Salem's Lot (2004)

[Shane R. Monroe]

I just recently had the pleasure of checking out this modern remake of King's SALEM'S LOT (you might remember the David Soul flick from 1979).

Its a miniseries, now on DVD, originally on TNT I believe.

I'm not largely a big fan of remakes in general .. and the original Salem's Lot scared the crap out of me in 1979 (the late 70's were great for horror movies). I put off watching this one for well into a year.

The cast is tight; Rob Lowe (don't let that throw you - he's not annoying here), James Cromwell, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer to name a few. Solid performances - even from the kids.

The movie starts off a bit slow - it IS a King miniseries after all - but you get LOTS of background and content - slow doesn't mean boring.

This IS a vampire movie - and you get to see lots of vampires, a surprising amount of gore for a TV movie, and some very good special effects (amazingly enough).

Is it "scary"? I guess its pretty intense for a TV movie. Especially with the gore and violence level where it is. The original film was shot in a manner (esp. the vampire scenes) where it scared the hell out of me ... the basis of ALL my vampire nightmares are based on the 1979 film's scenes of the gravedigger opening the kid's coffin and the brother floating outside the kid's bedroom window rapping on the glass (spoofed and satired a million times). The gravedigger scene was left out in the remake, but we get a creepy replacement in the hospital. We get the floating outside the window thing - but its not as scary as the first one.

I really enjoyed the subplots and the side stories that the mini-series allowed us to see. I think mini-series should be the way to go for most book to screen translations.

For those not familiar with the story, its pretty simple.

Boy has traumatic experience in a small town. Leaves small town to become a renouned writer. Writer needs to face his demons, so he comes back to settle the score. The house that incited the trauma is now owned by two newcomers to town - and they have a hidden agenda, which involves converting the town into vampires. Of COURSE there are numerous subplots and the story shifts prominence from one group of people to another.

Anyway, if you liked the original, this is worth looking at. If you didn't like the original, but like a decent vampire flick, you might wanna check it out. Its doesn't FEEL made for TV (thank God) - so if that's holding you back, don't. They even put some money into it.

What did you guys think? (If you've seen it ...)

[JamesB]

how the audio and picture quality, Shane? assuming you bought the DVD set.;)

[Shane R. Monroe]

Amazingly good for a TV movie. It really felt like a film, not a made for TV flick.

[Oedipus]

I thought the remake was better than average but I was a bit disappointed in it.....

For starters let me say that I love the original Mini-Series (even though its not really faithful to the book, which I can forgive as long as I'm entertained). But when I heard that another version was being made I had high hopes that we would get an accurate representation of the book. Not that all the changes in the new version are that bad really, its just a lot of the changes felt forced and left me thinking..."Why exactly did they feel the need to do that?".

Neither miniseries is an accurate representation of the book. Both make large alterations to the overall story. I like certain aspects of both but prefer the original miniseries. I think reading the book slightly spoiled the new version for me, I saw the original miniseries before I had read the book. The book is great.

[Shane R. Monroe]

There was a miniseries between the ORIGINAL 1979 flick and this one???

[Oedipus]

When I say the original miniseries I mean the 1979 version directed by Tobe Hopper. To my knowledge there are only 2 movie versions unless you want to count "Return to Salem's Lot" which is a sequel in name only (and horrible).