Stephen King’s best-selling novel about a vampire has attracted me with its ability to engage readers. The third installment of the film is set to release soon and I cannot tell how much excited I am to see how this adaptation goes. Alan Parker’s “Salem’s Lot” and a mini-series that aired in 1979 were this particular story’s previous adaptations. I was fascinated to learn how Stephen Dawbarman shaped the final cut into an engaging film using the enormous amount of footage collected. I think that King’s fans will be satisfied after the release of Salem’s Lot due to the respect and admiration shown towards the story. The anticipated film features David Alpay in the role of Richard Straker and he had all my attention throughout the film. His character managed to steal the spotlight throughout as he grasped the audience with able acting skills.
In an interview just before filming commenced, Dauberman mentioned that the film aimed to bring back the scare factor with vampires by going back to the root of bloodsucking and gore as opposed to the romantic portrayal which is often the focal point of most vampire movies today. To an extent, he has been correct. Just like the first part of the 1979 Cobra mini-series, Orlock from Nosferatu exerted great influence on the appearance of the Count as a vampire. (A scrappy, rotting dead body is, in any case, not alluring in the slightest.) But the plot proceeds at such a rapid pace that one doesn’t have time to build towards anything, as such. The vampires feel a lot like what zombies have become – soulless and without personality, they are creatures that roam around the night.
The film starts with Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman lookalike of his father Bill Pullman), returning to his hometown Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine after 25 years. He wants to write a book about the Marsten House, an old building with a nasty history that has recently come into possession of antique dealers Richard Straker (Pilou Asbaek) who operates the store on Main St, and his seldom seen associate, Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward). As Ben gets all settled in, he befriends high school teacher Matt Burke (Bill Camp) and falls in love with Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh) who romantically reciprocates. These three as well as Father Callahan, Doctor Cody (Alfre Woodard), and student Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter), become vampire hunters when it turns out that something dark is afoot at the Marsten House and Barlow, an ancient vampire is responsible for the gruesome disappearances of a few kids in the town.
The major change between the 2024 version and the 1979 version is obvious. Even though both are based on King’s novel, the extra hour given to the mini-series allows the storyline to expand. The characterizations are more developed. The setting is much closer to a small American town full of its peculiar people. And the picture builds without any hint of the bloodsucker’s first arrival, which is never present, although a few shots were too influenced by camera tricks, like I said, Dauberman’s version.
The bloodsucker is very freakish and disturbing, but any film that takes the Max Schreck line of portrayal will annoy me. He never really does much except emerge out of the dark and occasionally strike out violently, making him an ambiguous opponent. The heroes are not very heroic either, and while this holds in the novel, King spends 400 pages fleshing them out which is something that Dauberman does not have the luxury to do. People become surgical patients in slasher films, only each is counting the seconds until it is their time to be killed. The performances are decent, though few are remarkable.
Salem’s Lot was first conceived in the aftermath of It with a view of collaborating with the audience who yearned for another high-profile King adaptation. The principal photography took place during 2022 and the movie went through several delays in its release until Warner Brothers decided to skip the theaters and go directly to Max. (Considering this scenario, it is strange that scenes that were cut out to make the film ‘multiplex-timeslot friendly’ were not put back for this version.) Only time will tell how the film will be well received because in all scenarios there are ups and downs. King has given his thumbs up (as is his wont when the movie follows the most basic details of the novel) but there is a possibility that the fans might be sad. Salem’s Lot feels like a work that reflects the ethos of how readers level expectations regarding certain works and while the homosexual tone was pleasantly surprising, the thematic continuity felt sparse, with the marks of the too clearly marked the fingerprints of the editors. One can only reasonably presume that a full-length movie based on the best work thus far of King deserves something better than this rush job.
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