Salem‘s Lot (1979, Dir. Tobe Hooper)

Synopsis:

Now a successful novelist, writer Ben Mears (David Soul) returns to his home town of Salem’s Lot with the idea of writing about the creepy Marsten House on the edge of town – a place that has haunted him since he snuck into the deserted building on a dare as a child. He initially intends to rent the Marsten House whilst back in town, but discovers it has already been taken by a pair of newly arrived antique dealers, Mr Straker (James Mason) and Mr Barlow – whom no-one has seen, but whom Straker insists will arrive shortly. Undeterred, Ben stays in town, reconnecting with his former tutor, Jason Burke (Lew Ayers) and beginning a tentative romance with post graduate student Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia) – which sets the town gossiping and annoys Susan’s on/off boyfriend. Around the same time, people start to go missing in town or otherwise succumb to a form of pernicious anemia and die within a few days. It soon becomes clear that the population of Salem’s Lot are turning into vampires and unless Ben and Jason can destroy the terrifying Barlow (Reggie Nalder), there will be no humans left.

We continue our series on underrated „disturbing“ films, with this adaptation of Stephen King’s second novel, which ties in nicely with my recent album release on Spun Out Of Control – which is inspired by the most evil locations in King’s books and whose opening track, about the Marsten House, features a soundbite from this movie. It is a film that initially disappointed me as a teenager, and it was only when I rewatched it more recently that I really realized it’s fabulous eerie menace.

I’ve reviewed several adaptations of King’s work already during this blog’s history and it’s worth noting that I’ve rarely found film versions of his novels scary. This may be because I had, invariably, read the novel before I’d seen the film, so obviously knew a certain amount of what to expect. However, it’s also because I believe a great deal of what makes King’s work so scary on the page is the internalized atmosphere of terror he creates in his character’s (and by extension, his reader‘s) minds through his detailed but also abstract descriptions of terrible events. In short, reading about a character barely able to describe the horror he or she is witnessing is, by definition, more terrifying (because your own mind inevitably fills in the blanks) than actually witnessing the horror yourself. One of King’s influences was H.P. Lovecraft, who also used New England as the backdrop for much of his work and reading many of Lovecraft’s stories for the first time this year (thanks to a beautiful collected edition of his work than my wife bought me last Xmas) it’s been interesting to note the similarities in the two writers craft, when it comes to creating a sense of dread.

But I digress… The fact is, I’m often surprised by how frightened other people are by films of King’s books and this film is a case in point: loads of people on the internet claim have been traumatized by the scene where little Danny Glick floats in through his brother’s window, and even critic Mark Kermode describes the film as „very spooky“. It didn’t scare me at all when I was younger. Now, however, after not having seen it for many years, I‘m not ashamed to say that, suddenly, it did start to get to me – a little, at any rate – hence its inclusion in this series.

In my post about the first adaptation of King’s novel, IT, a while back, I stated that I believe that the TV mini series is really the ideal format for adapting King’s novels, especially the denser ones, as it’s the format that best serves King’s often multi- layered, multi-character narratives. Part of the reason I disliked this adaptation, when I first saw it as a teenager, was that it had been cut down from its original two part 184 minute length, to the more standard movie length of 112 minutes. In doing so, it cut even more of the novels beautiful build up to the story. Of King’s early novels this forms the clearest template for much of his future work: the small town setting, having a main character who, like King, is a writer and the idea that evil is drawn to certain locations (something I explored on my album). I only discovered it wasn’t the full version when I got hold of „Stephen King at the movies“ a few years later. This was a coffee table size book, detailing all the King film and tv adaptations up to that point (it was published at the end of the 80s, so I think the last film it mentions is King’s own directorial outing, Maximum Overdrive). It was a book that I loved and looked at so much it eventually fell to pieces. At the time the movie version was the only one available, I’d have to wait another couple of years before the full length mini series eventually made its debut on U.K. home video through the Terrorvision series of cult horror VHS releases that also included the first release of King‘s It and The Stand in the U.K. The full length version still takes liberties with King’s story (combining characters, making Barlow the vampire mute – in the book he speaks) in adapting it to the screen but, (as with the original version of IT) because it was made within a few years of the book’s publication, it feels somehow closer to the spirit of the novel than any modern version (even if it were done as a period piece) could ever be. The only downside is that the restrictions placed on what you can show in a TV series (at least until the advent of Netflix) have often meant the violence in King‘s stories need to trimmed back a little. Here, in a story which hinges mostly on mood and tension rather than gore or violence, it hardly matters. The scenes featuring the vampires with their unnaturally glowing eyes (created using special reflective contact lenses and a light placed behind the camera) are more than creepy enough as it is, without additional gore.

