Salem's Lot

Rating:
Summary: You'll enjoy Mr. Barlow. And he'll enjoy you...
Review: Directed by Tobe Hooper (who would go on to helm "Poltergeist"), "Salem's Lot" is a better-than-adequate condensing of Stephen King's classic horror novel. It's made all the more effective when you consider this is material originally shown on network television.

David Soul ("Starsky and Hutch") plays Ben Mears, a writer who returns to his hometown to write a novel about the local haunted house, and ends up dating Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia, future star of "Heart Like a Wheel"). Then evil James Mason comes to town, and pretty soon 70s character actors like Fred Willard, Geoffery Lewis and Elisha Cook, Jr. are dropping dead due to... mysterious circumstances. Okay, enough phony suspense. It's a vampire movie. Vampires... in modern-day Maine. And it works better than it has a right to.

Soul's not exactly tortured enough, and Lance Kerwin's a little too old to play a monster-obsessed youth, but the supporting cast, which includes Ed Flanders ("St. Elsewhere"), Lew Ayres (Paul, from the classic 1930 "All Quiet on the Western Front"), Kenneth McMillan ("Ragtime," and "Dune") and George Dzundza (everything else) more than make up for it. They're sincere, and that counts for a lot. James Mason makes a perfectly urbane villain; he's suave and dangerous, and much smarter than his undead master, who's something of a disappointment in the chills department when finally revealed.

This disk contains the entire miniseries, which manages to maintain a level of suitable creepiness, despite some dated sexual innuendo and a some "made-for-tv" scenes that aren't quite as menacing as they could be. Still, a few sequences are effectively chilling, and it's well worth your time, especially around Halloween.

Rating:
Summary: A nasty 'filling' of horror and suspense
Review: Cast your minds back, those who can remember, before the days of DVD, digital widescreen television and, for some, even VCR players. Back to a time of disco music and flares, 'Charlie's Angels', and 'Starsky and Hutch', when a new writer was emerging, churning out horrific tales, such as 'Carrie', 'The Shining', and ... 'Salem's Lot'.

What I'm talking about here, of course, is the television series which was later reworked as a feature-length movie. Ok, I admit the book is considerably more terrifying. But, all the same, the movie was pretty damn good.

Directed by Tobe Hooper (Stephen King's 'The Mangler', 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', 'Poltergeist'), 'Salem's Lot' is one hell of a creepy movie that, I think, works better on VHS than on the clear quality picture of DVD. For me, a lot of the eerie atmosphere is lost with this new technology.

So, down to the plot overview. Ben Mears (David Soul), a famous novelist, is returning to his childhood town of Salem's Lot. On arrival, he finds that something sinister is happening to the town and thinks the answer lies in the Marsten House, up on the hill. One by one, the townspeople are either getting sick or dying, and many are fleeing Salem's Lot in order to avoid this mysterious plague.

The Marsten House, coincidentally, has some new owners. A menacing character who goes by the name of Richard Throckett Straker (James Mason) and the evasive Mr. Barlow. Ben Mears decides to makes some inquiries into the reason these men have purchased the house and, during his investigation, he befriends one of the locals, the young Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) who exhibits an unhealthy obsession for the macabre.

Suffice to say, Mr. Barlow is irritated by their sudden interest, which leaves him feeling a little 'long in the tooth'. But Ben and Mark are determined to get to the 'root' of the trouble that is turning Salem's Lot into a ghost town, and so they begin with the exploration of the Marsten House. The 'stakes' are high, but the two adventurers are not put off by the inauspicious Straker. They are prepared to 'fight tooth and nail' to restore safety and order back into Salem's Lot.

If you purchase this film, I suggest you turn out the lights, close the curtains, grab a toothpick, and prepare yourself for an evening of terror and mayhem. And be warned ... you may never look at your dentist in the same way again!

A horror film to get one's teeth into!

Rating:
Summary: TV ruined it
Review: Tobe Hooper got the chance to direct an adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Salem's Lot", but he ran into a problem: it was going to be put on TV. And there lies the problem. TV puts too many restraints on the material. The movie is about a writer who returns to his home town only to realize that it is being over run by vampires. The book was a little over 400 pages long, so the only thing the TV had going for it was "Salem's Lot" was a 2 night, 4 hour mini-series, so it got a lot of the material in. The action and violence had to be toned down, so the murders were pretty dry. The vampire Barlow was a huge let down; in the book he was a European gentleman, in the movie he is a bat like creature like "Nosferatu", it was bad. The casting also had a lot to be desired. David Soul was a horrible actor, wooden like David Hasslehoff, except not as likeable. James Mason is actually much better as Mr. Straker, he actually shows the nessesary menace his role required. But isn't too bad, for four hours, the movie dose go by pretty quickly. So all in all, it's ok, if you can find it on TV one night.

