'Salem's Lot' review: Max movie minimizes the messaging, focuses on the vampire scares
Stephen King’s 1975 vampire novel “Salem’s Lot” has been adapted a couple of times, first with the Tobe Hooper 1979 miniseries for CBS starring David Soul and James Mason that has become a cult classic, and then with the serviceable but largely forgotten 2004 two-parter on TNT starring Rob Lowe and Rutger Hauer that updated the time period to the 2000s. (There was also a 1987 theatrical sequel called “Return to Salem’s Lot.”)
In this age of non-stop reboots of movies and TV series from the 20th century, we now have the third iteration of “Salem’s Lot” on Max — but whereas the remake trend often means a feature film from the past is stretched to series length, e.g., the updates and/or sequels and/or prequels to “Presumed Innocent,” “Fatal Attraction,” “American Gigolo,” “Ted” and “The Karate Kid,” the latest adaptation of “Salem’s Lot” has been compressed into a feature-length film.
That means there’s not a whole lot of time for the original material’s masterful, slow-build allegory about the decay of the American small town (though there is a quick speech from one character late in the story that clearly states that message), but if you’re hankering for a streamlined vampire story that favors jump-scares, stakes to the heart, cross-brandishing and neck-biting over moody set pieces and Shakespearean dialogue and layers of deeper meaning, the 2024 edition of “Salem’s Lot” will slake your thirst.
Originally intended as a 2022 release but delayed multiple times due to COVID and the 2023 Hollywood strikes, “Salem’s Lot” returns the setting to small-town Maine in the mid-1970s, which means gas-guzzling cars, physical libraries and drive-in theaters, men with questionable facial hair, women in bell-bottoms and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” on the soundtrack. (Production design is excellent, the CGI is mid-level and the cinematography yields some haunting images.)
Writer-director Gary Dauberman, who has been a creative force behind a number of the “Conjuring” movies and wrote the outstanding screenplays for “It” and “It Chapter Two,” quickly introduces us to myriad characters — some of whom we barely get to know before they’re quickly dispatched and turned into hissing bloodsuckers.
In the fall of 1975, author Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his childhood hometown of Salem’s Lot to do research for his next novel. Ben quickly strikes up a friendship and possibly more with the smart and funny and sweet Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), an aspiring real-estate broker. There’s not a whole lot of time for romance, what with the town roiled by the disappearance of one boy, then the death of his brother, and then another death, and what in the name of Nosferatu is going on here?
Surely it has something to do with the arrival of the creepy Straker (Pilous Asbæk) and his mysterious employer Barlow (Alexander Ward), who has taken up residence in the long-abandoned house on the hill that looms over Salem’s Lot like a floating nightmare. Sure enough, Straker is what they call a “familiar,” serving the bloody hungry needs of his dark master Barlow.
The ensemble in “Salem’s Lot” is teeming with terrific and seasoned actors. Bill Camp is the teacher Matthew Burke, who is an authority on vampires and convinces Ben and Susan this is a real thing happening in their town. Alfre Woodard’s Dr. Cody and John Benjamin Hickey’s Father Callahan join the fight, along with the resourceful youngster Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston), who would have fit right in with the gang from “It.”
We even get the great William Sadler from “Die Hard 2” and “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” and “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Iron Man 3” and a million other things as Constable Perkins Gillespie, who’s about as ineffectual a law officer as you’ll ever find.
Saturated in tones that effectively fit the mid-1970s, “Salem’s Lot” has a handful of arresting scenes, as when two boys hurriedly make their way home after sunset, and we see them in silhouette and can just feel a sense of impending doom. Lewis Pullman, a good actor who’s done interesting work, is a bit of a bland sad sack as Ben, but Makenzie Leigh sparkles as Susan, and reliable hands Woodard, Camp, Sadler et al. elevate the material.
Perhaps this story actually could have benefitted from the multi-episode series treatment, thus providing room for us to get to know more about these characters and their back stories, but as an old-fashioned scary vampire movie, “Salem’s Lot” serves its purpose.