Salem's Lot (1979 miniseries)

The town of Ferndale in Northern California was chosen to represent Salem's Lot for the miniseries

After Warner Bros. acquired the rights to 'Salem's Lot, the studio sought to turn the 400-page novel by Stephen King into a feature film, while still remaining faithful to the source material. Producer Stirling Silliphant, screenwriter Robert Getchell, and writer/director Larry Cohen all contributed screenplays but none proved satisfactory. "It was a mess," 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."[1]

Eventually, the project was turned over to Warner Bros. Television and producer Richard Kobritz. The latter decided that, due to the novel's length, Salem's Lot would work better as a television miniseries than as a feature film. Television writer Paul Monash was contracted to write the teleplay. Monash was familiar with writing about small towns, and he previously produced the film adaptation of King's novel Carrie and had worked on the television series Peyton Place. Finally, a screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) resulted in Kobritz selecting Tobe Hooper as director.[1]

With a budget of $4 million, principal photography began on July 10, 1979, in the Northern California town of Ferndale, with some scenes filmed at studios in Burbank, California. Filming officially wrapped on August 29, 1979.[1]

Although the miniseries follows the general outline of King's novel, there are a few substantial deviations for creative or logistical reasons. Many characters have been combined or merely deleted, as have certain subplots, and the character of Barlow is vastly different in the miniseries from how he is in the novel. However, Stephen King praised Paul Monash's screenplay and stated "Monash has succeeded in combining the characters a lot, and it works."[1]

Producer Richard Kobritz, who took a strong creative interest in his films, added several changes to Monash's script, including turning the head vampire Kurt Barlow from a cultured human-looking villain into a speechless demonic-looking monster. Kobritz explained:

We went back to the old German Nosferatu concept where he is the essence of evil, and not anything romantic or smarmy, or, you know, the rouge-cheeked, widow-peaked Dracula. I wanted nothing suave or sexual, because I just didn't think it'd work; we've seen too much of it. The other thing we did with the character which I think is an improvement is that Barlow does not speak. When he's killed at the end, he obviously emits sounds, but it's not even a full line of dialogue, in contrast to the book and the first draft of the screenplay. I just thought it would be suicidal on our part to have a vampire that talks. What kind of voice do you put behind a vampire? You can't do Bela Lugosi, or you're going to get a laugh. You can't do Regan in The Exorcist, or you're going to get something that's unintelligible, and besides, you've been there before. That's why I think the James Mason role of Straker became more important."[1]

Other changes by Kobritz included having the final confrontation with Barlow in the cellar of the Marsten House whereas in the book it is in the basement of Eva Miller's boarding house, a concept Kobritz felt "Just doesn't work. I mean, from a point of sheer construction in a well-written screenplay, he's got to reside in the inside of the Marsten House. He's a major star in the picture – the third or fourth most important character – he's got to be there. It may have worked in the book, but not in the movie." Susan's death was also moved to the climax, to give her death "more impact and provide the film with a snap ending."[1]

For the roles of Richard K. Straker and the vampire Kurt Barlow, James Mason and Reggie Nalder had been on producer Richard Kobritz's "wish list".[2] Kobritz sent Mason a copy of the script, who loved the part and his wife, Clarissa Kaye-Mason, was also cast as Marjorie Glick.[1] However, Nalder was less impressed. "The makeup and contact lenses were painful but I got used to them. I liked the money best of all."[3]

The miniseries also features Elisha Cook Jr. as Weasel Philips and Marie Windsor as Eva Miller, two characters in a relationship. This casting was an inside joke by producer Kobritz, a fan of Stanley Kubrick; Cook and Windsor previously played a couple in Kubrick's The Killing (1956).[1]

Salem's Lot does not rely on the same kind of dynamics as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. "This film is very spooky – it suggests things and always has the overtone of the grave. It affects you differently than my other horror films. It's more soft-shelled," director Tobe Hooper explains. "A television movie does not have blood or violence. It has atmosphere which creates something you cannot escape – the reminder that our time is limited and all the accoutrements that go with it, such as the visuals."[1]

