Salem's Lot Year: 2004 Director: Mikael Salomon Written by: Peter Filardi Threat: Vampire Weapon of Choice: Stake Based upon: novel - 'Salem's Lot - Stephen King IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
None

Rish's Reviews
I first read the book 'Salem's Lot in my Freshman year of college, and absolutely loved it. It's one of my all-time favourite King works, and I'm probably biased because of it. But when I heard TNT was making a new mini-series of the novel and putting real money into it, I got quite excited.
Semi-successful writer Ben Mears (Rob Lowe) returns to his hometown of Jerusalem's ('Salem's) Lot with the intention of writing a book based on the town and an incident that befell him at the creepy Marsden House. He finds out, however, that the house is already occupied, by a pair of newly-arrived strangers, Misters Barlowe (Rutger Hauer) and Straker (Donald Sutherland). And these new tenants are worse than any the house (or town) had previous.
First of all, this had great casting, especially for a made for cable film. Donald Sutherland. Wow. Andre Braugher. James Cromwell as Father Callahan . . . brilliant casting. I'm sort of indifferent as to Rob Lowe. If you like him, then I like him. Rutger Hauer plays Barlowe, a major improvement over Reggie Nalder's lame 1979 version (which was a bad, buck-toothed Nosferatu clone), but hey, I dig Rutger Hauer. Samantha Mathis is the closest thing we got to a Former Celebrity, and much too old to play the character of Susan Norton. She's pretty, though.
Usually in movies like this, the cops won't help our heroes because they don't believe them about the threat. There was a nice moment where the police chief abandons our heroes because he DOES believe the threat.
This was not a great miniseries, but it definitely wasn't awful. It had nice vampire effects, with glowing eyes and creeping/floating effects. Still, Tobe Hooper achieved a lot more with a lot less technology twenty-five years ago.
It had a great start. A great first half, really. But the second half was really disappointing. We got a lot of character development, a lot of introduced characters, then a lightning-fast attempt to kill or explain all of them away in the last half hour or so.
It appears that the creators are King fans, with them including references to other adaptations, such as Cujo and Stand By Me. Some elements are slavishly recreated from the book and others seem intentionally different. I don't really get it. Characters who live in the book die here and vice versa. And my absolute favourite scene is pretty much absent from this version, which makes me almost pathetically sad. There was a huge departure from the novel at around the two-thirds mark. I don't really know why, since a lot of the changed parts didn't work. Most of the characters have been youthened except for the very young personalities (like Susan and the kids, who are all a lot older than in the book). One of the young teens has a voice that makes Isaac Hayes sound prepubescent and another looks a couple years older than Clint Eastwood. Go figure.
I guess you can only lose when you compare a filmed version to a beloved source. But the book was just so darned good (have you STILL not read it yet, tyranist?)! [tyranist: I read this in 2003, admittedly late, but prior to this mini-series nonetheless.] Perhaps it's better to compare it to the earlier filmed version. This is the second 21st Century TV version of a King adaptation originally done in the Seventies in as many years, and much like Carrie 02, the scenes from the book that are exclusive to this version are pretty good, but the scenes from the book that were also in the original were done better then.
Sadly, though the Seventies were a milder time for television than today (they even say "bullshit" in this version, something I didn't realise TNT would do), the Tobe Hooper film was scarier, more shocking, and more successful.
The miniseries is not a failure, and has a few effective moments, but falls short of its potential, which (as usual) is really sad. Perhaps the DVD will add additional scenes or moments from the TV version, but I doubt it will make a palpable difference.
I'd Recommend It To: King completists, mostly.
Posted: August 31, 2004

Total Skulls: 14

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?