Salem’s Lot **** (1979, David Soul, James Mason, Reggie Nalder, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres, Julie Cobb, Elisha Cook Jr) – Classic Movie Review 3,232

Tobe Hooper turns Stephen King’s famed 1975 horror novel into the splendidly scary and hugely entertaining 1979 movie Salem’s Lot starring David Soul as writer Ben Mears and James Mason as spooky antique dealer Mr Straker.

Poltergeist director Tobe Hooper turns Stephen King’s famed 1975 horror novel into the splendidly scary and hugely entertaining 1979 movie Salem’s Lot starring David Soul as Ben Mears, a writer going home to his small New England town where he encounters a spooky antique dealer Mr Straker (James Mason) and shiny-eyed vampire Mr Barlow (Reggie Nalder in a career highspot).

Salem’s Lot, Maine, is a Twin Peaks kind of town full of very strange people like Gordon ‘Weasel’ Phillips (Elisha Cook Jr), Cully Sawyer (George Dzundza), Mike Ryerson (Geoffrey Lewis), Ned Tebbets (Barney McFadden) and Larry Crockett (Fred Willard). They are so weird they make Mr Straker and Mr Barlow seem normal.

Ben Mears has come back to town to write a novel about the evil Marsten House (looking a lot like the Psycho house), where he saw a ghostly creature when he was 10. It has been rented to antique dealers Mr Richard K Straker and the absent Mr Kurt Barlow. Ben meets and starts a love affair with divorced teacher Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia), who is living with her parents Dr Bill Norton (Ed Flanders) and Ann Norton (Bonnie Bartlett), though she has a jealous boyfriend. Ben befriends her father and his old school teacher Jason Burke (Lew Ayres).

Salem’s Lot (1979, David Soul).

People start to die anaemic and Ben starts to believe that Straker’s partner Barlow is a vampire. People think he’s crazy but it turns out that vampires are invading and it’s up to Ben and young horror fan Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) to save the day. You know Mark is a horror fan because he has a poster of Frankenstein and a picture of The Wolf Man on his bedroom wall. The town has a slack copper in Constable Parkins Gillespie (Kenneth McMillan) and ineffective priest in Father Donald Callahan (James Gallery) so it really is up to Ben Mears and Mark Petrie to save the day.

Salem’s Lot is a classic TV horror movie that really delivers thanks to King’s yarn, Paul Monash’s sterling screenplay following the outline of the novel with a few substantial changes, the deliciously creepy Mason and Nalder, a grand support cast, and Hooper’s obvious intense commitment to the project, with some nods to Hitchcock and lots of imaginative touches of his own.

Producer Richard Kobritz made several changes to Monash’s script, notably turning the head vampire Kurt Barlow from a cultured human-looking villain into a speechless demonic-looking monster. He recalled: ‘We went back to the old German Nosferatu concept where he is the essence of evil, and not anything romantic or smarmy.’ Good decision, and so was sending Mason a copy of the script, who loved the part and jumped aboard, bringing along his wife Clarissa Kaye-Mason, as Marjorie Glick.

The big-haired David Soul is compelling and convincing as the hero, and Bedelia and Kerwin support him well, but it is Mason and Nalder who are most memorable, with the 70-year-old Mason impressively smooth, silky and menacing. Barlow might be a career highspot for Reggie Nalder, yet he said: ‘The makeup and contact lenses were painful but I got used to them. I liked the money best of all.’ And, of course, the character in this version does not speak in contrast to the book and the first draft of the screenplay. That was Kobritz’s idea too: ‘I just thought it would be suicidal to have a vampire that talks.’

There are three different versions: the 184-minute mini-series broadcast on network TV in the US to fill a 200 minutes time slot, a 150-minute TV movie, and a 112-minute cable-TV cut and cinema version (Salem’s Lot: The Movie) with more overt violence, which was released theatrically in Europe and is available on video in the US.