Although Salem's Lot was aimed at television, a European theatrical release was also planned and which would include more violence. For example, two versions of the scene where Cully Sawyer threatens Larry Crockett with a shotgun were filmed. In one version, Larry holds the gun barrel in his mouth, while in the other, the barrel is in front of his face. "They worked at a feature film pace instead of a TV pace," recalled actor Lance Kerwin on the filming. "It's really even hard to tell the flow of the film. It was a miniseries originally, then we shot a feature film version for Europe at the same time. They've edited and cut together so much."[4]

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

Unable to find a house in Ferndale that resembled the Marsten House from the book, an estimated $100,000 was spent on constructing a three-story facade over an already-existing house on a hillside, overlooking Ferndale and the Eel River Valley. Designed by Mort Rabinowitz, it took 20 days to build. Another $70,000 was spent on constructing the interior set of the house which proved even more difficult for designer Rabinowitz,[1] who also designed the building of Straker's antique shop and the small village in Guatemala where the beginning and end of the miniseries is set.[1]

The vampire makeup involving glowing contact lenses was invented by Jack Young. According to Tobe Hooper, the makeup on actor Reggie Nalder would constantly fall off, as well as the fake nails and dentures, and the contact lenses would go sideways.[5] The contact lenses could only be worn for 15 minutes at a time before they had to be removed to let the eyes rest for 30 minutes.[1]

The vampire levitations were accomplished by placing the actors on a boom crane instead of traditional wires: "We didn't fly our vampires in on wires, because even in the best of films you can see them," producer Richard Korbitz explained. "We wanted to get a feeling of floating. And the effect is horrific, because you know there are no wires. It has a very spooky, eerie quality to it." The levitation sequences were also shot-in-reverse [sic] to make the scenes more eerie.[1][6]

Broadcast reviews for Salem's Lot were largely positive, with critics praising the film's atmosphere, cinematography, Hooper's direction, and scares. Time Out called the film "surprisingly successful", highlighting the film's cinematography, atmosphere, and climax.[8] Helen O'Hara of Empire awarded the film three out of five stars, stating that, although it "doesn’t quite nail the scale of the infection", the film's scares, special effects, pacing, and characters more than made up for it.[9]

As of August 2022, it holds an approval rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 reviews, and an average rating of 6.65/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Director Tobe Hooper and a devilishly charismatic James Mason elevate this television adaptation of the Stephen King novel, injecting the vampiric tradition with fresh blood and lingering scares."[10]

Salem's Lot had a significant impact on the vampire genre, and it inspired horror films such as Fright Night (1985) and the scenes of vampire boys floating outside windows were referenced in The Lost Boys (1987) and later spoofed in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror IV".[16][6] Salem's Lot has been cited as one of the primary influences for Joss Whedon's hit TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.[17]

Writer Bryan Fuller stated that the scene where a character is impaled on a deer's antlers in Salem's Lot inspired him to do a similar scene in his 2013 TV series Hannibal because the original scene frightened him so much as a child.[18]

Filmmaker Mike Flanagan's 2021 horror limited series Midnight Mass is inspired by both the novel and the miniseries. Like 'Salem's Lot, Midnight Mass centers around a small town where a former local returns after an extended period of time. The arrival of a strange new resident (in King's story, Straker, in Flanagan's series the substitute priest), and the revelation of the town being infected by vampires. The master vampire in Mass is modeled somewhat on the miniseries version, and also never speaks. The vampires eyes are also lifted from the miniseries.[19]

In 1987, Larry Cohen directed A Return to Salem's Lot,[20] a sequel to the 1979 miniseries.

In 2004, TNT premiered a new version of Salem's Lot starring Rob Lowe, which received a Primetime Emmy nomination for its music.[21]

On April 23, 2019, New Line Cinema announced that a theatrical film based on the novel would be made, with Gary Dauberman and James Wan producing. Dauberman wrote the screenplay for It and It Chapter Two.[22] Dauberman was confirmed as director on April 10, 2020.[23]