Salem's Lot 1979 holds its own with the best of 'em, and though I enjoyed the Larry Cohen sequel, the TNT/2004 miniseries, and now the 2024 edition, I can't help but dig in my heels and insist that the first is the best. With that said, one can still appreciate writer/director/producer Gary (Annabelle/The Nun/It: Parts 1 & 2) Dauberman's (New Line Cinema) adaptation of Stephen King's renowned novel.
There's no point in rehashing the 1970s story or its finer particulars. It's more a matter of how the content is translated for this imprint, and again, I must say, it works, with Dauberman respecting the source material and the movies that have preceded it. He also keeps the characters in traditional, Jerusalem Lot mode, as opposed to tweaking them into anonymity.
Lewis (The Strangers: Prey at Night) Pullman plays Ben Mears, the fated, writer/vampire hunter, and Jordan Preston Carter plays his fearless, Monster Kid partner, Mark Petrie. Joining them is Mackenzie Leigh's Susan Norton, Spencer Treat Clark's Mike Ryerson, Nicholas Crovetti's Danny Glick, Cade Woodward's Ralphie Glick, John Benjamin Hickey's Father Callahan, Bill Camp's Matthew Burke, Alfre Woodard's Dr. Cody, William (The Shawshank Redemption) Sadler's Constable Parkins Gillespie, Pilou (Samaritan/Ghost in the Shell) Asbaek's Richard Straker and seasoned, monster-performer, Alexander Ward's chilling, Marsten House resident, Kurt Barlow.
At times, this version demonstrates (if only to a fleeting degree) a child's viewpoint. The other versions hold this element, but for whatever reason, this time it struck me as more realistic. In other words, it felt like it could've slipped into full-fledged Invaders From Mars and Phantasm mode and may have hit that sublime level, if only Petrie and his friends' relationship had been expanded.
On the villainous end, Asbaek and Ward do the mark. Asbaek does a swell job channeling James Mason and Donald Sutherland. Ward, however, is more in sync with Reggie Nalder's Barlow than Rutger Hauer's, but nuanced in his twitchiness to become his own King (pun intended) vampire.
To the movie's arguable disadvantage, Barlow's disciples behave like brain-drained zombies (fueled with the ferocity of Fright Night and From Dusk Till Dawn's bestial bloodsuckers). To distinguish them further from those of previous Salem's Lots, perhaps a continued flow of glib, whispery taunts (in the manner of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend novel) would've worked to increase the creepy charm. With that said, the frightful, drive-in-movie sequence is satisfying just as it stands.
Granted, this new Salem's Lot isn't a groundbreaker. Even so, like last year's Pet Cemetery: Bloodlines, it's a nice package for the Halloween season and should be embraced for no other cause than that; and that, my friends, is good enough.
(Salem's Lot can be experienced on HBO Max.)
No comments:
Post a Comment