Welcome Back to SALEM'S LOT

SALEM’S LOT (DVD)

1979 / 183 min

Warner Bros

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

I remember feeling tempered anticipation for this miniseries, which first aired on CBS back in the late ‘70s. As a horror fan who recently discovered Stephen King, I devoured the novel it's adapted from just a few months before. However, television was a lot different back then and I knew there was no way certain aspects of the novel would ever make it to the boob tube. 

Sure enough, Salem’s Lot was reasonably faithful to the book storywise, but certainly de-fanged (no pun intended) and sanitized to meet broadcast standards. It also didn’t help that its biggest star at the time, David Soul, was still TV’s “Hutch” to most of us and certainly wasn’t who I pictured as the protagonist (he plays him like Hutch, too). Still, I enjoyed the show for what it was, and Trilogy of Terror notwithstanding, this was about as scary as TV horror ever really got in the ‘70s.

The story is typical King, with author Ben Mears (Soul) returning to his hometown to write about an old house with a dark past that terrified him as a boy. But the big local news is the opening of a classy new antique shop, run by newcomer Richard Striker (James Mason) and his partner, Kurt Barlow, whose impending arrival is highly anticipated. In reality, Barlow is actually a vampire, with Striker as his servant preparing for his arrival. Soon after, people begin dying or go missing. But of course, they don’t remain dead for long. 

Looks like someone needs to cut back on the caffeine.

Revisiting Salem’s Lot decades later was kinda fun. It certainly looks, sounds and plays like a made-for-TV movie of the era, including frequent fades-to-black for commercial breaks. I’d forgotten how much the first half unfolds more like a nighttime soap than a horror film, with subplots involving unfaithful spouses and jealous boyfriends. But along the way, director Tobe Hooper does manage to build an increasingly creepy atmosphere (even as we suspect his hands were somewhat tied by television restrictions).

The cast is loaded with familiar faces, some who’d go on to bigger things (like Bonnie Bedelia), others who’ve been around forever. It wasn’t until re-watching it this time that I realized Elisha Cook Jr. and Marie Windsor once played together as husband and wife in the classic heist film, The Killing. They’re married in this one, too, but certainly get along better. Overall, the performances are perfunctory, save for Mason, who’s wonderfully sinister and steals the entire movie.

Salem’s Lot looks a bit quaint these days, though there’s a lot of nostalgic fun to be found here. It’s probably nowhere near as scary as you remember it, but story remains engaging and, if nothing else, it’s still better than the two subsequent attempts to remake it. Now back in print, this is a re-issue of a previously released DVD. Except for a trailer for the theatrical version, no additional bonus material is included, nor has the picture or sound been upgraded.