Synopsis
A novelist and a young horror fan attempt to save a small New England town which has been invaded by vampires. (via IMDB)
The 70s were a fun time, especially when rounding into the 80s. They had some spectacular horror films, books and television productions crop up. If you want proof please see The Howling, An American Werewolf in London and The Shining for details. There were a lot of wonderful horror-based entertainment pieces to rise from their creepy graves to terrorize audiences and Salem’s Lot helped to jumpstart that a bit.
While I can’t say much for the acting or the goofy writing, or the outdated special effects, the entire premise of Salem’s Lot is horrifying and the suspense that comes with it equally so. Both elements were helped by a string of production decisions that upped the value of the visuals with the leader of them coming from Tobe Hooper, pre-Poltergeist. Hooper is a master of doing more with less with more focus on creating atmosphere over bloody scenes. He did it with Poltergeist and those roots shine through Salem’s Lot.
The story of Salem’s Lot surrounds the return of writer Ben Mears (David Soul) to his hometown in New England. Upon his arrival, weird shit starts happening in the town, which includes people disappearing, dying mysteriously and vampires showing up. Things turn for the worst when most of the town goes vampire and Ben and crew have to fight their way through to not only potentially bring the head vampire down that has been leading the conversion, but also possibly redeem the town before it’s too late.
The show starts off slow, spending a lot of time developing its characters, sometimes to a goofy dialogue-driven fault, but things start to pick up towards the end. There are plenty of moments, especially if you’re used to how special effects and shows go nowadays, that will make you chuckle a little, but overall the story that is laid out in a perfect three act structure does a strong job of portraying the conversion, panic and horror that come with King’s original writing. In short, this is one of the better Stephen King adaptations that made it to television, though not perfect.
Does all of it work? No. As I stated prior, the special effects are a hard sell, as are moments that are completely unnecessary to the entire body of work (see Fred Willard’s adultery scene for details — yes, I said ‘Fred Willard’ and yes, the scene was way too long),but that doesn’t stop it from chugging along. In addition, if you’re a fan of the book, there are some differences between the novel and screenplay (shocking, right?), which King himself apparently gave his blessings on. Some characters were omitted, some locations were changed and some subplots completely thrown out. The main crux of the story is intact and still pushes forward, but it’s no way a perfect adaption.
The story still ends the way it should and pulls off what it intends on pulling off. Add to this the talents of James Mason, a very creepy Reggie Nadler as head vampire Kurt Barlow, as well as director Tobe Hooper pre-Poltergeist days and you have yourself a strong miniseries that deserves a lot of praise for what it pulled off in 1979.
The miniseries was as creepy as it was goofy, so there is some good value and balance in one package.
Overall, Salem’s Lot still stands as one of the more complete miniseries from the King library. It’s slow at the beginning, but contains solid atmosphere and creepy characters in a horror setting that combine to drive home the story.
As with the IT and Cat’s Eye reviews, the HD upgrade that this 1979 miniseries received is damn good. It looks and sounds great for a show that was still rocking the 4:3 ratio.
Finally, in the special features category you get some commentary from director Tobe Hooper and an international trailer. Not much, but far better than some releases.
