Sam Panico
Originally airing on November 17 and 24, 1979, Salem's Lot is considered one of the best Stephen King adaptions and some of Tobe Hooper's finest directorial work.We open in Guatemala, where Ben Mears (David Soul, TV's Starsky and Hutch) and Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin, Enemy Mine) are filling bottle after bottle with holy water until one glows. Whatever they're chasing - or running from - has found them.After that open, we go back in time two years, to when Ben moves back to Salem's Lot, Maine. He's come back to his hometown to write about the Marsten House, an old haunted house. He pushes his luck even further, learning nothing from fellow writer Roger Cobb in House, and tries to rent it. However, Richard Straker (the superb James Mason), a stranger in town, has already bought it for his business partner Kurt Barlow.Instead, Ben moves into Eva Miller's boarding house. Soon, he's friends with Dr. Bill Norton (Ed Flanders, the TV movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden and TV's St. Elsewhere), romantically involved with Bill's daughter Susan (Bonnie Bedelia, Die Hard, Needful Things) and reconnecting with his old teacher, Jason Burke (Lew Ayers, Battle for the Planet of the Apes).Soon, Ben remembers a traumatic childhood encounter within the Marsten House and comes up with the theory that the house casts a shadow over all of Salem's Lot. It gets worse when a crate shows up to the house and people begin to die. Both Ben and Straker are suspects, but it's really Barlow (Reggie Nalder, Mark of the Devil, Bird with the Crystal Plumage). He's a vampire that wants to take over the whole town, starting with local boy Ralphie Glick and realtor Larry Crockett (Fred Willard in a rare non-comedic role and I haven't even gotten to the scene where he has to put a shotgun in his own mouth!).That's when this movie really gets frightening. The scene where Ralphie floats outside his brother Danny's (Brad Savage, Red Dawn) window is harrowing. And when Danny dies, he comes back to kill gravedigger Mike Ryerson (Geoffrey Lewis, Night of the Comet) and goes after Mark Petrie, who we saw in the opening. Luckily, Mark is a horror movie fan and he uses a cross to chase away the young bloodsucker. The way the vampires fly in this movie is really strange looking and was achieved by floating them off boom cranes instead of wires, then playing that footage backward to for an otherworldly effect.The town is quickly taken over by vampires, with Ben, Burke and Dr. Norton all trying to stop it. Even Ralph and Danny's dead mother Marjorie (Clarrisa Kaye, who as, at the time, the wife of James Mason) rises from the dead to try and kill everyone but is stopped with a cross. Mark's parents are killed by Barlow, but a priest helps him escape. And Burke has a heart attack after Mike Ryerson comes back to drink his blood.Seeking revenge, Mark breaks into the Marsten House. Susan comes to help him, but they are both taken hostage. Mears and Dr. Norton attempt to save them, but Straker kills the doctor by impaling him on antlers. Ben shoots the vampire's thrall and then he and Mark stake Barlow. They set the house on fire, driving all of the vampires from their hiding places and purifying the town. However, Susan is nowhere to be found.That's when we get back to the opening, as the rest of Salem's Lot's vampires are still chasing them. Ben finds Susan in his bed, ready to kill him. Instead of kissing her, he impales her with a stake and our heroes go back on the run - a journey that would take them to a planned NBC series that was to be produced by Richard Korbitz and written by Robert Bloch.While this movie is three hours and seven minutes long, it's an attempt to capture 400 pages of King's prose (and this is one of his shorter novels). Paul Monash, who produced Carrie and wrote for TV's Peyton Place was picked to work the novel into a filmable screenplay. One of the most noticeable tweaks is that Barlow is a cultured, well-spoken man in the novel and a Nosferatu-like bestial killer in the movie.Originally, George Romero was to direct this when it was to be a theatrical movie. He didn't feel that he could work within the constraints of television censorship. However, Tobe Hooper really succeeded with this effort, despite much of the book's violence being trimmed. That said, there is a European theatrical version that contains a longer cut of Cully threatening Larry with the shotgun. It was released in Spain as Phantasma II, a supposed sequel to Phantasm!This is not just one of my favorite King adaptions, but one of my favorite movies. It's long running time flies by and there are so many iconic moments of fright that it holds up, nearly four decades after it was filmed.
alexanderdavies-99382
It is never an easy task in adapting a Stephen King novel. His books include many details regarding plot and characters, with many intricate components. A sterling job has been done in bringing the bestselling book of "Salem's Lot" to the small screen. The mini series had to be a long one in order to include the various characters and plot details. The production also succeeded in that there is no foul language included, any sexual content is both mild and minimal and the violence serves a purpose. Regarding the fact that there were two different versions of "Salem's Lot" - one for television and one for the cinema - the only one to see, is the mini series. It has a superior narrative and a more thorough plot. In addition, the majority of the production is a flashback. David Soul plays a successful writer who returns to the town of his childhood so he can write a book based upon the notorious Marsden house. He is a man who is persecuted by an experience he had as a boy and it concerns entering the Marsden house. Soul does quite well as Benjamin Mears but James Mason gives the best performance as Straker the antiques dealer and guardian to his undead master. A plague and a wave of vampirism is about to be unleashed upon the town of Salem's Lot. The plot really warms up after about 30 minutes. Before then, all the main characters are depicted as we discover what their role in the story is. The atmosphere and suspense is well maintained throughout and looking at the location where the mini series was made, I can actually envision there being vampires roaming the countryside that surrounds Salem's Lot. There are so many great scenes. Amongst them, the scene where Lew Ayres is paid a visit at home by an undead creature of the night, children vampires stalking their prey, David Soul fending off a female vampire at the local morgue etc. As Mears, Soul displays much vulnerability and isn't exactly a "superhero" kind of character. He finds himself thrown into the position of being the hero but he isn't afraid to display his fear regarding the horrible events that take place. The ending could have been a bit better and I feel it was rushed. The Count should have come into the series a bit earlier. This is an intelligent and thought-provoking bit of television and it bears repeated viewing.
Adam Peters
(50%) For a TV movie this is worthy of at least some acclaim as it is quite a well made piece, but the fact remains all too clear: it's way too damn long. There's a fair bit to like here from the decent cast right though to the generally good direction and decent scares, but when your 90 minute horror flick elapses even biblical epics then something is not quite right. There's some memorable scenes here, and some impressively crafted sections, but the scenes of David Soul trying the very best he possibly could in closing the stupid doors to his Jeep have always somehow always stood out in my mind as oddly very funny. If you have three hours to kill this is by far not a terrible way to spend it, and this is one of the better horror TV movies ever, but three hours is a long, long time.
utgard14
One of my favorite adaptations of any Stephen King work. Not because it religiously follows the book, that's for sure. In many ways this mini-series improves upon it. Tobe Hooper creates a wonderfully spooky old-school atmosphere. There are several memorably creepy set-pieces, particularly those involving the vampire kid and, of course, every scene with the Nosferatu-like Barlow. The makeup for Barlow is very effective. CGI can't touch this. The cast and direction are great. Love the location shooting and '70s TV look. I'll admit it's not perfect. The Soul/Bedelia romance feels contrived and rushed. The subplot about the cheating wife adds nothing to the overall story. But even though it feels a little padded in places, catch the original full-length mini-series, not the shortened version. It's one of the best made-for-TV movies ever made and possibly the best vampire movie to come out of the '70s.