Aside from the 70s mis-en-scene (which is essential to King’s vision of the novel as Peyton Place with vampires) this adaptation has one of the best casts of any dramatization of King’s work to date. David Soul, then a TV heartthrob in Starsky and Hutch, dismantles his tough guy persona and gives one of his best ever screen performances as the writer coming back to his home town and planning to face his fears by writing a book about the Marsten house. He completely nails the haunted side to Ben Mears’ personality. Equally fabulous is the suave James Mason as Straker. Mason, who apparently came out of semi retirement to play the role, clearly relishes every moment and, as is so often the case with someone usually associated with heroic or charming characters, manages to make Straker both menacing and seductive at the same time. Another coup for the production was casting of Lew Ayers as Mears’ former tutor, Jason Burke. Ayers has such a wonderfully relaxed on screen presence, he’s perfect as the sympathetic and kind Burke.

That these are just the tip of the acting iceberg on display here, says a great deal about how amazing the cast is. The wonderful Keneth McMillan as Constable Gillespie; frequent Clint Eastwood collaborator (and father of Juliette), Geoffrey Lewis as Mike Ryerson, as well as early screen performances from Fred Willard, George Dzundza and, of course, Bonnie Bedelia as Susan. Even the young actors, and in particular Lance Kerwin who plays Mark Petrie, are superb. There’s not one performance in this entire film that feels out of place and then of course there’s Reggie Nalder whose performance and look as the ancient vampire, Barlow, is now so iconic that even people who’ve never seen the film identify the character as one of the most enduring depictions of a vampire on screen. Despite Barlow’s ghoulish appearance however, there’s very little in the way of prosthetic makeup used on Nalder. It’s his own cadaverous visage that ultimately sells the character as one of the best onscreen depictions of a King villain.

I‘ve often felt that the late Tobe Hooper never got the recognition he deserved. His first major film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was such a surprise low budget success, and such a trailblazing film for the independent horror genre, that his later output was often unfairly judged against it. Poltergeist, his other major hit movie, is often looked at as a Spielberg film in all but name (Spielberg wrote and produced it, Hooper directed it). Yet, it should be clear from watching Salem’s Lot that Hooper was just as adept at handling the quiet scenes of characters talking with one another as he is the full blown horror moments, making the long standing theory that the family scenes in Poltergeist feel closer in tone to Spielberg’s work, nonsensical. Hooper was clearly more than capable when it came to directing actors in dialogue scenes and evoking that sense of small town Americana.

A final element in the film’s success is the fantastic Bernard Herrmann – style score by Harry Sukman, which perfectly compliments the spooky tone of the story.

I will briefly mention that there was both a rubbish straight to video sequel (which King helped write the screenplay to) and a 1990s tv remake, starring Rob Lowe as Myers but they’re both so awful that there’s little point in discussing them. I‘ve also read recent rumors that there are plans to remake it once more – however, I‘m not terribly optimistic about it. The current trend for remaking King‘s work has led to a bunch of releases (the new versions of Pet Semetary and IT for example) that believe they can improve upon King‘s stories, by changing elements of his plot unnecessarily and upping the gore and jump scare quotas, completely missing the point about what’s special about King‘s novels. Most depressingly of all, they seem to be successful and King is actively promoting them, which shows that he’s not always the best judge when he comes to adaptations of his own work, or perhaps just that they’re paying him a great deal of money…

If you’ve never seen it, or have never seen the full-length version of Salem’s Lot, perhaps now might be the time to try it. Despite its slight deviations from King‘s original story, it remains one of the more faithful adaptations of his work that still holds up and remains delightfully creepy to this day. As James Mason‘s Straker suavely remarks: „You‘ll enjoy Mr Barlow… and he‘ll enjoy you.“