Watch or Avoid: ‘Salem’s Lot’ Reimagined for Max

Salem’s Lot is one of the few higher-profile Stephen King adaptations never to see the big screen, and this new direct-to-Max movie isn’t breaking the mold. Originally slotted for a 2022 release, the film, written and directed by Gary Dauberman (who directed and/or wrote a number of Conjuring-adjacent movies, and penned screenplays for both It films), was delayed and delayed again before being somewhat unceremoniously dropped on the streaming service. But hey, at least it hits during Spooky Season, and should get some eyeballs, right? Whether it deserves the attention is debatable – it’s a sprawling narrative that was previously adapted for two TV miniseries, in 1979 and 2004, and may be a better fit for the longer-form format.Â

The Gist: A couple of grunts are hired by antique dealer Straker (Pilou Asbaek) to pick up a big, heavy crate with something very old inside, and then deliver it to the dingy dusty poorly lit cellar in the old mansion in town. This, I probably don’t have to tell you, is not a job you want. Something inside that box is moving and the guys vamoose before they can see what we can see: the fanged and pale face of some sort of terrifying ’feratu emerging from the darkness. The place is Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, and if you chop off the first four letters you go from biblical to occult implications real quick, which makes sense considering the aforementioned man-creature has just arrived in town. At this point in time, the cars are large and the drive-in is showing Dog Day Afternoon (it’ll soon change to Night Moves), which tells us 1975 is in full swing.

Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) pulls into this little burg after many years – he moved away at age nine after his parents died, and now he’s an author famous enough to be on the back cover of the novel being read by Susan (Makenzie Leigh), the real estate broker who helps him find a room to rent while he’s in town doing research for his next book. She’s immediately smitten, and he’d be a fool if he wasn’t the same in return. We spend a bit of time being introduced to a bevy of townsfolk: Susan’s overbearing mother, Susan’s overbearing boss, the gossipy librarian and Ben’s landlady, who’s kind of a Kathy Batesalike, but let’s not go there, because that’s a totally different Stephen King adaptation. Those people aren’t as important as the others, though: The police chief (William Sadler), the alcoholic preacher (John Benjamin Hickey), schoolteacher Matt Burke (Bill Camp), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), a grave digger fella who practically has “future vampire” tattooed on his forehead (Spencer Treat Clark), and three schoolboys including brothers Danny (Nicholas Crovetti) and Ralphie Glick (Cade Woodward), and new kid Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter). Phew.

From here, a kid is kidnapped, another one dies of “pernicious anemia,” the grave digger fella hears thumping from inside a coffin, and Mr. ’Feratu shows off his impressively pointy dental work and manicure as he lurks and feeds and converts people to a rather unfortunate post-death state. Lore and rules are established, regarding the use of crosses and wooden stakes, when vampires venture into the public and the whole thing about inviting – and, it seems, disinviting – the aforementioned ghouls into your house. Ben and Susan have a thing going, and it’s cute, not that we get to spend much time getting to know them beyond their roles as believers-in-vampires who lead the charge to save the town, alongside Burke, Dr. Cody and the shockingly resourceful 11-year-old Mark. Survival is not guaranteed.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: At least Renfield tried something different, and I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake will eclipse this rote genre exercise.Â

Performance Worth Watching: Camp, Woodard and Hickey are terrific character actors, each stealing a scene and briefly elevating the material. But they get short shrift here, and the treatment their characters receive feels more unceremonious than they deserve.

Memorable Dialogue: I really enjoyed Camp’s bordering-on-campy delivery of this line: “I know how it sounds, the idea that Mike Ryerson is – Jesus – a creature of the night.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Salem’s Lot’s big climactic sequence occurs at a drive-in movie theater, suggesting that Dauberman’s aiming for something that would’ve played in the B-slot in the mid-’70s. I’m not sure how to interpret the sequence where the screen comes crashing down – it’s certainly a nifty plot device, but should we read into the fact that this movie went straight to streaming? That wasn’t the intended release strategy, so I guess we should just chalk it up as accidental irony.

Anyway, Dauberman’s approach is certainly viable, allowing for bits of gruesome violence and grim humor, and a cheeky tone that tries to be serious but not serious, and kid-friendly in its use of young characters but not kid-friendly since some of those young characters die on screen in horrifying fashion. OK, so maybe that tone doesn’t quite work, but you have to admire how the filmmaker isn’t quite content to grind out another self-serious scarefest. And if it had worked, the movie would feel more distinctively vintage instead of consciously retro and a pastiche of era-specific tropes that came into fashion in the wake of Stranger Things and the It films’ crossover success.

There’s also the nagging sense that the screenplay is trying to do way too much within the framework of a film that clocks in under two hours. Character development here is an afterthought, with the players in a classic King townsfolk mosaic – the weary preacher, the pragmatic teacher, the kid who studies old comic books to learn how to fight monsters, etc. – never getting the opportunity to become more than just types and plot devices. Likable performances by Pullman and Leigh feel stultified as they’re pulled lickety-split through the plot, which never pauses long enough to let any subtext simmer beneath an impatient, action-driven narrative. It’s a competent movie visually, and it has its moments, but not enough of them to justify watching this uninspired retread. This Salem’s Lot renders a classic King story into just another vampire flick.

Our Call: There’s not a Lot to recommend here. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.