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Why can’t I have nice things? OK, the age of the middle-aged white male is over, but it wasn’t me personally that messed things up. I just want a quiet life and look forward to seeing a good vampire movie, like Salem’s Lot and enjoy it. Am I allowed that? No.
Salem’s Lot is now streaming and I was looking forward to it. I’ve never read the book, but I love the original 1979 version with David Soul. However, I have not seen that for many years now.
I don’t think I’ve seen the 2004 version with Rob Lowe. This new version, from the trailer, looked half-decent. I turned off the lights, got some ‘non-noisy’ snacks and settled in for a good horror. I didn’t get one.
The movie stars Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Jordan Preston Carter, Alfre Woodward, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, Spencer Treat Clark, William Sadler, Pilou Asbaek, and Alexander Ward. Gary Dauberman directed and wrote, based on the Stephen King novel.
Dauberman wrote the screenplay for things like It: Chapters 1 and 2, which I reviewed and liked. On the reverse side, he also did The Nun 1 and 2 and has been turning Annabelle into a franchise. That’s a mixed bag there.
The Story
You know the main story of Salem’s Lot:
An author returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover that the townspeople are being attacked by a bloodthirsty vampire.
It’s 1975 and I’ve just been born and, therefore, have nothing to do with his movie. Jerusalem’s Lot is a sleepy town in middle America. A new antics shop has opened run by Straker (Asbaek) and Barlow (Ward).
The two have also purchased the old ‘haunted’ house on the edge of town. Everyone in the town knows about the house because it was the scene of a famous murder there years ago. I think that’s what happened, it was not really played out in the story here. If it was, I missed it, but I will come back to why later.
A little while afterward, Ben Mears (Pullman) gets back into town to do research on a new novel he’s writing. People start going missing and it’s because of a blood-sucking vampire. There’s no need for spoilers, you know it all.
Cherry Picking
As I said, I haven’t read the book. Stark informs me it’s one of King’s best novels. This does not show in this version of the book. Cherry picking is the best expression for it.
The story for Salem’s Lot is there, but there is also a lot missing. It’s as if Dauberman has cherry-picked the best bits and tried to cram them into a 2-hour movie. The problem is, for someone looking from the outside who has never read the book, it feels like a lot is missing.
For example, Mark (Preston Carter) is the new kid in town and gets picked on by the local bully. He stands up for himself and the bully says he needs to watch his back. This is then never mentioned again.
OK, so it shows Mark is a tough kid who can stand up for himself. Comparing it to It: Chapter 1 and 2, the bully in that story pans out. Pennywise uses him again 27 years later to attack the original group. Here, the bully was a pointless gesture.
In the original 1979 version of Salem’s Lot, the kid getting killed, and then floating up to the window is brilliant and creepy. In this new version, the kid and his brother are killed, but one of them visits Mark.
It was fairly well done and creepy, but Mark then vows to save him and makes a plan. He checks his comic books for the vampire rules; garlic, stake through the heart etc. Mark then decides that it’s Barlow who’s the head vampire and he must die. How does he come to this conclusion? Don’t know. I’m sure in the book it’s expanded upon, but here, he just seems to guess.
Logic
There are a few other glaring plot points in the movie that made no sense to me. Dr Cody (Woodard) has Ben and Susan (Leigh) in the morgue with the kid brother’s dead mum. She’s a vampire, which we knew from the trailer.
They try to make a cross, which doesn’t work, then it does in the final seconds to help the plot move along. However, Cody gets bit. She yells at Susan to get her bag, which has an anti-rabies bottle in it. They inject her with it and she doesn’t turn.
Again, this might have been explained in the book, but how is vampirism like rabies? In the movie, she explains that it can slow the flow of blood from animal bites, but seriously?
Also, why did Cody have a bottle of anti-rabies medicine in her bag? Does she carry around every medicine for any occasion? Including vampire bites, demon possession, or anti-invisibility serum.
Sting
The other thing which I don’t remember from the original Salem’s Lot was glowing crosses. In this version, anything that is a cross glows when a vampire is near. Much like Sting, Bilbo’s sword, in The Hobbit, when an orc is near.
In the scene with Cody, Ben, and Susan, they make a cross out of tongue depressors and tape, I kid you not. They try to ‘bless’ it by saying a prayer and it saves Cody. OK, so crosses have to be holy.
When Mark has the kid float through the window, Mark has a little cross at part of a model of the town, which starts glowing. When did that get blessed? Mark’s reconstruction of the town is so good, that even the church is holy?
There are a few more things I could unpack, but I’m honestly wasting my time. I’ve already wasted 2-hours watching the bloody movie!
The Cast
The cast in this is mostly terrible. I may be a little harsh, but there are some really bad performances. We first meet Straker giving instructions to drop off a crate to the house. He is very camp, a little over the top, and made me giggle to be honest. Also, Straker and Barlow are barely even in the movie.
As I said, this is the first scene and I kind of checked out from here. It was like watching a Hallmark production. Ben turns up and ‘flirts’ with Susan. Both of them are laughable.
The rest of the cast are just as bad. There are some great actors in there, I love William Sadler, he is usually great, but here. He is a shadow of his former self, and I include his role as Death from Bill & Ted in that statement.
I’m being a little unfair, some of the cast are good, but just not great.
Overall
My main cause for complaint around this new version of Salem’s Lot centers on Dauberman. The movie does look good, the lighting works, and some of the shots are creative, but I felt like he focused so much on the look, he didn’t focus on the acting.
I’ve always said that a director has to get the best out of the actor. If the director isn’t that good, the performances won’t be that good and this is exactly what feels wrong with this movie.
Overall, I’m very disappointed with Salem’s Lot. The story is very disjointed, there’s so much that isn’t explained, and the ending is laughable. Mild spoilers, Ben and Mark, the 15-year-old boy, kill all the vampires.
When they kill Barlow there is a shot that looks good but makes zero sense to the entire thing. There’s no blood, mainly because they couldn’t cover Mark with it (see P Diddy’s arrest report for more details). But the shot looks through Barlow at Ben. I laughed out loud at how stupid it was.
Don’t bother with Salem’s Lot. I’m going to back and rewatch the original 1979 version to get the taste out of my eyeballs.
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