Salem’s Lot is one of those TV milestones missed by this horror & sci-fi fan — one that I’ve only seen in bits and pieces. A desire to sink my teeth into something Halloween-ish tempted me to buy a Blu-ray from the web. At the moment it happens to be dirt cheap, too, which didn’t hurt. Several hours later, after taking in Tobe Hooper’s commentary and peeking at an old issue of Cinefantastique (Vol. 9 Number 2) we’re ready to roll.
Salem’s Lot gets so much right for a TV movie of 1979 that it feels ungrateful to say what isn’t good about it. Technically a miniseries, it showed on two consecutive nights. With all the bumpers, recaps and commercials removed the running time boils down to just over 3 hours. But as is the custom with TV movies on disc, the pauses for commercials are still there — just like many series adapted for TV streaming. There was a foreign theatrical release, at only 112 minutes. Although the TV broadcast was flat, the movie was framed for 1:78 projection. The transfer seen here is full-frame, with ample extra head- and foot- room. The trailer included is likely a theatrical item for foreign use. It has been cropped for widescreen, showing us a more impressive widescreen look.
The Stephen King novel was purchased as soon as it was published, but attempts to distill it into a feature film stalled out, reportedly after three scripts were commissioned, including drafts by Stirling Silliphant and Larry Cohen. When re-imagined for TV at a duration that could retain more of King’s characters, it gained steam with the signing of director Tobe Hooper and star James Mason. Hooper’s Hollywood career had not gotten the fastest start, and his professional helming of this major TV event was a solid step that led to his stellar association with Steven Spielberg.
Instead of compressing King’s sprawling story into a feature, the screenplay by Paul Monash keeps the general story and character framework, combining a few characters and eliminating some of the book’s more grotesque situations — like a morbid scene with a vampire-zombie mother and baby. King’s two major villians are completely changed. Instead of a cultured vampire, the head bloodsucker is a direct homage to F.W. Murnau’s classic Nosferatu. Rendered as a silent rat-ghoul, the vampire’s ‘human’ exploits are transferred to his protector-enabler, giving James Mason an especially rich character to play.
Author Ben Mears (David Soul of Starsky & Hutch) returns to his childhood town of Salem’s Lot to research the spooky reputation of the Marsten House, an old wreck on a hill above the cemetery. He makes contact with his high school mentor Jason Burke (Lew Ayres) and strikes up a romance with Susan Norton, a graphic designer-turned art teacher (Bonnie Bedelia). Ben finds that the Marsten House has been purchased by the English art dealers Richard Straker and Kurt Barlow. The formal, eccentric Straker (James Mason) is preparing to open an antiques shop, one far too tony and expensive for the little town. Barlow hasn’t yet arrived, although local trucker Cully Sawyer (George Dzundza) has been hired to bring up a large crate from Portland.
As soon as the crate arrives, a wave of mysterious illnesses, disappearances and deaths begins. Ben is soon convinced that something occult is afoot, but balks at sharing such flaky theories with Burke or Doctor Norton, Susan’s father (Ed Flanders). Burke’s young students Danny and Ralphie Glick (Brad Savage & Ronnie Scribner) are some of the first to be victimized, but their young friend Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin), a devotee of magic, monsters and the supernatural, has the fortitude to resist . . . at first.
With nothing to stop it, the vampire plague spreads quickly. People die and bodies disappear. Nobody has a handle on what’s happening, especially not Constable Parkins (Kenneth McMillan). Outsiders Straker and Mears are suspects, but some parents blame Mark Petrie’s ‘unhealthy’ interests. Ben and Mark alone go on the offensive, with a nervous assist from Dr. Norton.
Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot has more than its share of exciting, well-constructed horror scenes. After years of audience exposure to vampire pix from Universal and Hammer, it’s fun to see a big-scale picture revving up old barnstorming horror thrills, without some gimmick getting in the way.
One would think that the 3-hour format would aid in the adaptation of Stephen King’s multi-character storyline, but the extra time isn’t all that well used. Almost an hour goes by before ‘Barlow’s delivery’ arrives and the vampiric action begins; part of that time is devoted to an mostly dead-end marital infidelity subplot between Cully Sawyer, his straying wife Bonnie (Julie Cobb) and the randy real estate agent Larry Crockett (Fred Willard).
Bonnie Sawyer’s enthusiasm for sex is the closest the film comes to comedy relief. As both Joe Dante and John Landis were proving, audiences welcomed mixes of horror and humor — Dante especially succeeded in using nervous jokery as a lead-in to genuine scares, in his excellent The Howling. Tobe Hooper plays most everything straight, with only stylistic nods to Alfred Hitchcock here and there, as when subjective/objective camera angles take Susan closer to the Bates Marsten house, and Arbogast Dr. Norton climbs the grotesquely icky staircase inside.
Hitchcock sound-alikes permeate the music score by veteran composer Harry Sukman. Producer Richard Kobritz apparently asked for Bernard Herrmann flavor, and almost every cue in the show resonates with a memorable piece by Herrmann.