Rating:
Summary: You'll enjoy Mr. Barlow. And he'll enjoy you...
Review: Directed by Tobe Hooper (who would go on to helm "Poltergeist"), "Salem's Lot" is a better-than-adequate condensing of Stephen King's classic horror novel. It's made all the more effective when you consider this is material originally shown on network television.

David Soul ("Starsky and Hutch") plays Ben Mears, a writer who returns to his hometown to write a novel about the local haunted house, and ends up dating Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia, future star of "Heart Like a Wheel"). Then evil James Mason comes to town, and pretty soon 70s character actors like Fred Willard, Geoffery Lewis and Elisha Cook, Jr. are dropping dead due to... mysterious circumstances. Okay, enough phony suspense. It's a vampire movie. Vampires... in modern-day Maine. And it works better than it has a right to.

Soul's not exactly tortured enough, and Lance Kerwin's a little too old to play a monster-obsessed youth, but the supporting cast, which includes Ed Flanders ("St. Elsewhere"), Lew Ayres (Paul, from the classic 1930 "All Quiet on the Western Front"), Kenneth McMillan ("Ragtime," and "Dune") and George Dzundza (everything else) more than make up for it. They're sincere, and that counts for a lot. James Mason makes a perfectly urbane villain; he's suave and dangerous, and much smarter than his undead master, who's something of a disappointment in the chills department when finally revealed.

This disk contains the entire miniseries, which manages to maintain a level of suitable creepiness, despite some dated sexual innuendo and a some "made-for-tv" scenes that aren't quite as menacing as they could be. Still, a few sequences are effectively chilling, and it's well worth your time, especially around Halloween.

Rating:
Summary: TV ruined it
Review: Tobe Hooper got the chance to direct an adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Salem's Lot", but he ran into a problem: it was going to be put on TV. And there lies the problem. TV puts too many restraints on the material. The movie is about a writer who returns to his home town only to realize that it is being over run by vampires. The book was a little over 400 pages long, so the only thing the TV had going for it was "Salem's Lot" was a 2 night, 4 hour mini-series, so it got a lot of the material in. The action and violence had to be toned down, so the murders were pretty dry. The vampire Barlow was a huge let down; in the book he was a European gentleman, in the movie he is a bat like creature like "Nosferatu", it was bad. The casting also had a lot to be desired. David Soul was a horrible actor, wooden like David Hasslehoff, except not as likeable. James Mason is actually much better as Mr. Straker, he actually shows the nessesary menace his role required. But isn't too bad, for four hours, the movie dose go by pretty quickly. So all in all, it's ok, if you can find it on TV one night.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Compare It To The Novel. Just LOVE It As It IS!!!
Review: Probably the BEST scary made for TV movie in my opinion. Yes, the novel is great and this made for tv movie doesn't follow it at all. (How many Stephen King novels DO, by the way?) Directed by the great Tobe Hooper with the forboding James Mason (Humbert Humbert from the film Lolita), Bonnie Bedelia, David Soul, George Dzundza, and Bonnie Barlett (St. Elsewhere) just to name a few. This movie STILL gives me nightmares of the little boy unfortunately turned into a vampire and in the middle of the night, goes a' scratching on his big brother's window to let him in! This has some GREAT special effects given the year that it was produced and it has aged QUITE gracefully.

