Hey folks, Harry here... Yeah yeah yeah... I know, this is gonna air on TNT, but after reading this, I'm praying for a limited theatrical release. It sounds pretty damn damn cool and I wanna see it with an audience. Yes, I'm spoilt, I get that... but still - this doesn't sound like a TV experience movie. But a theatrical. Sigh... Ok, here ya go...
Hello, Harry, my name's Renfield's Ghost and I've got a review of the new "Salem's Lot" movie that's going to air on TNT in June. I'm a film journalist doing some articles on the show, so I got a peek at a rough cut and I wanted to tell you about it.
It's a really good movie, as faithful to King's novel as we could ever possibly expect with some surprising changes. It looks like a feature - they spent $25 Million and filmed it in Australia and I wish I hadn't known that while I was watching because this looks like Maine. It was directed by that Mikael Salomon who directed that awful film Hard Rain and he redeems himself here.
Salem's Lot is, arguably, King's greatest novel - his I Am Legend - and I know that Tobe Hooper's 1979 film had alot of fans - and it got alot of things right - but it wasn't the book I imagined in my head. This film is - about seventy or eighty percent of King's vision - and I think it's the most faithful adaptation that fans could expect - and I would say that whether or not this was a TNT cable movie or a $60 Million studio film because this looks like a studio film. The thing is, after watching this four hour movie - three hours running time - I'm convinced that Salem's Lot couldn't have been made into a two hour feature because there wouldn't be enough time to develop the characters and the situation and the development of the characters in this film might be the film's sore point, but I think that's because the action moves so fast. I think if you took Tobe Hooper's set up of the town and the characters and grafted that onto this film we would have the ultimate King adaptation.
Okay, the story....
Okay, King's book started with the prologue of Ben Mears and the young boy, Mark, wandering through various towns...on the run from something. Then we cut back to the main story when Ben, the third rate novelist, arrives back in town. You remember the book, right? You remember how Hooper's version began with Ben and Mark in that stupid chapel in Guatemala(What the hell was that all about?)?
Okay, this film is all different. Do you remember when King used to talk, back in the early 80s, about a possible sequel to Salem's Lot? He talked about his vision of Father Callahan working at a homeless shelter in Detroit or some urban setting. That's how this film begins. Then Ben shows up and there's a violent confrontation that sends both men to the hospital in critical condition. Why does Ben want to kill Callahan? Let's just say it's not because Barlow made Callahan his bitch. Callahan has alot of surprises in this film.
Then we cut back to the main story when Ben arrives in town and meets Susan Norton and the other characters. He finds out that Straker, the antiques dealer, has taken the house that Ben wanted to rent and, of course, Straker's harboring the mysterious Kurt Barlow, his vampire master.
Barlow's played by Rutger Hauer and he looks like Rutger Hauer, with some horrific highlights, which is alot different than the Max Shreck-type monster that appeared in Hooper's film and that awful name-only-sequel Return to Salem's Lot.
The actors? It's a great cast - an A minus cast - with Rob Lowe as Ben Mears. You're either going to like him and find him passable - maybe because you really do envision David Soul, or someone who looks like him, as Ben Mears - or you'll hate him. He's okay, looks great. Samantha Mathis plays Susan and she's nice - has it been fifteen years since Pump Up the Volume? - but it's not an actor's film, it's really a plot-driven film, despite the presence of the great James Cromwell as Callahan and Donald Sutherland - the guy from Ordinary People and Invasion of the Body Snatchers is invisible beneath his current face - goes whole-hog as the crazed Straker.
The rest of the film pretty much follows the action from King's novel and the best part of the film - and the most faithful thing to the novel - is the idea of Ben, Matt Burke(played by Andre Braugher), Jimmy Cody and Mark forming a team of Vampire Hunters. There could've been more time devoted to their hunt of Barlow - the pressure to have to move between day and night and the chess match between them. But it's pretty close to the novel and the look of the film is splendid - dark, cold, overbearing, atmospheric.
The ending - as it concerns the conflict between Ben and Barlow and Straker - is entirely faithful to the book - including Jimmy's fate - but that's just the first ending in the film. Let's just say that there's a Dawn of the Dead type scene at the end of the film - on the streets of the town - with Callahan front and center.
Then we cut to the prologue - back to the start of the film - with Ben and Callahan in the hospital and, well, there is resolution - and a real unhappy ending - and, of course, the possiblity of a sequel. The best thing they could do is use this as the basis for a great TV series - like the great Dead Zone - and not just one of those half-assed, shot-in-Toronto-with-lousy-Canadian-actors type of series, but a real epic saga.
It's a very good movie - and I say movie because, again, this looks like a feature - and I think fans of Salem's Lot, of King's vision, will be very happy. Thank you.
Renfield's Ghost.
