SALEM'S LOT (2024)

The town of Jerusalem's Lot (or Salem's Lot), Maine is getting a new resident by the name of Kurt Barlow. However, the mysterious man is always on the move and has never been seen. His business partner Richard Straker (Pilou Asbæk) is his mouthpiece, making purchases on his behalf such as his new residence (the haunted Marsten House) as well as their new antique shop in town. Before long though, the town begins to be overrun by vampires and it all started to begin upon Barlow and Starker's arrival. I've never read the source material so I'm not quite sure how close the film is to the book but I did view the1979 mini-series for the first time before watching this. The film is under 2 hours so it cut out quite a bit from the mini-series, which runs for over 3 hours. I honestly preferred the mini-series for a number of reasons: it obviously builds out the characters more but the old school actors such as James Mason as Straker, Bonnie Bedelia as Susan Norton, and Fred Willard as Larry Crockett are too good of actors from their generation to surpass their performances. Not to mention Crockett's character is cut down in the film to one scene as the stereotypical, sexist boss of his times (eye roll). The character of Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter) is now black because it's 2024 and HBO/Warner Bros need to check those boxes. Moving past the woke politics that Hollywood continues trying to force feed us, the script is dull, rushed, and lacks depth. I was more entertained by the mini-series with an extra third of the films run time compared to this. The love story between Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) and Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh) is hardly given time to breath. In addition, even though this film is darker in terms of scene lighting, the mini-series I found to be creepier. The only positive I can say about this is Bill Camp as school teacher Matt Burke with his horrible Red Sox jacket on throughout. But Bill Camp is a solid actor who also turns in good performances so I'm not surprised there. When HBO decided to go the route of streaming as opposed to a theatrical release, that should have told you everything. They didn't want to throw good money after bad on a film like this (finally a wise decision on their part). 5/10