The basic story reminds us of the rural-set The Return of Dracula, but builds to a more apocalyptic finale. At three hours, the unspooling now seems slow, and it must have been at least a little poky in 1979. Even when they copy scenes from our favorite Hammer hits, the perhaps five minutes of actual violence and vampire action is quite well-done. Distinctive actor Reggie Nalder is a close re-creation of the legendary Max Shreck Nosferatu — with bright blue skin, golden contact lenses and yellow rat fangs. He’s quite a jolt when jumping into the frame without warning. Tobe Hooper makes good use of a moving camera in scenes in the Marsten House, at the gravesite, and in the truck carrying the inexplicably cold crate.
King’s setup includes the tradition that vampires can be subdued by the power of Catholic iconography — that’s Bram Stoker 101 lore. Especially effective are a series of scenes in which clouds of mist gather at windows as people sleep, revealing ‘child ghost vampires’ that tap at the glass for permission to enter. These window scenes may have been inspired by Mario Bava’s vampire classics. They work well — the Warner execs probably welcomed them as censor-proof replacements for Exorcist– like blood, gore, nudity and pea-soup.
The quality trade-off seems to be in the ‘business as usual’ scenes introducing the 15 or so main players and developing the romance between Ben and Susan. They are filmed in the competent but inexpressive TV movie manner, which Hollywood crews pull off with great efficiency; they’re also ‘dull stuff’ we must sit through waiting for the horror content to arrive.
The really ‘wrong’ choice is made in a key horror scene in the Petrie Home, when the demonic Barlow attacks full-on. Earthquake-like tremors first shake the Petrie kitchen, causing the lights to dim. But the lights then come back to full brightness again and stay that way for the subsequent action scene. Two killings and the kidnapping of a Priest plays out under full flat light, diminishing the monstrous Barlow’s impact. Allowed on screen only for a bare minimum of shots, Reggie Nalder’s Barlow is really used as a ‘Boo!’ special effect.
Star David Soul is not bad, but neither does he bring anything special to his role — we now fixate on his dated hairstyle. There isn’t much Soul can do with dialogue that forces him to repeatedly ask, “Can a house be Evil? Can that Evil affect people who live there?” It’s yet another dead end, as the house’s dark past is only touched upon in dialogue — we have to assume that Barlow and Straker have chosen the crumbling mansion because its history welcomes their brand of concentrated Evil.
Favorite Bonnie Bedelia (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) is wonderful in every scene — but she serves as ‘the girl’ in the movie. Her Susan is the focus of jealousy between Ben and the local plumber Ned Tebbets (Barney McFadden), and someone to be put in jeopardy when the third act needs a boost of tension.
We found that the best reason to see Salem’s Lot is to relish the performance of James Mason. Given mostly neutral dialogue to recite, the respected star turns his character into a highly original and entertaining menace. The very proper Straker glides through scenes like a formal butler, cruising about in a black Cadillac while pointedly contrasting himself with the locals. Straker is never obvious. He cooperates fully with Constable Parkins, with a mix of formal sincerity and veiled condescenscion. Mason underplays ‘telling’ dialogue. His presence energizes his every scene, even in the TV movie context.
(We recommend checking out James Mason in the 1965 movie Lord Jim. Just about when the Richard Brooks picture has lost steam and Peter O’Toole’s moral conflict is wearing out its welcome, Mason shows up as a colorful, cheerful colonial gangster, ready to steal a fortune or cut a throat. Even though Brooks doesn’t give Mason much to do, his devilish presence puts the picture right back on its feet for a few minutes.)
Kenneth McMillan gets to share several excellent scenes with James Mason. Doing well on a lesser level are Ed Flanders and gravedigger Geoffrey Lewis (The Wind and the Lion). Favorites Marie Windsor and Elisha Cook Jr., the odd couple from Kubrick’s (The Killing) are given marginal/functional roles. It’s somewhagt frustrating to yet again see Cook wasted as a gibberish-spouting drunk. Most everyone else is capable in parts that prove to be unrewarding — once the vampire plague spreads, cast members not already eliminated just disappear offscreen.
“Just Say No.”
Young Lance Kerwin gives a professional performance as the teen vampire killer. He’s good enough to put across some effective moments, as when Mark Petrie musters the strength of will to repel a vampire threat face-to-face. Mark’s family situation is a little flaky, though, a throwback to ’50s conventions. The art director has made Mark’s room into a museum of masks, posters and monster models, that looks too neat and pat — like Mark’s own long hairstyle, which makes him look like Ben Mears’ little brother.
By the third act the Stephen King storyline has leapfrogged into defeatist Invasion of the Body Snatchers territory. Most everybody dies, ‘just because.’ Saving anyone seems impossible. The filmmakers retain King’s flashback bookend structure, with Ben and Mark still dodging those damn vampires, on the run in Mexico. They now suddenly have ‘magic bottles’ of holy water that glow when vampires are close. Brian De Palma’s big hit Carrie had by this time been out for two years, so Salem’s Lot makes sure to punctuate the epilogue with a horror ‘sting.’ I’m not sure anyone would be surprised — you can’t just drop the romantic leading lady from the story without explaining where she went.
We’re told that there was a sequel in 1987 and a remake in 2004 . . .
I loved how Tarantino hated Salem’s Lot in his new book. He simply could not comprehend that it was a mini-series and not a movie.
The 2004 remake was okay, but I only watched it because it was filmed near where I live in Australia. That’s actually one of the things wrong with it – it looks like Australia and nothing like Maine.