Rating:
Summary: Fond Nightmares
Review: I was 12 when this creepy miniseries first aired on TV and SALEM'S LOT was the first Stephen King novel I read because of watching the two-part TV film. It is a little dated by today's standards, but still was a decent adaptation of King's book. Of course, there are flaws, including a giant plot hole that I have never heard any other reviewer mention: MARK AND SUSAN, IN THE TV SHOW, GO TO THE MARSTEN HOUSE TO TRY TO KILL BARLOW, BUT ARE CAPTURED BY STRAKER; MARK IS TAKE UPSTAIRS,AND TIED UP WHILE SUSAN, AS STRAKER TELLS MARK, HAS BEEN TAKEN TO SEE BARLOW, "THE MAN SHE CAME THERE TO MEET." MARK GETS FREE AND RUNS OUT OF THE HOUSE, ENCOUNTERING BEN AND DR. NORTON, AND THEY ALL GO INSIDE TO SHOOT STRAKER AND KILL BARLOW BEFORE HE CAN GET OUT OF HIS COFFIN. THE OTHER VAMPIRES START TO WAKE, BUT BEN AND MARK ESCAPE, SETTING THE MARSTEN HOUSE ON FIRE. Now, tell me this, if Barlow was killed before he could emerge from his coffin and Susan wasn't in the cellar, how did she become a vampire? Barlow never got a chance to bite her like in the novel. Why wasn't she in the cellar when Ben and Mark killed Barlow? If somehow she was killed by one of the other vampires in the house (although they were just coming awake when Ben and Mark killed Barlow), then why didn't she perish in the fire? She shows up for the epilogue, looking pretty good for a corpse.

Rating:
Summary: scream for a remake
Review: Salem's Lot is one of Stephen King's most frightening novels. Alas, Tobe Hooper was working with 1970s television and there was quite a lot he had to leave out. That's understandable but what ruined the whole thing for me was the apparent lack of understanding of the book. First, although David Soul, a journeyman actor does a decent job he looks nothing like Ben Mears is described. Soul's version of Ben is simply colorless. Second, the young actor playing Mark is too old. Mark is supposed to be 12. That's an important detail because it's Mark's very boyishness that saves him. Whereas Matt, the wise old teacher has a heart attack from the shock of his encounter with a vampire and Mark's parents simply refuse to believe, the kid is young enough to still believe in bogeymen and vampires and he reacts accordingly.

These mistakes all pale in comparison to the big bone head move that ruins the movie: Barlow. The king vampire Kurt Barlow is a deadly smooth, sophisticated, mesmerizing creature. The vampire in the movie is blue and looks like Nosferatu's idiot cousin. He's also not scary, apparently can't talk and is staked rather easily. The only true menance was James Mason (excellent casting) who looks like Straker is described but plays the part with the exactly right amount of comtempt and malice.

Rumor has it that there is going to be a Salem's Lot remake. Hopefully the writers and directors will actually read the book and will give one Stephen King's nastiest villains his due.

Rating:
Summary: Scared me to death
Review: It is always fun to watch this movie as an adult and recall how scared I was as a 9 yr old in 1979. I still can't believe they played this on network TV. As far as I was concerned, those boys that became vampires could have been me. I took my licoln log set and made cucifixes and taped them to my windows, in case any of my buddies were to float out my window in a shroud of mist. James Mason was excellent as Straker. I watch this movie 1-2 times a year and always enjoy it. No other movie, except for Jaws, scared me on such a primal level as Salem's Lot.

Rating:
Summary: Nosferatu In The Neighborhood...
Review: Director Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) had his work cut out for him. He had to take a great Stephen King novel about vampires in a small town, and turn it into a believable made-for-tv-mini-series, within the confines of network television. And he had to pull this off during the silly 70s! Well, he did just fine. SALEM'S LOT is a macabre tale of vampirism in the tiny new england town (right outside of Bangor Maine) of Salem's Lot. David "Starsky & Hutch" Soul is author Ben Mears, a semi-famous writer who used to live in SL. He's returned to write a new book about the Marsden House, a forboding mansion on a hill that has a history filled with murder and unexplained disappearances. Enter James Mason as Mr. Straker. He's opening an antique shop in town with his mysteriously absent partner, Mr. Barlow. They've purchased the long vacant Marsden House and strange happenings ensue. Kids are disappearing. Others are getting ill with some type of "anemia". Meanwhile, a huge crate is delivered with something very heavy and cold inside. Mr. Barlow has arrived! The "illness" spreads throughout Salem's Lot, causing even the hard-nosed sheriff to pack up and flee! Dr. Norton (Ed "St. Elsewhere" Flanders) tries to figure out what's making everyone sick. Ben finally convinces him that vampires are behind it all when Mrs. Glick (the missing boys' mum) rises from her autopsy table, thirsty for the red stuff! Chills abound as we follow our reluctant vampire-hunters on their quest to give The Master (Barlow) his terminal heartburn. Lance Kerwin stars as a backward kid with a monster obsession. He's also one of the only people in town with a brain! Together with Ben and Dr. Norton, the chase is on. Hooper deserves credit for working so well within such a restrictive and generally dull medium. A must-own for horror fanatics like yours truly...