The first miniseries adaptation of a novel by Stephen King, and still among the two or three best. There are necessary condensations and eliminations from King's giant cast of small-town Maine residents whose town is about to get vampirized. The reduced role of Father Callahan is probably the most keenly felt -- he's got two scenes and then he's gone. Oh, well.
David Soul is solid as writer Ben Mears, returning to the home of his childhood and discovering it both unaltered and about to be severely altered. Bonnie Bedelia and Lance Kerwin do nice work as well. James Mason dominates the miniseries. Not as the vampire Barlow, though, but as his majordomo Straker.
This is really the major change from the novel: Barlow the vampire doesn't speak at all, though he does hiss a lot. Straker speaks a lot, to the extent that one starts to wonder why the screenwriters didn't just have James Mason play the vampire. Barlow's make-up and prosthetics make him an homage to the vampire in F.W. Murnau's seminal vampire movie Nosferatu (1922) much different a creature than the smooth-talking Dracula figure of King's novel.
Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist) directs ably. The horror effects of vampires floating outside the windows of their prey is surprisingly spooky. Hooper also has a solid touch with the actors. His experience with Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of implying but not actually showing horrible images comes in handy on a project that must pass the network censors. All this and Fred Willard in his underwear being threatened with a shotgun! Recommended.
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