Salem’s Lot (2024, dir. Gary Dauberman)

by Jack Martin | Oct 13, 2024

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 113 mins

UK Distributor: Warner Bros

UK Release Date: 11 October 2024

WHO’S IN SALEM’S LOT?

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

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Gary Dauberman (director, writer), Michael Clear, Roy Lee, James Wan and Mark Wolper (producers), Nathan Barr and Lisbeth Scott (composers), Michael Burgess (cinematographer), Luke Ciarrocchi (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A town in Maine is overrun by sinister vampires…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SALEM’S LOT?

The road to completion for writer-director Gary Dauberman’s adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel Salem’s Lot has been almost as cursed as the titular town. Originally announced in 2019, and then shot two years later, the film remained on Warner Bros’ shelf for the longest time, even after reported reshoots a year after initial production was completed. Frequent release date shifts, many of which were caused by last year’s industry strikes, eventually led to the film becoming a streaming-only release on the studio’s Max service in the United States, but here in the UK – where, thanks to an ongoing deal between Warner and Sky, Max does not yet exist – it’s managed to secure a traditional cinema run.

But as is often the case with films stuck in post-production limbo, Salem’s Lot is a film that you can seriously tell was heavily tampered with in the editing room, either by studio executives or by creatives who couldn’t quite figure out how to properly tell this story in a feature-length format. It’s a truly strange mess, one where you aren’t too sure whether it’s being genuine about its old-school B-movie charm, or if it’s just so bad that its silliness has gone completely over everyone’s heads. Either way, Salem’s Lot isn’t very good.

The film is set in the quiet Maine town of Jerusalem’s Lot sometime during the 1970s, when former resident and struggling author Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to do some research that will help inspire his latest book. His research is put on ice, though, when he and a handful of locals – including schoolteacher Mr. Burke (Bill Camp), priest Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey), and young Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter) – notice that a bunch of people are being turned into bloodthirsty vampires by an ancient creature known as Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward) and his familiar Richard Straker (Pilou Asbæk). Can Ben, his new girlfriend Susan (Makenzie Leigh), and their small band of survivors unite to defeat Barlow before he can convert the entire town?

No, seriously, I’m asking you if they can, because the film has such a haphazard approach to its own storytelling that it’s difficult to determine if that’s actually what they’re trying to do. The film was apparently trimmed down from a three-hour runtime, and given that there are large chunks of the plot that are just missing, including essential pieces of information such as how they all seem to know who is behind everything (which, in fairness, the villains aren’t exactly hiding the fact that they’re the villains, so it’d be easy for anyone to figure out), you can really tell. It’s a film that has clearly been hacked to shreds in the editing room, to where there is no longer any sense of emotional connection between the characters (all of whom, even after knowing each other for long enough, always act like they’ve just met for the first time), or even much consistency in the plot as it will randomly throw in new characters and plot twists without any prior build-up.

Whatever film that Dauberman originally set out to make, one that probably pays much closer attention to character dynamics and exploring interconnected mysteries, has been gutted in favour of a ridiculously streamlined series of events that aren’t scary in the slightest (which, given that Salem’s Lot is often touted as one of King’s scariest novels, is a pretty sizeable mark of failure). The amount of dodgy CG effects renders the vampire carnage more unintentionally humorous than genuinely terrifying, especially during a climax set at a drive-in that borders on self-parody, while there are unfortunately some pretty bland performances from a cast that, in fairness, has not been given very much to work with. I am fairly certain that the book, and by extension the popular miniseries from the late 70s, delves into much scarier territory than this film does, since any sense of menace, intensity or even some kind of connection with these characters are among the many things left to rot on the cutting room floor.

After all this time lingering on the studio’s shelves, Salem’s Lot has definitely not been worth the anticipation. This is a cluttered and tampered-with mess that butchers a regarded horror novel that, had it been allowed enough time to flesh itself out, could have worked just fine with the talent involved. Alas, this is yet another sucky vampire film that only makes you crave for the arrival of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu even more.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Salem’s Lot is a bafflingly messy Stephen King adaptation that, thanks to apparent trimming in its elongated post-production, mercilessly streamlines events into an empty, and very much not scary, waste.