'Salem's Lot: adapted from the Stephen King novel by Paul Monash; directed by Tobe Hooper; starring David Soul (Ben Mears), James Mason (Straker), Lance Kerwin (Mark Petrie), Bonnie Bedelia (Susan Norton), Ed Flanders (Dr. Norton), Lew Ayres (Jason Burke), and Reggie Nalder (Barlow):
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.
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (1975): Stephen King's second published novel did at least two new things I can think of: it collided the vampire novel with a sweeping character study of an entire town (as many have noted, it's Dracula meets Peyton Place); and it codified the role of the Familiar in a vampire's life in a way that many subsequent novelists treat as if it were derived from vampire mythology. King extrapolates the role of Straker in this novel from Renfield in Dracula and Renfield/Harker's altered role in the Bela Lugosi Dracula.
Later works such as Fright Night (1985) and Justin Cronin's The Passage and The Twelve would run with the idea of a non-vampiric helper paving the way for the vampire. That Straker also has to perform certain rituals to let the vampire Barlow into the town of (Jeru)'salem's Lot also seems new to me.
The novel still purrs along like a dream. Some elements (the rapid development of love between protagonist Ben Mears and townie Susan Norton) come a bit too fast, even in a lengthy novel such as this. But both major characters (struggling novelist Mears, who's returned to the town at pretty much the worst time ever; Father Callahan) and minor (the sheriff, especially) are fleshed out with great sympathy and precision, or at least empathy.
King wisely keeps the vampire Barlow off-stage for much of the novel -- the few times when Barlow talks (or writes) are also a bit weak, as King has borrowed pretty much all of Barlow's attributes from the Dracula 101 class of king-vampire characterization. Straker, the Familiar, is much more interesting. Highly recommended.
