Horror Movie A Day: Salem’s Lot

Today’s selection is the 1979 miniseries, Salem’s Lot, based on the novel by Stephen King, starring Hutch from Starsky and Hutch. A lot of people my age and younger are familiar with the 112 minute quick-paced international cut. It was the one shown on cable and released on VHS home video. I only wish I had been watching that version. This version sits pretty at the 3 Hour Mark. Back in 1979 with Commercials it ran for four hours, split into two nights. That probably would have been easier to take. But to watch this in one sitting is a chore. Nothing terrifying starts to happen until the 50 minute mark.  You’re probably saying to yourself, well Stephen King novels tend to be wordy and full of exposition, they need extra time to flesh out the story. If that we’re the case, I’d be right there with you. But it’s not, they never really touch on any of the other themes in the novel, they stick to vampires here and your usual horror movie shenanigans. You got the doomsayer warning everyone and your usual cast of non believer’s making him feel stupid for scene after grueling scene.

The movie begins with two men in South American church. They’re refilling their vials of holy water and believe that they have been discovered. The movie flashes back to 2 years earlier, in the small town of Jerusalem’s Lot. A couple of newcomers have arrived. A pair of antique dealers, Straker and Barlow, that have the town abuzz with the new shop they are getting ready to open, and Ben Mears (played by David Soul aka Hutch) author and former resident of Salem’s Lot. He has returned to write a book about the town’s haunted house that struck a chord with him when he was a child. A house that is currently being leased by Straker and Barlow.

Children begin to disappear and others are having nightmares, and waking up tired and weakened. Many are rushed to the hospital with cases of anemia. It quickly  becomes apparent that the town has a Vampire that is infecting the resident’s who are in turn attacking their own families and friends.  Mears believes he has been drawn back to Salem’s Lot and the house to release the town from it’s evil grip. He is joined by his former schoolteacher, the local town Doctor and a young teen into Famous Monsters and the occult. They quickly discover that Barstow, the silent partner in the antique business, is behind it all and Straker is his henchman.  The film ends exactly where it begins, in a church in South America, with Hutch and the monster geek on the run from Vampires. I think this premise would have made for a great series, Hutch and the Monster Geek Vs. The Vampires.

This movie isn’t all that terrible. When the frights do come, they are still shocking 30 years later. No surprising since the director Tobe Hooper (Poltergeist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) knows quite a thing or two about  supernatural horror flicks. In a scene where Barstow enters a family’s living room, their furniture starts to move about and shake, it's very reminiscent of Poltergeist.

The head villain Kurt Barstow is a little silly as a Nosferatu clone. And his final scene is a bit anticlimactic. But you really wouldn’t expect a human to go head to toe with an ancient vampire. Unless she’s the chosen one.

But they let Straker (played by James Mason) do all the talking for him anyways. And he’s a great creepy old English bastard. A Super powered old English Bastard. He’s the only one that actually puts up a fight in the end. The film also pulls no punches, people who would live in other horror films, don’t make the cut here, They make victims and Vampires out of small children and babies!

If this was your little brother floating out the window, would you let him in?

This creepy scene with the boy floating outside the second floor window, like a possessed Peter Pan, whimsically enticing his brother to let him in will probably stick in my head for a little while. I’m reminded of the scene it inspired in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, where Luke Perry's friend is begging to be let inside, and Luke Perry tells him to go home. The friend begs to be let in again cause he’s hungry, and once again Luke Perry denies him and says ”Dude, You're floating! C'mon, man”

Overall this film is worthy of a viewing. For Stephen King and Vampire fans I definitely recommend it. If you can find the shorter version, I recommend it even moreso. As it stands I give it Two and a Half Stakes through the Heart.