maine town he was born in but left after his parents died in a car accident when he was 10. Mears is there to write, and seems to be fascinated with the Marsten house – a mysterious, supposedly haunted house on the top of a hill. The house has been purchased by the enigmatic Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward), who is opening an antiques shop with his partner, Richard Straker (Pilou Asbaek). Something’s not right with these two; let’s just say they might have acquired their antiques fresh off the production line.
While Mears is in town, a child named Ralphie Glick goes missing while on the way home from a friend’s house. Ralphie’s brother, Danny, develops pernicious anemia and dies a few days later. (A Stephen King novel is not a safe place to be a kid.) These are the two first victims of, yes, a vampire. Eventually the town’s entire population will turn blood-sucker or possible blood-suckee.
The first two-thirds of this Salem’s Lot is remarkably similar to the 1979 TV miniseries. Everything from Mears meeting and falling for pretty local girl Susan (Makenzie Leigh) in the real estate office, to the delivery of Barlow’s coffin, are almost identical to director Tobe Hooper’s visualizations. Writer-director Dauberman’s adaptation packs less detail, given that it is a two-hour movie compared to three-hour original. The biggest changes come in the third act (which I won’t reveal to you), and were particularly helpful considering that the original’s final fight was a little bland. Let’s just say the changes involve a drive-in movie theater used to spectacular effect.
I love how, as in the 1979 Salem’s Lot, this film doesn’t have people dancing around the fact that vampires are attacking the town. There are no long, pointless scenes with characters debating whether there might be a more down-to-earth explanation. The audience knows it’s a vampire story, and the film doesn’t avoid it.
This modern Salem’s Lot is set in the 1970s, which I found odd, as it fails to embrace a retro sensibility. Other than justifying the drive-in-theater scenes, the filmmakers didn’t really play up anything that would tie the story to the unbathed grunginess of the era.
There were a few changes that I liked. For example, I’m glad they scrapped the original’s distracting sequence in Guatemala. I am sure that bit was much better fleshed out in the novel by Stephen King (I have not read it – though I have read It) but it seemed like those scenes were used in the Tobe Hooper version just to add runtime.
There were also some changes that I didn’t like, in particular the way crosses glow when in proximity to a vampire. It felt cheesy to grant T-shapes the same power as Bilbo Baggins’s elven short-sword, and it feels like a cheat to give humans a warning in advance (or it would have, had the concept been used as more than an afterthought).
Perhaps the most important difference (to horror fans, at least) concerns the effectiveness of the vampires. Barlow is considerably more wretched and scary, but he is seen less frequently in this Salem’s Lot. The other, “sidekick” vampires just aren’t as scary as Tobe Hooper’s versions. These new Salem’s Lot’s vampires are formulaically updated: They have pale skin and look hungover. The original vampires had a stoic demeanor that made them creepier. I missed the slow, eerie scratching at the window.
Ultimately, Salem’s Lot 2024 is a strong remake that could have made a good theatrical release. The changes were few, but the last act is a strong, appropriate, and enjoyable change.
