Reviews

Having watched "Salem's Lot" that had David Soul as the main character, I wanted to see this remake for comparison. Many said that it was truer to the book than the 1970's version. That may be the case, but two very important things were missing: 1) the true character development and depiction and 2) the element of horror. When a movie tries to portray suspense and horror, viewers should be left with some feelings of uneasiness. The original "Salem's Lot" did that for me. The remake just left me with my mouth open.

I remember the original "Salem's Lot" with Danny Glick coming to Mark's window in the fog. The music, the fog, and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the scene were chilling. I was a kid when I watched the original and I begged my parents to cut the limbs on the tree outside my window so they'd stop scratching against the window when the wind blew. And you could sense in Mark the fear of what he was afraid was happening and the pain of having lost his friends. In the remake, the scene seemed almost done for good measure. I also remember Barlow entering the prison cell in a fog to get Tibbits. Just watching Tibbits face showed enough horror without any gore. Watching him crawl through the ventilation in the remake was simply comedic.

In the original, I could understand Mark going up to the "house" to try to kill the vampire. After all, Barlow had killed his parents. In this remake, Mark was a brave little vigilante to go up to the house in advance of his mother getting killed. It would have made sense for him to go to kill Barlow "after" Barlow had murdered his mother. Then, that may have been to much like correct.

To delve into the character revisions would require too much investment in time. I was surprised to see how Ben Mears had been redefined from revered and misunderstood to being the object of animosity and misunderstood. Matt Burke's redefinition from a believable elderly, white male to a young, gay black male smacked of literary license gone mad. Burke's revision helped add a level of poor taste to the scene with him walking in on Mike, who had been turned into a vampire. "You want to touch me." In the original, the character told Matt Burke, "Look at me." That's what vampires want you to do -- look at them. Homoerotic or not, the scene added no value.

Anyone who watched the original remembers "The Master." Granted, Barlow looked very Nosferatu, that was quite effective. When he came through Mark's house and was just a cape on the floor before rising up to kill the parents, that was shocking to see something so horrific. When Barlow came into the house in the remake and was clinging to ceiling, I felt let down. And Rutger Hauer is such a great actor. And changing Straker from a smarmy, secretive watch dog to a severely underutilized Straker that was practically cast as a cameo was just wrong.

While it is impossible to have a movie conform in totality to any book, style can never replace substance. The remake of this movie could have used the mild Alfred Hitchcock flare of the original to instill fear in viewers while indeed focusing on the major characters as the book did to tell a captivating story. If I were a post teenager who had never seen the original, I would have been clapping my hands and pumping my fist in the air at the wonderful display of CGI graphics and fast-editing (ala Danny Glick's little brother quickly fading in and out when Danny was in the hospital).

With the removal of some superfluous scenes -- the beginning with Mears homeless style having his episode with the priest -- and continuity -- read above comment about Mark going to the Marsten house for the kill before he had a reason to do so -- what was a tolerable movie could possibly have been an okay movie. For the 70's I can accept the flaws that came with movie production during that time as compared to today's movie-making. But to try to best a movie of that time and fall short, well, it's a shame.