Salem’s Lot – The Miniseries

It’s Stephen King
I liked it because it’s helping me complete my collection of Stephen King movies

If only I didn’t feel like we were missing a major part of the storyline …
Beginning the story in Detroit with Father Callaghan feeding the homeless, only to be confronted by Ben Mears among them was a fascinating addition. If only I didn’t feel like we were missing a major part of the storyline between the events in ‘Salem’s Lot and that starting point.Some of the changes in this version of ‘Salem’s Lot didn’t appeal to me. It was a delight to have Ben Mears’s flashbacks included in the story. They were effective and creepy. I just wish they’d been closer to the ones in the book.Rob Lowe was an outstanding Ben Mears. He infused considerable pathos and passion into every soft spoken line, including his narrative voice overs. His interactions with Mark, Susan, Matt, Jimmy, Floyd, Callaghan, Straker, and Barlow and the nurse he confided his story to were riveting, leaving me hungry for more.I wasn’t sure how well I liked the change in Ben Mears’s character, the shift from his focus on the Marsten House to the town of ‘Salem’s Lot its. I didn’t like the change in his books, either, although I understood the reasoning behind the change, to make both him and his works more contemporary.In spite of all this, Ben Mears’s character was a compelling one, whom I found myself liking and sympathizing with.I’m not sure how well I liked the changes in Mark Petrie either. I really enjoyed the depiction of him in the novel as a slight, almost pretty boy whom was a lot braver and stronger than anyone guessed by looking at him. Turning him into a self assured punk, poor and fatherless, yet exuding an alpha like aura of leadership over the boy’s age took away some of the softness of his appearance and the underlying strength which made him an appealing character to me. The young man who played this version of Mark did an excellent job, though. He met Rob Lowe and matched him in power of performance. He brought depth and additional tension to the highly charged confrontations with Barlow.It was great to have Barlow played as a character rather than simply a silent monster, although Rutger Hauer isn’t whom I would have pictured or chosen in the role. He did a remarkable job, nonetheless, bringing strength and moral ambiguity to his interactions with many of the characters, all the while remaining a terrifying villain.Donald Sutherland was more overtly wicked than James Mason was in the role of Richard Straker years ago in the 1979 movie. He brought a certain measure of dark, playful humor to the character. His confrontation with Ben, half flirtatious and laced with adversarial amusement is one of my favorites in the movie.Three of the changes I thorougly enjoyed involved Matt Burke, Susan Norton, and Eva. The alteration in Matt not only brought a touch of rainbow diversity to ‘Salem’s Lot, but he served as a foil for Ben Mears as well as a mentor, opposing him alternately with optimism and cynicism when they were first getting acquainted. These made an interesting foundation in their relationship when the two of them later turned to vampire hunting.Susan showed a lot more spunk, coming closer to the book version of the character. She participated in intellectual conversations with Ben, matching wits with him, becoming much more interesting as a romantic interest and well rounded a character.Eva was simply breathtaking. A lovely, aging matriarch, a lady in the truest sense of the word, she embodied the heart of ‘Salem’s Lot and the corruption at its heart. Her secrets, along with her darkest moment brought a touch of the elements I enjoyed most in ‘Return to Salem’s Lot’, reminding me of many of the genteel ladies who’ve appeared in Anne Rice’s novels.It was a delight to see Jimmy Cody and Father Callaghan resuming larger roles in the plot. Callaghan was much darker, more interesting, and fit well within the revised plot, although I still feel like a part of that plot is missing. I also found his moment of racism while possessed gratuitous and unnecessary.I could have done without the changes to Jimmy, although the actor playing him did a marvelous job. He had some great scenes with Ben, which are among the better quiet moments.Certain plot changes rolled my eyes, others intrigued me, and homages to other works of pop cultural supernatual horror made me smile. For my overall enjoyment and the quality of the movie, I give ‘Salem’s Lot four stars.

Great series
Very well done remake

I thought the original Tobe Hooper version took liberties with King’s original (extremely scary) text… but at least it was good. This one might as well have changed the name and made itself an original B-vamp movie.It’s clear that what the writer/director mean to do is modernise the book and compare the vampire’s evil with contemporary evils (including Afganistan, for example). So they’ve made changes.But the result is a really shoddy movie that doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing. It takes an hour before I recognised a scene from the book – characters, places etc that you are familiar with have been changed beyond recognition to pander to the rather redundant and overloud message. The scriptwriter should have been shot – nobody uses the purple prose that you hear coming out of the mouths of Rob Lowe et al! It occasionally sounds like a critique of the book combined with an essay on ‘horror as metaphor’ that has been dramatised.The actors try with what they have, and Rutger is heaps better than his vamp act in Buffy! But altogether it’s a wasted movie – especially as long as it is.A real shame and a completely missed opportunity.

Just not a good movie! The book was way better!