Posted by Salem’s Lot; 2024; Written & Directed by Gary Dauberman, from the novel by Stephen King; Starring Louis Pullman, Bill Camp, Alfie Woodard, Mackenzie Leigh; 1h53m; Rated R; New Line; Streaming on Max October 3rd.
‘Salem’s Lot was Stephen King’s second novel, originally published in 1975. It’s one of my favorites (probably second, right behind his third release- The Shining), and has remained an overall pop-culture touch point of note for King. It has also received two previous adaptations: iconically in 1978 by Tobe Hooper and mostly forgettable in 2004 by Mikael Salomon (let’s just forget Larry Cohen’s mostly unconnected 1987 sequel, A Return to ‘Salem’s Lot, shall we?). One can argue Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass is his take on ‘Salems’ Lot; if we count it, it’s the best of the bunch. Both direct adaptations were two-part, three-hour made-for-TV movies. Written and directed by Gary Dauberman (previously holding a variety of roles in The Conjuring franchise and writer for the modern IT movies), the 2024 Salem’s Lot is a just-shy-of-two-hour made-for-theatres-but-released-to-streaming film (after test screenings, Salem’s Lot and Evil Dead Rise switch fates). All-in-all, the newest stab at adapting King’s vampire novel is a mixed bag. It’s enjoyable and watchable enough but loses steam after a great start. It’s not terrible, but not without notable flaws – mainly losing the draw of ‘Salem’s Lot in the act of translation. Ultimately this vampire movie lacks bite, to use a joke so many other reviews shall use to.
Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman, a near clone of his father Bill) is an author in a rut. To reawaken his creativity, he moves to Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, a small town where he spent a few years of his early youth before a tragedy. Unfortunately, also new to town is a vampire, Barlow (and his familiar Staker), ready to drain and/or convert what’s left of the town for his own needs. Ben and a cadre of others: young Mark (Jordan Preston Carter), new love Susan (Mackenzie Leigh, looking a lot like scream queen Barbara Crampton), teacher Matthew (Bill Camp), and Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard) realize what’s going on and try to turn the tide of town termination.
It starts solidly enough. The opening credits sequence is absolutely killer (and nearly directly primes the story arc for the viewer). One of the strengths of Daubermann’s IT script is setting up the solid set up of meeting a decent amount of townsfolk and setting the sallowness of a dying town, and he does so here as well. In the first segment, Dauberman does well to begin to enter the world of small-town life in Jersuslaem’s Lot. The town and the people have a natural, lived-in feel. Daubermann and cinematographer Michael Burgess take great steps to create an atmosphere of the era and dread. Maybe too big of steps as the myriad filters, along with the busy production design by Marc Fisichella (the setting is kept to 1975 and they want you to know this 100%), comes off as Too Much at times. Tone it down a little, and it would work better. But I’d rather have them try too hard to create something visually appealing and atmospheric than a flat nothing, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. (I particularly liked the Halloween III-esque walk in the woods of the Glick boys).
But after the strong start, the cracks begin to show. With a full hour less of screentime than the previous takes, there’s not enough room in the story to keep up with the town and its people. . Nor get to know the ones we do. The leads are thinly drawn, almost letting previous versions do the heavy lifting, and the rest of the town is left with little if even appearing at all. Then, they vanish from the film, leaving shorthand remarks to skip the second act: “It’s hard to get ahold of anyone in The Lot these days”, or shots of mail piled up. It’s so quick. It doesn’t have the decline of an unhelpable hopeless feeling. It’s not an incline but a cliff.
In its slimmed-down state, Salem’s Lot loses what makes the book work best; and issues of so many King adaptations. Without getting into a whole essay on King, his work, and products based on said work, it’s hard to adapt why his stories connect so well with readers. Essentially, he takes familiar concepts and gives them life and thoroughness through the characters, and their internal processes. A great deal of time is spent jumping into the myriad of personalities’ personal thoughts. This is how he builds his tales, and it’s hard to adapt the internal monologue to external world-building and dialogue. Take these touches away, and we’re left with near rote broad-strokes of a story: vampires and on-the-nose, very directly stated exposition-based dialogue to tell instead of show (or experience).
Thus, the most fascinating portion of the novel is lost in translation: the loss of the town.
Jerusalem’s Lot itself is a dying small town in the era where they started to fade. The drive of the story is watching as the influence of Barlow spreads and the tree of the town is pruned; akin to the spread of disease in both versions of Nosferatu (we’ll see how Robert Eggers handles this aspect in his version later this year). While Ben Mears is the audience surrogate (and with friends, an information gatherer), the novel’s strengths are watching how the permanent residents of The Lot notice the shift, and how they all get lost in it, too.
Whew, important but lengthy digression over. With all that said, Dauberman’s Salem Lot is ultimately an entertaining journey that is continually in comparison to the novel and the 1978 version. That Tobe Hooper tale remains definitive; no more proof than how much Dauberman’s version cribs. The iconic window shot (the one etched in the public’s memory) is nearly duplicated, but weaker. Honestly, much of the vampire action is unintentionally silly. Several sequences do work, and when they work they work well, but the direct subgenre action is generally unconvincing and got a laugh or two from me. In addition, 2024’s Barlow is drawn from Hooper’s version, with the more ratlike Count Orlok than the suave businessman of the novel.
Without giving it away, Dauberman does try to make the film his own with a shift in the telling of the third act. It doesn’t wholly work, but I dug the idea. The sequence is one of the stronger parts, so good on it for trying.
Salem’s Lot isn’t a bad movie by any means. It moves at a clip (since it essentially skips the 2nd act), has an atmosphere from a noticable look, even if tricks are overused, and the performances are solid. Ultimately, Salem’s Lot is a cliff notes version of the novel, leaving the viewer a little underfed, wanting just one more delicious glass of chilled blood for the night.
C
