‘Salem’s Lot’ Review – This Vampire Flick Could Have Stayed In The Grave
Some things just don’t go away – death, taxes, and roaches come to mind. You can add Stephen King adaptations to that list. A subgenre unto themselves, they’ve been with us for roughly 50 years, longer than Moses wandered the desert. After that long and the abundance of them, we can gather some age well, and some are better left forgotten.
Salem’s Lot has a weird place in that canon as it has a version directed by Tobe Hooper that’s considered timeless, and others that seem more disposable since they fail to capture the same magic. One, an updated miniseries with an all-star cast, aired on TNT 20 years ago, leaving much to be desired.
So it’s only fitting for the delayed remake to land on Max in 2024. Sure, it was intended for theaters, but everything was working against it. Pandemics, strikes, and shutdowns threw the world into turmoil for the last four years. This is an adequate excuse bundle for any struggling production.
If only that was the worst of the problems for this one directed by Gary Dauberman and produced by James Wan’s company Atomic Monster. With a pedigree that brought us Aquaman, the hamstrung but impressive Swamp Thing series, the Insidious movies, and the Conjuring Universe, you might think they could not go wrong.
Sadly, while some of the creative strength that made each of those crowd pleasers in their own way is present in the latest Kingly remake, it is by no means perfect. It’s also rather repetitive, doing many of the same things the other iterations did – such as vampires in the misty night showing up outside windows.
The rest of the story is a formality and you are probably well aware of its textbook beats. Writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his hometown of Jerusalem/Salem’s Lot, but he’s not the only new warm-bodied arrival in town. The mysterious and creepy Richard Straker (Pilou Asbaek), along with the unseen Kurt Barlow, open an antique store on main street. Yada, yada, yada – people start turning into bloodsuckers.
It’s standard stuff. Dauberman tries to elevate it all and give his Lot the tone of a Conjuring tie-in, which shows potential, but never sticks the landing. Off the bat, you can tell the spoilers were right about the conflicted visions. The tone is mostly dark and foreboding except for dry humor (stinking like garlic of reshoots) thrown in during the first act.
Spoilers were also right about the climax at the drive-in theater, which might be the one original idea the movie has. King called it a “big payoff,” though I didn’t think it was as satisfying as he did. He also liked Night Swim and I beg to differ with him on that too. We’d also disagree on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, as he would with most cinephiles. (Seeing a pattern yet?)
King’s tastes are questionable, and like TV’s mixed bag of miniseries adaptating his books in the 90s, Dauberman’s take doesn’t help King’s case. It’s already clear this Salem’s Lot won’t replace the Hooper version from 1979 in anyone’s mind or heart. Reportedly, Dauberman wanted a darker film that was three hours long.
I don’t think that would have helped. The current cut is mildly entertaining in spots, but it feels like it was made for where it ended up – streaming.
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Salem’s Lot
PROS
- A few imaginative shots combined with atmospheric lighting.
- Some shots depicting the theme of a dying small town.
CONS
- Barlow looks unimaginative, like he stepped out of Blade 2 or an Abrams Trek movie.
- Lewis Pullman is uninteresting and doesn't live up to Rob Lowe's portrayal of Ben in '04 (let that sink in).
- Makenzie Leigh almost steals the show and would have been a worthy lead, but her arc stays close to the every other version, leading nowhere.
- Unoriginal opening montage.
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