Here’s our review for “Salem’s Lot,” the latest adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel written and directed by “Conjuring” universe regular Gary Dauberman
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
There’s a moment early in the new “Salem’s Lot” remake — now available on MAX — where a young boy named Danny Glick is introduced. Him and his little brother Ralphie have befriended a new kid in school named Mark Petrie and they’re trying to warn him to keep his guard up as a local bully approaches them.
It’s during that interaction that my girlfriend shouted “Hey, isn’t that Homelander’s son? Why is he so young in this movie?”
She was referencing young actor Nicholas Crovetti, whose twin brother Cameron does indeed play Homelander’s son Ryan on the hit Amazon Prime series “The Boys” but the comment actually spoke to the odd circumstances surrounding this film.
“Salem’s Lot” — written and directed by Gary Dauberman (best known for his work in “The Conjuring” universe and writing scripts for “IT: Chapter 1 and 2”) — was actually finished shooting three years ago with a release date originally scheduled in 2022. For some unknown reason, Warner Bros. Discovery decided to pull “Salem’s Lot” from the release schedule and it felt like the movie would never see the light of day until finally the studio announced plans to drop the movie on the MAX streaming service in October 2024.
Even Stephen King — the author who wrote the original book first released in 1975 — didn’t understand why the film’s release was being delayed so dramatically.
But the time has finally arrived and “Salem’s Lot” is out in the world but was the movie so bad that MAX feared that the film would bomb so perhaps that’s why it was almost pushed back indefinitely? Well, having read the book and seen both prior adaptations — a 1979 miniseries from “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” director Tobe Hooper and a 2004 version starring Rob Lowe — it’s tough to understand why Warner Bros. Discovery was treating this film with such disregard.
Now to be clear, “Salem’s Lot” is far from a perfect film — there are a lot of flaws in this latest remake — but not enough to justify a two-plus year delay in letting this movie see the light of day.
The movie follows the same premise as the novel and previous adaptations — an author named Ben Mears (played this time by Lewis Pullman) returns to his old hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in Maine to find inspiration for his next book. Upon his return, Ben is haunted by memories of the reason he left the town in the first place — his parents were killed in a drunk driving accident — and he’s still got eyes for an old mansion that sits on the outskirts of town called Marsten House. But after arriving and befriending at least one local — a pretty girl named Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh) — Ben starts to notice some odd happenings around town. Mysterious deaths start piling up with unbelievable circumstances surrounding each and every one and it soon becomes clear that there’s an evil lurking under the surface in this tiny little village in Maine. An evil brought on by the emergence of vampires, who seek to take over Salem’s Lot before expanding to take over the whole world.
Overall the story is much the same as King’s novel but there are a few beats and characters here and there that Dauberman changes so his film isn’t just a direct adaptation. He takes some liberties with a couple of the minor plotlines but nothing that really changes the overarching story, at least at the beginning of the film.
That’s where the problems really start.
Dauberman said in an interview leading up to the release of “Salem’s Lot” that his original cut of the movie ran around 3 hours based on a 180-page script he wrote. Because there was an edict from the studio to get the film down to under 2 hours, Dauberman had to start cutting bits and pieces from his movie and leave them on the editing room floor.
Now if you’ve ever read King’s book or seen at least the 1979 adaptation, these subtractions start to feel rather obvious in this film. There are minor characters and plotlines that are effectively eliminated for the sake of time management and this movie really does feel rushed.
In odd way, “Salem’s Lot” runs for just under 2 hours but actually feels like a much shorter film somehow.
Part of the charm and mystique that makes “Salem’s Lot” such an effective story surrounding vampires taking over a small town is that it’s set up as a slow burn. You get hints of the darkness creeping around every corner but there aren’t ultra-bloody attacks or fangs showing up until much later in the story — and that’s why the book and the original 1979 adaptation worked so well because there was just more time to work with.
Unfortunately, Dauberman doesn’t have that luxury so he has to dive right into the story without a whole lot of setup. The movie suffers in that way because it’s almost impossible to feel connected to the characters because you’re jumping from one place to the next so frequently that you’re lucky to spend more than five minutes with anybody — even Ben Mears as the lead.
While “Salem’s Lot” constantly feels like it’s being forced to run to the finish line, there’s still enough to grab onto that the film is still a fun and somewhat scary reintroduction to this world of vampires. The performances are all solid, particularly Leigh playing Susan Norton, and it’s always good to see Alfre Woodard on screen no matter what.
Perhaps the most disappointing character in this film is Richard Straker — as played by “Game of Thrones” alum Pilou Asbæk — because they just don’t give him enough scenery to chew on. Straker is a new arrival in Salem’s Lot and the person who bought the mysterious Marsten House — why it’s such a haunting landmark in town is another plotline that gets ignored in this movie — and the face of the vampire takeover. Straker almost feels like a cartoon character because he’s so amped up with creepy energy that there’s no way anybody would trust this guy to sell them antique furniture (the business he opened in town) much less welcome him into their homes.
Because character development is at a minimum, Dauberman has to lean on the vampire invasion rather quickly and those scenes do work rather well. The cinematography and effects are solid throughout this film, particularly when it comes to the vampires themselves.
Perhaps the best part of “Salem’s Lot” and a huge divergence from the book is the final 20 minutes in this film. Maybe this is a controversial take but the final sequences in this remake are actually superior to any of the previous remakes, which largely stuck to the source material.
Dauberman doesn’t play by those rules with his film and that actually makes for a more harrowing conclusion when the vampires finally come out of their coffins to attack. He takes a few lessons from John Carpenter’s criminally underrated film “Vampires” by making these scenes of survival feel very authentic and rather terrifying because it really does seem at least for a moment like nobody is going to make it out alive.
Many great horror films have been ruined by a bad ending but “Salem’s Lot” might actually be rescued thanks to the final 20 minutes. Make no mistake, this by no means is a bad movie that only has a good ending — it’s just a film that feels incredibly rushed but the payoff is most definitely worth your time.
Because this film was already delayed by nearly three years, it’s seems highly unlikely Dauberman would ever get a director’s cut to see what he had planned with the full version of this movie because editing really was his greatest enemy this time around. Still, Dauberman did enough with the limited time he had to seriously make me wonder what Warner Bros. Discovery had so against this movie being released when it was originally scheduled?
While the 1979 adaptation remains the gold standard when it comes to “Salem’s Lot” films, Dauberman’s version does a good enough job with the limited time he had available to make Stephen King proud
“Salem’s Lot” get 3 out of 5 Tarman’s