Also in the tremendous vintage cast are Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres, Julie Cobb, Elisha Cook Jr, George Dzundza, Ed Flanders, Kenneth McMillan, Marie Windsor, Clarissa Kaye-Mason as Marjorie Glick, Geoffrey Lewis, Fred Willard, James Gallery, Joshua Bryant, Robert Lussier, Brad Savage, Ronnie Scribner, Ned Wilson, Barbara Babcock and Barney McFadden.

There is outstanding work from Harry Sukman (composer), Gene Kraft (graphic designer) and Ben Lane and Jack H Young (makeup), all Primetime Emmy nominated.

The whole story is told in flashback in bookends two years later featuring survivors Ben Mears and Mark Petrie.

James Mason was married to Clarissa Kaye-Mason from 13 August 1971 till his death on 27 July 1984.

The town of Ferndale in Northern California stands in for Salem’s Lot in the miniseries.

Producer Stirling Silliphant, screenwriter Robert Getchell, and writer/ director Larry Cohen all wrote screenplays after Warner Bros bought the rights to Salem’s Lot, intending to turn the novel into a feature film. But, King said: ‘Every director in Hollywood who’s ever been involved with horror wanted to do it, but nobody could come up with a script.’ So the studio handed it to Warner Bros Television and producer Richard Kobritz.

With a budget of $4 million, it was shot from July 10, 1979, to August 29, 1979 in the Northern California town of Ferndale, with shooting at Warner studios in Burbank, California. So, filming-wise, we’re not in Maine at all.

Clarissa Kaye-Mason as Majorie Glick in Salem’s Lot (1979).

The sequel A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987) was made for cinemas by Larry Cohen.

Salem’s Lot was remade for TV in 2004, with Rob Lowe as Ben Mears, Andre Braugher, Donald Sutherland as Mr Straker and Rutger Hauer as Mr Barlow.

Finally, it was announced in 2019 that Stephen King’s 1975 vampire novel Salem’s Lot is being remade for the big screen. Gary Dauberman writes the script, directs and is executive producer, while James Wan produces, along with Roy Lee and Mark Wolper.

Salem’s Lot was shot in 2021, with additional photography in 2022, but the release was delayed several times before its world premiere at the Beyond Fest on 25 September 2024, and streaming release on Max on 3 October 2024.

A full-scale mock-up of the Marsten House was built over an actual smaller house.

The cast are David Soul as Ben Mears, James Mason as Richard Straker, Lance Kerwin as Mark Petrie, Bonnie Bedelia as Susan Norton, Lew Ayres as Jason Burke, Ed Flanders as Bill Norton, Fred Willard as Larry Crockett, Julie Cobb as Bonnie Sawyer, Kenneth McMillan as Constable Parkins Gillespie, Geoffrey Lewis as Mike Ryerson, Barney McFadden as Ned Tebbets, Marie Windsor as Eva Miller, Bonnie Bartlett as Ann Norton, George Dzundza as Cully Sawyer, Elisha Cook Jr as Gordon ‘Weasel’ Phillips, Clarissa Kaye as Marjorie Glick, Ned Wilson as Henry Glick, Barbara Babcock as June Petrie, Joshua Bryant as Ted Petrie, James Gallery as Father Callahan, Reggie Nalder as Kurt Barlow, Brad Savage as Danny Glick, and Ronnie Scribner as Ralphie Glick.

Geoffrey Lewis, acclaimed character actor and father of actress Juliette Lewis, died on April 7 2015 at 79 of natural causes. Clint Eastwood frequently cast him in his films, including High Plains Drifter, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Every Which Way But Loose, Any Which Way You Can, Bronco Billy, Pink Cadillac and their last collaboration, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. His other major film credits include The Wind and the Lion, Heaven’s Gate, The Lawnmower Man, Dillinger, Night of the Comet, Maverick and Salem’s Lot.

Tobe Hooper died on 26 August 2017, aged 74. His film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is a horror movie game changer and he went on to make Poltergeist.

David Soul (born David Richard Solberg; August 28, 1943 – January 4, 2024) appeared in The Secret Sharer (1967) and made his official film debut in Johnny Got His Gun (1971) and then played corrupt motorcycle cop Officer John Davis in Magnum Force in 1973.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,232

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