The Super Powered Fancast

Salem’s Lot

Written by Gary Dauberman (based on the novel by Stephen King)

Directed by Gary Dauberman

Starring Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Jordan Preston Carter, Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hicke, Nicholas Crovetti, Spencer Treat Clark, Pilou Asbaek, Alexander Ward, William Sadler and Cade Woodward

Rated R

Author Ben Mears returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire.

One of the biggest problems with any adaptation is that the amount of source material is always hampered by the format it is being presented in. There’s no way to tell the full story or satisfactorily get to know the characters within it in the limited runtime a movie allows. That being said, I did enjoy the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot for what it is, not what it should have been.

Dauberman’s adaptation, which he wrote and directed, is a beautifully shot and often thrilling adventure that firmly resides in the spirit of King’s original story. There is beautiful atmosphere throughout the film, but one of the things that is missing is a sense of the town itself. The town of Salem’s Lot is as much a character in the story as Ben, Susan and the others, but the story doesn’t have time to develop that for the viewer.

Things happen really fast in the film. From the first vampire attacks to the virtual takeover of the town, things escalate in an entertaining and thrilling manner. While you don’t really get to know the characters well in the film, the actors do a great job of making you care about them. I wanted to know more about the tortured writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman). I was interested in the budding romance between Ben and Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh). Unfortunately, I never got a chance to as they were immediately thrust into battle against a town full of vampires.

The breakthrough performance in the film was by Jordan Preston Carter as Mark Petrie. He brought a great energy to the character and you rooted for him to survive. His moments on the screen were great and he plays off the other character’s paralyzing fear with a wisdom beyond his years. The other performance I was thoroughly impressed by was Alexander Ward’s Kurt Barlow. Ward presents the character as a thoroughly evil and unrepentant monster that enjoys what it is doing. Every scene Ward was in was scary and filled with tension.

The vampire action and scenes are great. Even though I didn’t get a sense of the town in the film, the vampires were brilliantly scary. I loved the menace they exhibited and how they took over the environment.

Salem’s Lot is a very effective vampire movie with great horror elements and wonderful direction from Gary Dauberman. What hampers my experience with the movie is its length destroys all of the character development and plot threads that are abandoned as the vampire invasion takes over. Mears’ investigation into the Marsten house and its connection to his backstory are completely glossed over making his presence almost unnecessary. The tension he has with the townspeople never gets fully explored and I found myself thinking there were things I was missing.

This is a story that desperately needed to be told in a mini or limited series format. There were so many interesting elements being introduced on screen and none of them got the time or care they deserved. Still, I liked the movie for delivering great atmosphere, great production and scary vampires.