Kurt Barlow

Before the events of the novel, it is suggested that Barlow's original name or alias was Breichen and that he was an Austrian nobleman. As Breichen, Barlow corresponded for twelve years with Hubert "Hubie" Marsten, a former Depression-era Boston hitman living in the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, or "The Lot". Marsten murdered his wife and committed suicide, but not before burning his letters with Barlow. The novel strongly implies that Marsten entered into an agreement with Barlow that allowed him to eventually come to Jerusalem's Lot.

In 1975, Barlow arrives in Jerusalem's Lot in a box shipped overseas by his human assistant (or familiar), an Englishman named Richard Straker. The two take residence in Marsten's former mansion, which is considered haunted by almost everyone in town. Straker poses as an antiques dealer and opens a shop in town. He tends to the shop and handles business arrangements while Barlow is never seen in public, telling inquiring visitors that Barlow is frequently away on business. Straker kidnaps a local boy, Ralphie Glick, and makes a human sacrifice of the child in an appeasement ritual. Ralphie's brother, Danny, becomes Barlow's first victim and begins to turn other locals.

Barlow makes his first appearance in the book when he encounters Dud Rogers, a hunchbacked dump custodian. Barlow also encounters Corey Bryant, a young telephone worker who has been tortured and ordered to leave town by Reggie Sawyer, the man Bryant was cuckolding. Knowing their desires, Barlow turns Rogers and Bryant.

Danny Glick later pays a night-time visit to one of his schoolmates, Mark Petrie. However, Mark, an intelligent and resourceful child, identifies Glick as a vampire and drives him off with a plastic cross. Mark sneaks into the Marsten House the next day with Susan Norton, intending to destroy Barlow. However, they are both captured by Straker; Susan is turned by Barlow and becomes a vampire, but Mark manages to escape, mortally wounding Straker in the process. Straker is later found hanging upside down, having been drained of his blood by Barlow. Petrie informs Susan's boyfriend, writer Ben Mears, of Susan's fate, and becomes part of the effort to destroy the town's vampires, together with Ben, the Catholic priest Father Callahan, doctor Jimmy Cody and the Lot's high school English teacher, Matt Burke.

When Father Callahan and Mark head over to Mark's parents to explain the danger that the family is in, the power is suddenly cut, and Barlow appears. He kills Mark's parents by smashing their heads together, but does not infect them. Barlow then takes Mark hostage briefly. Callahan pulls out his cross in an attempt to drive him off, and for a time it works, until Barlow challenges him to throw away the cross. Callahan, not having faith enough to do so, is overwhelmed by Barlow, who takes the now-useless cross and snaps it in two. Barlow then forces Callahan to drink his vampire blood, making him "unclean".

By now Mark has escaped, part of Barlow's deal with Callahan, and has fled to warn the others. At the end of the book, Barlow is destroyed by Ben Mears and Mark Petrie in the basement of Eva Miller's boarding house, whose residents have, like almost everyone else in the town, become vampires.

The town's locals remain vampires, even after the destruction of Barlow, and inevitably start to spread outside the town's limits into surrounding areas. Ben Mears and Mark Petrie flee the town, the only surviving members of the group which set out to stop Barlow and Straker. After recovering somewhat from the ordeal, they return a year later and set a brush fire near the Marsten House with the intent to burn down the town. The fire is intended to destroy as many vampires and their daylight hiding places as possible, as the beginning of an all-out effort by the two to destroy the vampire colony entirely.

In The Dark Tower series, it is revealed that Barlow is a Type One vampire, capable of hibernating for centuries and is highly intelligent and cunning. However, he seems to appear more human than the other Type One vampires when making his appearances in Salem's Lot. His appearance even seems to change toward the end of the novel into a younger-looking version of himself, de-aging from the older way he looked earlier in the novel. It is unknown if other Type One vampires can shift into a true human appearance like Barlow was able to do.

In Salem's Lot (1979),[2] In the 1979 miniseries, he is depicted with a grotesque Nosferatu-like appearance. In The Dark Tower, it is mentioned in the beginning that "Type One" vampires (such as Barlow) are horribly disfigured, mutant-like creatures whose teeth grow out so wildly that they cannot close their mouths. In addition, Kurt Barlow did not speak, and only communicated in growls, hisses and grunts.

This version of Barlow has a variety of supernatural powers, such as telekinesis; he opens a locked cell door with a wave of his hand, moves his own coffin along with the (unnaturally freezing cold) crate that it is inside, and causes the Petries' entire house to shake before entering.

In the 1995 BBC radio dramatization of 'Salem's Lot, Barlow was voiced by Doug Bradley.

Rutger Hauer as Barlow, climbing the ceiling in Salem's Lot (2004).

In the 2004 miniseries adapted from the novel, Barlow is portrayed by Rutger Hauer. He is a sophisticated, well-dressed older gentleman and, at first glance, his only difference from the rest of the community is his mildly anachronistic appearance (his dress and behavior seem to come from an earlier time).

In the 2023 film adaptation, Barlow is portrayed by Alexander Ward.