Salem's Lot - The Movies!

Salem's Lot was a hot property when it first hit the market. Stephen King was the new "wunderkind" on the horror market with his novel Carrie and the hit movie that followed it. Many Hollywood types thought the same for Salem's Lot and there was much buzz. But eventually someone had the grand idea that it would make a great mini-series on television given the length of the novel. Not a bad idea at all. Tobe Hooper was contracted to direct following his own successful flick Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And so, they made a two-part movie in 1979 which did a pretty good job of bringing the book to the screen. 

David Soul was hired to play "Ben Mears" and while he wouldn't have been my first pick, he does a good job. I only occasionally get distracted by his immovable 70's hairdo. James Mason does a great job as the vampire familiar "Straker" and his scenes are to be relished. Lance Kerwin is really good as "Mark Petrie", the boy who knows the vampire lore. Much more is made of his "Monster Kid" habits with many dandy Aurora models getting some airtime along with some vintage horror film posters. Bonnie Bedaila is exceedingly sexy as the love interest for Ben, and while she makes some poor choices, they seem not out of character or forced by the plot. Others who standout are Lew Ayers as the veteran English teacher who believes in vampires, Geoffrey Lewis as the handyman vampire, and Kenneth McMillan as the local constable. The vampire "Barlow" is changed dramatically, and in this show looks amazingly like Count Orloff from the classic silent Nosferatu. It's a solid show worthy of its reputation and features an ending not in keeping with the novel for those who appreciate the unexpected. 

I wish I could be as kind to the 1987 sequel A Return to Salem's Lot. The director for his one is Larry Cohen, a talent who makes flicks I usually cotton to, but this time he strikes out. Cohen had written a rejected screenplay for the original TV movie and if it resembled what he eventually put on screen a decade later I can see why it was rejected. We are back in Salem's Lot, that much is for sure, but the events of Stephen King's novel are largely ignored. Instead of a town assaulted by a vampire, we get a town riddled with vampires. And that might have worked if Cohen didn't insist that this settlement of Salem's Lot had always been occupied by vampires who came over to the New World along with the Puritans aboard the ill-fated Speedwell. 

Our hero is Michael Moriarty as "Michael Weber", an actor Cohen loves but who in this picture is all over the map in terms of his personality. His son is played by a newbie actor named Ricky Reed who is barely hitting his marks. Other characters, almost all of them vampires are played by reliable types like Andrew Duggan as the vampire mayor and June Havoc as Weber's aunt. There is a lot of vampire carnage which seems totally irrelevant to the plot. The town is also occupied by hybrid vampires who can operate in sunshine. The town has turned its back on hunting humans and instead relies on a healthy herd of cows to supply their bloody sustenance. It's not a back premise for a movie really, if handled with more care, but it's got almost nothing to do with King's original novel. 

There was a later adaptation of Salem's Lot starring Rob Lowe and I've seen it but didn't bother to scout up a copy for this review. It's pretty ho-hum and just treads the same ground but without the panache of a vintage 70's TV. I read that they are making a new television prequel and another film adaptation, but my interest is low on both counts. The classic from the late 70's still resonates sufficiently with this viewer. 

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Salem's Lot!

I've been trying to read a Stephen King novel for decades. The doorstops he publishes always seem to lose when I balance reading entertainment against time spent. The exception to that general rule is Salem's Lot, his second novel published under his real name in 1975. For one thing it's one of the relatively few King novel screen adaptations I enjoy and for another I really like vampire stories, especially ones like this one which promise to hearken back to classic vampire horror hijinks. I've started it a few times but always have gotten stopped. Until now. My analysis is simple, I enjoyed it mightily. 

For the few who might not already know, this novel deals with the horror of a vampire from the "Old World" coming to America to set up shop and find new victims. It's pretty much the same motivation which fired Dracula in Bram Stoker's vampire classic. He picks as his landing spot, an isolated Maine town named "Jerusalem's Lot" or "Salem's Lot" for short. There is a fascinating back story as to why this town is selected as ground zero for a vampire invasion but that's part of the secret of the novel. Our heroes are a writer named "Ben Mears" and a stout-hearted boy named "Mark Petrie". Ben is something of an outsider giving him a unique perspective and Mark is something of a "Monster Kid" giving him obscure knowledge which comes in handy. There are others who discover the plot and work to push back against it, but the death toll in this one is mighty. 

The vampire is named "Kurt Barlow" and he is a most mysterious figure as you'd suspect. Before the story is over you will discover what happens to his familiar "Straker" as well as the grim secrets of a long-dead man named "Hubie Marston". The action centers around the "Marston House" which was once owned by the secretive Hubie and now is owned by Barlow. We meet many people of the town and some never know about the evil before they succumb to it and others rally to fight but with woeful consequences. We even have a love story to hold our attention while the threat looms.  

I'm sorry I waited so long to finally give this one a proper read, but then if I hadn't waited, I'd have not had the pleasure of discovering it fresh this time. All things come to him who procrastinates I think someone said. I'll take a look at the film adaptations of this story next time. 

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Legions Of Monsters

Apparently, the late great Neal Adams hated the image above. This painting featuring Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Manphibian was the cover for Legion of Monsters #1, a last gasp attempt by Mighty Marvel to mine the black and white magazine horror market. Adams says the perspective doesn't make sense, but despite his expert reservations I love it. Not only does it have the typical power of an Adams image but it's brimming with atmosphere. It is emblematic of that time in the early 70's when comics had slipped off some of the restrictions of the Comics Code (though that code never held sway over magazines) and let loose with a cavalcade of creatures to chill the comic reading soul. I want to take a gambol through some of those mighty monsters with special attention to vampires. 

