Review of the film “Salem’s Lot” (2024)

I chose “Salem’s Lot.” Not only am I a huge Stephen King fan, ranking the 1975 original as one of the master of horror’s best works, but I also find myself annoyed by how much Max/WB has overused their projects like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme” buried again and again. This film was in danger of suffering a similar fate, as it was originally scheduled to hit theaters in fall 2022 before being delisted in another wave of Covid-related delays. After that, however, it simply remained in purgatory, with many fearing it could become another victim of its parent company’s tax write-off game. When Stephen King himself tweeted in February of this year that he had seen it and liked it, WB finally announced that it would land on Max in time for spooky season. How great would it be if there was a new horror gem hidden in all this drama, a film that should never have been treated as a sideshow? I wish I could say that’s true.

The problem here is simple: there’s a reason this story was told twice in miniseries form. This is not possible in a function. Even at nearly two hours, 2024’s “Salem’s Lot” feels hysterically rushed, with scenes picking up halfway through and things like transitions that are supposed to mark the passage of time just completely missing. It’s no exaggeration to say that there are scene transitions in “Salem’s Lot” that honestly make you feel like you accidentally fast-forwarded a few minutes and missed the connective tissue. No, it’s just a snippet from a movie that’s been in the can for so long that too many people have messed with the final product. In some scenes that the producer thinks could be tighter, you can almost see the scissor marks. This thing was cut so many times that it bled to death.

The funny thing is that Gary Dauberman knows exactly how much of King’s material lends itself to more than the length of a feature film, having written the two parts of Andy Muschietti’s “It.” He writes and directs this story about a writer named Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot to confront his own trauma. King’s book is a great variation on the “you can’t go home again” fiction – in this case, the home is populated by vampires.

Well, not at first. Mears discovers that two mysterious figures have purchased a legendary spooky house on the hill in “Salem’s Lot”: Richard Straker (Pilou Asbæk) and Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward). It soon emerges that Barlow is a Nosferatu-like creature of the night and Straker is his Renfield, a human confidant who provides him with food and supplies. When Straker kidnaps a small child and feeds him to Barlow, it shocks the entire town, but Dauberman leaves nothing to be desired. Before you know it, Mears, his girlfriend Susan (Makenzie Leigh), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), a teacher named Matthew (Bill Camp) and a preacher named Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) hunt vampires.

It’s a strong cast and some find a way to make an impression. Bill Camp is always welcome and Hickey conveys a certain kind of weariness well. Pullman works at first, but he’s discarded by a film with too many characters and ideas to spend time developing Ben, and poor Susan feels even worse. Again, Dauberman rushes from key moment to key moment, forgetting that atmosphere is the most important thing in projects like this. Worst of all, there are moments where this version of this production slips through the shaky editing, such as a great scene in which Camp’s teacher finds a familiar vampirized young man named Mike (Spencer Treat Clark) at the bar and that begins Find out that something is very, very wrong. It’s a scary moment in a film that just doesn’t get under your skin enough. It doesn’t have time.