SALEM’S LOT: I Blinked, It Was Over

There have been over ninety adaptations for television and the big screen of Stephen King’s material. Some great, some okay, and some just bad. He was once asked what he thought about his books being turned into films and if they came out badly would hurt him, he answered, “Once I give it over it’s out of my hands, if it turns out badly, well, the books will always exist.” That’s a healthy way to look at it and a good starting point for what happened here, in the latest adaptation of Salem’s Lot. I didn’t have very much hope going into the movie (it had been shelved for a couple of years before they decided to release it) and that’s okay, what became extremely maddening though was, as I watched, I saw what could have been. They had a great cast, and director, the movie looked fantastic, so what happened? Well, let’s get into it.

This version of Salem’s Lot was written and directed by Gary Dauberman (Annabelle) and is once again based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. As I mentioned, it had a great cast featuring Lewis Pullman, William Sadler, Jordan Preston Carter, Makenzie Leigh, and Alfrie Woodard, all of whom came to play and did great in their roles. Of course, the story centers around Ben Mears (Pullman) returning home to do research for a book that he is writing only to discover something dark has come to his old hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot. I’ll cut right to the chase here, it is a vampire. A vampire is something dark.

The Flash Couldn’t Have Told It Faster

The biggest problem the movie faced was the pacing. I don’t know if they had to have the film come in under a certain runtime or if they just felt that telling the story at a breakneck speed (and skipping so much character development along the way) was the thing to do but never the less, that’s what they did. The movie doesn’t give you time to breathe, let alone gain any type of connection to the characters, their struggles, their victories, and the budding love story, all of it was either left on the cutting room floor or skipped intentionally and we as the audience suffered for that decision. It was a shame because the cinematography was absolutely beautiful, the film contains some of the better and more interesting shots that I’ve seen lately. The actors all did fantastic, turning in great performances despite the pacing. The pacing of this film was the biggest and most obvious issue. Have I mentioned the pacing?

Really what it boils down to is, that they kept the plot and removed every bit of the story from the film. And yes, I know that plot in a film is important but you have to have some story to go along with it. They kept the meat, but to make a meal, you need your veggies. There’s a food pyramid for a reason. And keeping with that theme, that’s exactly what they had here, they had a perfect foundation for a film, the director, the cast, and the tone, were all on point but without the story and character moments, it all felt hollow like a gazebo without a floor.

Deviations From Perfection

As a novel, Salem’s Lot is perfect. It’s one of the top three King novels for me (the other two are not ones you would guess and I don’t want to start a war of words about words so I’ll keep them a mystery) so when I see another version is getting made, it always piques my interest. There were a lot of changes from the novel to this interpretation but what really and truly hurt this tale was the underdevelopment of the characters and the story. The film is made better after reading the book, but I can see someone who hasn’t left this movie very confused about what just happened. The adage is, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, and they very much tried to take a ticking clock and turn it into a cellphone or something else, I’m not sure, but they made it inoperable. Now it doesn’t tell time.

Taking any book that is nearly 700 pages and trying to whittle it down to a two-hour movie is going to be a challenge, no one can dispute that. Cuts and changes at that point will just be part of the game but here it didn’t seem like they wanted to change very much, very little was changed in fact, what they opted to do instead was to leave large chunks of the story out and hope that whatever was left made sense. It nearly did but not quite. The on-screen deaths did not weigh because so much was kept from us that when someone died, we didn’t care. The main big bad was something we only saw twice and the final battle at the drive-in was almost silly because there were no stakes (haha, puns) for either side.

Through The Heart

Salem’s Lot had everything in place to be a really great adaptation of a fun Stephen King vampire tale. Ultimately the pacing crippled any chance this film had of getting off the ground and catching fire like a bloodsucker in the sun. What could have really worked, in my humble opinion, is if they had given it the IT treatment. Keep the same everything involved in this version but give the story two films to play out. That would have given us the time we needed with the characters to care about what happened to them. To believe the love story that bloomed. To be heartbroken when one of the two young lovers is struck down by the big mean vampire. It could have been the easiest thing in the world to get right but time was against them.

I think if you’ve watched most or all of King‘s books made into films, you know that they can be hit or miss depending on who made them. This one is still pretty great up until about 45 minutes in, that’s when the pacing really starts hurting the movie. I say you should give it a watch, you’ll see what I’m talking about. It was so close to being a fantastic movie but they really rushed through it like me at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Salem’s Lot is currently available on Max.