I have seen my fair share of bad Stephen King adaptations. But never before has one bored me as much as Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot. You'd think that a story about a haunted mansion and a powerful vampire infiltrating a tiny New England (read: Maine) town would be interesting. But it's not. Oh...how it's not. So what went wrong? Well, how about the fact that the narrative is spread out over two hour-and-a-half episodes that were made for television? We all know that King's stories are notoriously long. But the reason why people don't get bored of them is because they are written so well. When somebody tries to adapt King's stories for the screen, the longer they are, the more damning they are. The best Stephen King adaptations are compact and well paced. Salem's Lot is neither. The film chugs along for the first 40-50 minutes without anything happening. Then we get a genuinely scary scene of a child vampire floating outside of his brother's window. And then the plot pulls the drag-shoot for another hour or so. The characters are bland and generic, even for a Stephen King story. A writer comes to town, falls in love with a boring woman, and tries to stop a vampire from taking over. Even James Mason, who plays the vampire's servant who prepares the haunted mansion for his arrival, seems bored. When James Mason decides to phone it in, then you know that a film is going to hurt. My advice? Avoid this movie and read the book. At least reading the book won't feel like it took as much time as watching the movie will.
4/10
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