Salem’s Lot
The man and the boy, so alike they could be father and son though in fact they are unrelated, both storytellers by nature though silent about what they have witnessed and experienced, both haunted by the horrors from which they escaped, everyone close to them dead or missing, the ghosts of the Salem’s Lot, Maine, the sleepy town where both grew up which will now never wake again.
Ben Mears a novelist, his wife killed in an accident two years before, he had come home to work on his third novel, a followup to the moderately successful Conway’s Daughter and Air Dancer, hoping to rent the historic Marsten House where his aunt once worked, supposedly haunted but the lease already taken by Richard Straker, a newcomer in the process of setting up an antique store with his business partner Kurt Barlow, yet to arrive.
Mark Petrie a student at the high school, taught English by the same man who encouraged Ben years before, his quiet life is disrupted by a series of tragedies, his schoolfriend Danny Glick’s younger brother Ralphie vanishing on the way home through the forest after the boys spent the evening studying, then Danny himself taken mysteriously ill then the same happening to their mother, with both deaths attributed to the sudden onset of pernicious anaemia.
Stephen King having written his first two novels simultaneously, Carrie was published first and running to less than two hundred pages was a relatively simple story to translate to film in 1976, while ‘Salem’s Lot, over twice the length, was more complex, published in 1975 but not adapted until November 1979 where it was broadcast as a television miniseries directed by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s Tobe Hooper.
Adapted by Paul Monash, the same man who had written the screenplay for Carrie for Brian De Palma, Salem’s Lot combines elements of haunted house, mystery and monsters, the Marsten house “a monument to evil, sitting there all these years,” drawing to it both Ben Mears, David Soul a hot star following four seasons of Starsky & Hutch, and Richard Straker, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’s menacing James Mason, unflappable, charming and reptilian in the coldness of his interactions with the townsfolk.
And it is that ensemble and their complex relationships which capture both the essence of King’s book and make the miniseries so successful, Bonnie Bedelia as Susan Norton, a teacher befriended by Ben but stalked by a jealous ex, Ed Flanders as Bill Norton, town doctor and Susan’s father, a rational man confronted with a situation where evidence defies belief, Geoffrey Lewis as gravedigger Mike Ryerson, Julie Cobb as bubbly good-time girl Bonnie Sawyer and Kenneth McMillan as Constable Parkins Gillespie, ill-equipped to handle what he is faced with.
None of them idiots though all of them capable of foolish acts, Mark (Lance Kerwin) allowing his anger to overwhelm sense and Father Callahan (James Gallery) clinging to a faith which offers no protection against the power of “the Master,” the first episode is largely setup, though that is not to say nothing happens, building a sense of growing unease as strange things culminate in the scratching at Danny Glick’s bedroom window and the windblown funeral on Harmony Hill.
The bedroom visitation an iconic scene which prompted nightmares for a generation who couldn’t understand why any sane person would sleep with their curtains open in the first place, there are inevitably changes from the source material, Mister Barlow (Reggie Nalder) a less conversational character, hissing as did Hammer’s Dracula rather than the civilised gentleman of King’s novel, or indeed Stoker’s, though with Mason’s murderous deadpan delivery of his dialogue the compensation is more than adequate.
Unfolding in a matter of days, the complete collapse of a sanity and a small community, far from a bold hero in his first direct confrontation with a newly awakened vampire Ben is terrified, his fear convincing that the threat is real and imminent, a creeping coldness from the dark heart of the town looking down from atop the hill, the Marsten House approached but never entered beyond the cellar until the final scenes, the nightmare ending where the characters were always destined to arrive as the sun sets.
Presenting 4K restorations of both the original miniseries and the shorter theatrical cut distributed internationally, Arrow’s new edition of Salem’s Lot is supported by an archive commentary by Hooper and two new commentary tracks, interviews, appreciations and a location featurette, though necessarily with the majority of cast and crew now gone the majority of the contributions are from admirers whose own work was influenced by the broadcast such as Grady Hendrix and Mick Garris rather than those involved in the production.
Salem’s Lot will be available on 4K UHD from Arrow Films from Monday 30th March
