This fun and campy vampire movie sure knows how to hypnotize you.
Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” has gotten three adaptations. The first was a miniseries in 1979 and another in 2004 with Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland in the cast. This third version is a made-for-Max movie that has a campy attitude and has a lot of fun with the horror genre. You can tell by the dialogue and how the characters are presented here, and that’s what makes it a bloody good time. Or maybe it’s a generation thing, I don’t know.
The screenplay was written and directed by Gary Dauberman, who wrote the “Annabelle” and “Nun” movies for the “Conjuring” universe and produced by James Wan, the man behind them. I haven’t been a big fan of their movies lately, and they were all big hits with movie-goers, whom, in this case, I like to call horror moths (refer back to my “Quiet Place” review). This was originally supposed to go to theaters, but given the circumstances (regarding COVID-19 and SAG-AFTRA strike related cases), it gets released on Max. But either way, I think the movie works on its own level.
The time is the 1970s, the same decade the novel was written. We meet writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman), who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine to possibly do some research for his next book. He’s been through a lot in the past, and he’ll go through a lot more as the story unfolds.
There’s a potential girlfriend-the secretary Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), who lived in Boston but came home to help her ill father. She planning to go back, and meets Ben, especially since she is reading one of his books. His picture is on the back. At first, she isn’t too fond of his return, because he’s considered to be an outsider, but she soon warms up to him. You bet she does.
There’s also the new school kid Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter), who isn’t afraid of anything, not even the school bully Richie. He doesn’t believe in running away, as it tends to make things worse. He also makes friends with the Glick brothers Danny and Ralph, who both unfortunately, become victims of the vampire Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward) and his human thrall Richard Straker (Pilou Asbaek). That means they’re either dead or they become vampires. I think we can agree they’re vampires.
But that’s just the beginning, because the graveyard digger Michael Ryerson (Spencer Treat Clark) falls victim, too, and the high school teacher Matthew Burke (Bill Camp), who lets him into his home, asks Ben and Susan for assistance. Then, Mark, Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard) and the alcoholic priest Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) all come in to contribute to this nightmare ending mission.
To fight off the vampires, if you have a crucifix, or, at least, a makeshift cross, it glows and buys the humans enough time to cast them away or escape from their clutches.
This movie version of “Salem’s Lot” lags in certain areas, but picks up regarding the characters and how they say and do things. Sometimes, they and even the main kid make smart decisions, which reminds me on the intelligence given recently in the American remake of “Speak No Evil.” As far as I’m concerned, the “Conjuring” universe has been using less common sense and more jumpscares lately, but this one doesn’t OD on them. It’s more about preparing to fight back and how things can or can’t change, once somebody who shall remain nameless gets bitten.
I’ve appreciated the performances from Pullman, Woodard, Hickey, Camp, and Carter, who all seem to blend well with the film’s choice of development. I like the silly dialogue that sneaks in. And I still enjoy looking at how the crucifixes glow. As a film version of a Stephen King novel, it may not stand on its own, but it still keeps you watching at how the 2020s treats the story, even in its 70s time period.
Streaming on Max