The centerpiece of my reading this month is the Tomb of Dracula series which has been reprinted a few times over the decades. I'm using the four Essential volumes which gather both the color comic as well as the Drac features from sundry black and white mags. There is no doubt that Dracula is "Lord of the Vampires" at Marvel. 

First up will be a look at the unfinished Bronze Age adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel Dracula by Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano. They were only to get about half the novel done back in the 70's but a few decades later they were at long last able to wrap up this intense look at the peculiar story that launched a thousand bats. 

One of Dracula's most implacable foes is Blade the Vampire Slayer. Blade has gone on to have a pretty successful film career with Wesley Snipes in the role, but before that he was fighting bloodsuckers in Vampire Tales and elsewhere. He's certainly worth a glimpse. 

It's almost impossible to deal with Dracula without giving a shoutout to that other vintage classic monster, the one assembled by the notorious Doctor Frankenstein. Frankenstein's Monster had a hectic and rather bizarre career in the 70's and I want to give a looksee as well. 

Deathlok is often categorized as a science fiction superhero series, but I think reading it with an eye towards horror will be instructive. Like the original Frankenstein, a novel which is considered by many the genesis of science fiction, Deathlok is a rather rugged modern reinvention of returning the dead to a form of life. 

Dracula wasn't Marvel's first vampire. That dishonor goes to Morbius, a science-based bloodsucker first forged in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. He went on to have his own series in Adventures in Fear, in fact like Dracula he was active in both the color comics as well as the black and white in the pages of Vampire Tales and elsewhere. They made a movie about Morbius recently and that too will get some attention. 

Morbius had a furry companion, the bizarre Man-Wolf. The son of Spidey nemesis J. Jonah Jameson, the Man-Wolf too debuted in ASM and wen to have a most unpredictable career in the pages of Creatures on the Loose. A young George Perez cut his teeth on this title. 

Another hirsute hero from Marvel in the 70's The Beast. Hank McCoy late of the then defunct X-Men gets a job as a scientist and goes all Dr. Jekyll on himself causing his mutation to sprout a robust pelt of gray fur (later they changed it to blue/black). This is another of Marvel's series from Amazing Adventures that seemed to straddle the superhero and horror genres. 

Another was Tigra which had the delectable Greer Nelson who had a small superhero career as The Cat get caught up in the intrigues of a cat-worshipping cult and before you know it, she's furry and ferocious. She's gone on to be a very recognizable part of Marvel's universe. And that brings up another gorgeous but very scary dame. 

Vampirella was the absolute queen of 70's horror comics. She was the creation of Forry Ackerman and Tom Sutton as a marginally comedic hostess like Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie, but before long Archie Goodwin and Sutton and later definitive artist Jose Gonzalez made her into a ravishing vamp in all sense of that word. Along with Dracula, Vampi will be showing up on the weekends as I work through some of her early misadventures from Warren Magazines. 

The 70's produced some intriguing fictional works or adaptations of same. My absolute favorite is The Kolchak Papers which spawned The Night Stalker movies and series. There's a debate that an earlier novel Progeny of the Adder was a big influence on the Kolchak material. I've at long last gotten a copy of Progeny of the Adder and I will render my opinion. I am Legend has been adapted to the big screen many times (once in the 70's) but none are better than the original 50's novel. There's a comic book adaptation too and that will get a glance. And finally, I will finally climb the mighty Stephen King vampire epic from 1975 titled Salem's Lot. I've made earlier attempts to read this novel, the only King novel I've much interest in and now I will make that trip for certain. 

If there's room, I'd like to fit in some witchery as well. First with Archie's resident witch the fetching Sabrina, a character who has had a number of versions over the many decades since her creation. Some of those quite scary. 

And finally, in the "Showcase Corner" I'm taking on The Witching Hour, one of DC's early 70's horror anthologies. This one features some delicious art by Alex Toth who designed the trio of witches - Mildred, Modred and the curvaceous Cynthia. Classic stuff with an offbeat sexy twist. 

That's a lot to do and maybe I'll not make it, but I sure want to give a go. We're Counting Down to Halloween here at the Dojo and I'm eager to see how it all turns out. 

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Creepshows!

That I have never seen the movie Creepshow is amazing to me. Part of it might be that I'm not particularly a Stephen King fan, apart from his excellent Salem's Lot. But I am a fan of Berni Wrightson, so it's good that I have at long last added his adaptation of the yarns spun in the movie to the overflowing heap I dub a collection. (Even if Berni's work is hidden beneath a worthy Jack Kamen cover.) There are five stories in the movie and in the comic, each attempting to evoke the classic EC style of storytelling with equal parts grotesque cosmic justice and just plain grotesque.

To be frank really, the stories work better in comic book form than in film. George Romero is a celebrated name, but I find his movies sometimes remote and this one seems to be style over substance. (I might rate Martin as his creepiest movie.) The characterizations are very broad and in a movie come across as unreal, which undermines any tension. The one exception is "The Crate", a yarn starring some outstanding pros such as Hal Holbrook and Fritz Weaver and this story has with actual suspense, even if it does lack depth. (I wasn't looking for depth really.)  Both Creepshow the movie and the comic are worth the trouble to visit and glad I did after all these years.

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Sabrina's Very Own Creepshow!

This alternate cover for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #5 by Robert Hack makes no secret of it's origins as a swipe/homage of a famous image by EC great Jack Kamen for the movie Creepshow.

Here are the posters on Sabrina's wall, all offering some insights into the story.

And here's the comic book Sabrina's reading, a wonderfully bright example of the work of the late great Grey Morrow for Archie's brief Red Circle Sorcery title. 

All in all an incredibly fun cover image which offers up a nifty shout out to a real classic. 

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