"Salem's Lot" solidly re-adapts Stephen King but feels like Cliffs Notes

Salem’s Lot (2024)

If there’s one author whose work always gets multiple iterations—no matter the small or big screen—it’s Stephen King. After Tobe Hooper’s effective 1979 two-part miniseries, as well as a 2004 miniseries that aired on TNT, King’s 1975 novel "Salem’s Lot" has been adapted once more, this time by writer-director Gary Dauberman ("Annabelle Comes Home"). What Doberman was able to do with both "It: Chapter One" and even "It: Chapter Two" is more truncated here, missing the poignancy of character relationships but certainly not lacking some of the bite. Salem’s Lot may leave one wanting more, but it has enough frightful atmosphere to fit the bill.

As the story goes, writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his Maine hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot—Salem’s Lot/The Lot for short—to get inspiration for his next novel. Shortly before arriving, antique shop owner Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward) and his assistant, Richard Straker (Pilou Asbæk), have moved into the old Morsten house on the hill. Staker is actually a Renfield-like familiar, hiding out a nasty, Nosferatu-looking vamp, who would be Barlow. That might be why the mortality rate just keeps rising, and it’s up to not only Ben but his love interest, real-estate assistant Susan (Makenzie Leigh); math teacher Mathew Burke (Bill Camp); heroic new kid in school Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter); and Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard) to stop them. 

Salem’s Lot can’t help but feel like an amalgam of Stephen King’s oeuvre, including "Needful Things" with an antique dealer bringing a dark force to a sleepy town, but in basic terms, this is “Dracula in Maine.” Where this third adaptation excels is when it’s being a vampire film in which no one is particularly safe and the sight of glowing crosses is surprisingly not that hokey. It can be duly creepy and viciously mean, and while the film as a whole never works up a head of tension, a few set-pieces are muscular enough in their craft to stand out. A dusk-set stalking scene with the Glick brothers (Nicholas Crovetti, Cade Woodward) is strikingly shot and chillingly executed in silhouette. Dauberman also subverts expectations a little when it comes to deviating from the 1979 miniseries; while nothing can quite imitate that miniseries’ unnerving image of a young boy luring his brother out of a slumber to the window, there is some spooky business involving a seesaw. There are also individual moments of panache here and there, including a cheeky transition from the opening of a Bible to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

When a film that was previously made as a miniseries can efficiently breeze through a great deal of characters and feel like enough breathing room has been devoted to each (or most of them), it’s a success. This new "Salem’s Lot" doesn’t really manage that. If it feels like the film is taking its time to develop so many characters (Alfre Woodard’s Dr. Cody doesn’t show up until 37 minutes in), the second half takes a one-week-later jump, advancing everything and lessening the emotional weight. A gravedigger is quickly introduced as a drunk, only to become a victim. Before we know it, disparate characters are banding together and ready to take down Barlow and Straker. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: B -

Warner Bros. released "Salem's Lot" (113 min.) to stream on Max on October 3, 2024.