In the lead up to Halloween, watching more spooky movies this October! Salem’s Lot (1979) is based on Stephen King’s second novel and is one of my favourites of his books, setting the template for the ‘unimaginable evil in a small town’ plot he’d continuously return to (IT, Tommyknockers, Needful Things, etc). The CBS miniseries, which has been edited into a complete three hour movie, was directed by Tobe Hooper and stars Starsky and Hutch’s David Soul (a good lead; dug the elbow patched jackets) as the novelist who returns to his home town at the same time as a mysterious stranger, Strayker (James Mason, wonderfully debonair and shady) and his hidden associate Kurt Barlow, move into the Marsten house, a mansion that’s long rumoured to be haunted and the site of awful things. Long story short, this is a vampires thing as the town and its citizens slowly fall prey to their spell. While it has the trappings of network TV at the time (driving scenes shot in stages, not a lot of blood really, cliffhanger fade outs at the end of scenes), I do enjoy that old school style and it’s balanced by very creepy sequences that feel like waking nightmares (the floating vampire kid tapping at the window is truly unnerving). Great cast of actors including Geoffrey Lewis, Bonnie Bedelia, George Dzundza, Elisha J Cook, Marie Windsor, Kenneth McMillan and even Fred Willard. I thought Salem’s Lot a was very good adaptation, and holds up better than a lot of the other Stephen King miniseries of later decades. Available on Blu-Ray or to stream on Amazon Prime.
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