Adapting a famous Stephen King novel, especially one that already spawned a cult mini-series directed by none other than Tobe Hooper himself, has got to be a pretty big uphill struggle.
There are few people who probably understand this better than screenwriter Gary Dauberman, who adapted both IT and IT: Chapter 2 for modern audiences. Dauberman's proven himself twice in that regard, and now with Salem's Lot (which he also directs), he pulls off a sensationally creepy hat trick.
Dauberman's feature-length take on King's classic vampire novel is a solidly entertaining scare-fest that pays homage to the original adaptation while also doing its own thing.
Pulling us straight back into the mid '70s with the thematically appropriate sound of Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown," Salem's Lot starts with horror writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) rolling back into his hometown of Jerusalem's Lot to find some inspiration for his next novel.
Little does he know he's about to have it served up to him on a plate. The town has two new residents providing plenty of mystery and action: ancient vampire Barlow (Alexander Ward) and his human caretaker Richard Straker (Pilou Asbæk), who are hellbent on turning the town into their personal diner and army of the undead.
There's also a budding romance between Ben and local retailer Susie Norton (Makenzie Leigh), but it gets quickly overshadowed by snowballing disappearances and a fight for survival.
How do you even begin to make a vampire movie these days? The genre is so packed full of lore and stereotypes that it's hard not to fall into the trap of predictability.
Salem's Lot navigates this tightrope by leaning into the legends, cleverly mixing genuine scares with tongue-in-cheek moments. There's a scene in a morgue, for instance, where key characters have to race against time to fashion a makeshift crucifix — fumbling with taping two pieces of wood together while struggling to remember the right religious words to say — and the whole thing is self-aware enough to be fun without detracting from the tension.
Despite some lighter moments, Salem's Lot is no comedy; there's plenty of horror to be found in the film. The jump scares are there, as are the creepy children made famous in the novel and series adaptation. Most importantly, Barlow himself is every bit as ominous and unpleasant as a vampire-in-chief should be.
There are a few frustrating things about Salem's Lot. Despite the self-awareness of the script, for instance, the main characters can't seem to stop falling into the same traps that horror protagonists have been falling into for decades now.
"Shouldn’t we all stay together?" says 11-year-old vampire hunter (and comfortably the best character) Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter). The response he gets — "There’s no time. Half an hour until sunset!" — is nonsensical enough to be almost enraging.
The movie has some minor issues with pacing, too. King's novel has a large cast of characters, making it better suited for a mini-series. While Dauberman's script does an excellent job of keeping up the pace and tension, it could have spent more time building the relationships between characters, especially Ben and Susie.
The good news? None of these issues are enough to spoil the film as a whole, which combines a fun script and creative direction by Dauberman with strong performances across the board. Salem's Lot pays homage to the source material and mini-series (hello, nightmarish window sequence), but it's when the film branches out and does its own thing that it really excels. The best example of this is the finale, which — without going into spoiler territory — is a thrillingly chaotic sequence that makes creative use of sunlight and a classic '70s setting to give the movie a fresh and bloody sendoff.
