Salem's Lot

As it really is a wonderful and suspenseful vampire tale! Stephen King - not normally my favorite horror writer - has created one of the absolute BEST modern vampire tales in this story, and this mini-series translation is absolutely true to the feel of his tale! Instead of splatterfest effects , this show hinges itself on a high-tension spiderweb of plotlines and sets up the vampire more as a behind-the-scenes controlling evil. The terror here is not in seeing the monster, it is in NOT seeing him and knowing that he and his minions are out there, somewhere, plotting and planning with the heros stumbling blindly after them like toddlers in the dark. Give this show a chance! It may just scare you!

The story is pretty interesting and is build up well. The miniseries does an amazing job on building up the atmosphere when the vampires arrived. I really like how the vampirism spreads throughout the townsfolks. The creepiness factor really works well when the vampire shows up because it gives off a eerie vibe to it. And the climax is pretty suspenseful. There's a few flaws with this miniseries. One is that some scenes feels unnecessary and I didn't get the point of it. Also the main vampire doesn't appear a lot and only shows up 2 hours into the miniseries. While he doesn't appear a lot, he's definitely the scariest vampire I ever seen. He looks so freaky and is really threatening villain. The vampire makeup effects are really well made. I really like how the makeup looks so creepy with it's yellow eyes and Barlow blue face. The atmosphere is the best part of the movie. The miniseries does an amazing job building up the suspense to it and the vampire scenes are really effective to be creepy.

Without a doubt this television movie based on Stephen King's grand horror opus pales in comparison to its literary counterpart. But isn't that usually the case? Although missing some subplots, many characters, and having some major script changes here and there, Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot is indeed enjoyable. I watched it right after having read the book, and although I spent a lot of time seeing what it did not have...I have to confess that there were many good points. For starters, let me list some of my major complaints. The whole framed narrative story in the movie is ridiculous and very clumsily made. I also have a big problem with the gaping holes in the script with regard to characters popping up here and there with little or no expository introduction. Some characters were used to help move the plot and then discarded. Names were needlessly changed from the novel. That being said there was a great sense of style to the picture which must be credited to Hooper. Overall the acting is quite good. David Soul is very credible in his leading role, as are Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres and Ed Flanders. James Mason makes a stunning villain. Mason uses charm as a weapon and eats up the scenery with subtlety and wit. The vampire is played by horror veteran Reggie Nalder, and although he says not one word...he is very effective. The make-up on him is very reminiscent of Nosferatu. The lead-ins to commercials show the film to be dated by today's standards, but it has enough in it to be an entertaining diversion. However, PLEASE read the book first as it is one of the best of its kind and will make the film all the more enjoyable if for no other reason than seeing its defects.

I recently read Stephen Kings novel (one of his first major successes), so I thought of checking out this mini-series. It's by now more than 40 years old, and that of course shows. The pace is slower than we are now used to (the overlong almost three and a half hours didn't help with that) and the special effects are modest.

But director Tobe Hooper created a pleasantly creepy atmosphere, building up the tension gradually but very effectively; the photography is at times great (the scene of the undertaker on the graveyard for instance); the eerie musical score is exactly right; and there is some solid acting, especially by David Soul and by old school actor James Mason, who excels in his aloof and over-civilized attitude. Some scenes, like the floating vampires by the windows, now make a rather simple impression, but the make-up of the master vampire, like a Nosferatu in colour, is absolutely top-notch scary!

The series follows the novel pretty closely, they only brought back the amount of characters a bit, probably to keep everything more surveyable. The epilogue is essentially different from the book and comes a bit out of the blue, but as an (open) closure to the movie it worked fine enough.

I was fourteen years old when this film was released, and it was really a shocker for its time. Although I can see the points raised by detractors of this film, nevertheless, it is, in my opinion, one of the most truly terrifying movies I have ever seen. The scenes in which first Ralphie and then Danny Glick appear in windows at night, scratching to be let in, were utterly horrifying, as were the scenes with Mike Ryerson in Jason Burke's guest bedroom ("Looooook at me ... I will see you sleep like the dead, teacher") and Marjorie Glick in the mortuary. Along with the original "Halloween," this is a film that really, really scared me, and I feel that a key element was the lack of gore (which is probably a disappointment to younger viewers used to explicit splatter). The nonverbal dialogue of expressions and actions, the music, and the significantly occurring silences resulted in the suspense which makes a film truly frightening in my opinion.

Having said this, I do feel that the book was much, much better than the movie, and I would recommend it as one of the best vampire stories ever written (sorry, Anne Rice, but it's true). But let's be fair and realistic. It's a rare film that excels the book on which it was based. Not one of Stephen King's wonderfully (and horribly) imaginative works has EVER been committed to film in a way that has equaled the written work. Never, ever, EVER. That is something that will just never happen. If it were possible, then nobody would bother to read his books, he would become a screenwriter, and that would be a real loss for the horror genre.