Salem's Lot (DVD)

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One of the most vivid and ultimately scariest movie moment for me when I was a kid (I can still remember it till this day) was one scene in the 1979 movie adaptation of Stephen King´s novel "Salem´s Lot". That one particular scene stayed with me for months, causing me to have more than a few sleepless nights and countless nightmares. Come to think of it, I probably never recovered fully from that horrifying cinematic experience! Wondering which scene it was? Well, it involves the creepy arrival of a floating child vampire outside the room window of his best friend, pleading to be invited in. I can still vividly remember the pale-looking vampire, still attired in his burial suit, mournfully tapping on the window, beseeching his friend to open the window and invite him in. Clearly, such a scene has to be watched in a quiet and darkened room in order to feel the full impact of the terror in watching one´s best friend return as a bloodthirsty vampire.

So, it really meant a lot to me when that same scene is recreated, though not as effectively, in this latest re-imagination of the same Stephen King novel, now reincarnated as a television mini-series. I seriously consider the 1979 movie version of "Salem´s Lot" a genuine classic vampire horror movie. Like this remake, the original movie first existed as a 182-minute long mini-series as well before it was trimmed down and released in the theaters. Unfortunately, this modern small screen remake lacks not only a coherent and effective plot, there is very little character development and the unforgettable chills that I remember so well from the theatrical version vanished into the mist as well. Even though this mini-series runs for more than hour longer (181 minutes) than the original movie, its story does not flourish and develop as well as its predecessor; making it seemed, ironically, rushed and abbreviated.

A controversial author, Ben Mears (Rob Lowe) has just returned to his tiny Maine hometown of Jerusalem´s Lot or Salem´s Lot, looking to exorcise some of his own personal demons. What Mears didn´t count on was the presence of another type of demon, more sinister and dangerous, lurking in the shadows of the town. The basis for King´s excellent novel is the existence of an inherent badness within the town that allows evil to take root, sort of a bad vibe that the vampires can feed on. In this mini-series, the source of that evil emanates from the Marsten House, a large dilapidated mansion sitting on top of a lonely hill. Like the Bates residence in "Psycho", the Marsten House looks down upon the town with a menacing glare, reminding the town´s residence of the tragic crime that occurred there many years ago. As told in flashbacks, the house is also the site of a young Mears´ own first encounter with the evil presence that thrives in the house.

When Mears was a kid, on a dare by his friends, he entered the Marsten House seeking to prove his bravery but his little act turned out to be folly. Once inside, he stumbled upon the most horrifying scene of a triple homicide that left the owner of the house, Hughie Marsten, his wife and a young boy murdered and Mears, paralyzed from fear. Now back in the town that he has tried so hard to get away from, Mears is trying to purge his traumatic past from his present by writing a revealing book about the town. However, once the few townsfolk that Mears had befriended find out about his real intention coming home, they start to avoid him like the plague. As the audience will soon find out, Mears is the least of the town´s problems.

The local real estate magnate, Larry Crockett (Robert Grubb) has sold the Marsten House to a pair of gentlemen, Richard Straker (Donald Sutherland) and Kurt Barlow (Rutger Hauer), who plan to open an antique store in town. No one has met the mysterious Mr. Barlow who is apparently "away" on business and Straker is arranging to receive a shipment of crates, one of which (the biggest one that is about the size of a man) is to be brought straight to the house. That night, young Ralph Glick (Zac Richmond) goes missing in the woods and his brother Danny (Andre de Vanny) is hospitalized in a state of shock and extreme fear. From then on, a domino effect starts cascading through the town as one strange thing after another begins to occur. Sensing a darker and more sinister force at work here, Mears, along with his former high school teacher Matt Burke (Andre Braugher), the local doctor Dr. James Cody (Robert Mammone), Mears´ love interest Susan Norton (Samantha Mathis), Father Donald Callahan (James Cromwell) and a friend of the Glick boys, Mark Petrie (Dan Byrd) band together to seek out and destroy the source of the town´s epidemic.

Director Michael Salomon ("Backdraft", "The Abyss") has managed to assemble a fine cast for this show but how he used them is another matter altogether. Unfortunately for the show, its two great villain actors, Rutger Hauer and Donald Sutherland, are so underutilized in their roles as the master vampire Barlow and his caretaker Straker respectively, I was completely taken aback by their all too brief appearances. With a generous runtime of about three hours, I would have assumed there would be more than enough time to further develop the anemic plot to include meatier roles and more screen time for the show´s two biggest attractions. Instead, we get an uncharacteristically out of synch Rob Lowe, struggling to define his character and an ineffective Andre Braugher as a gay high school teacher taking most of the spotlight.