I read Salem’s Lot back in the 80s or 90s. It’s very early Stephen King and I guess it wasn’t bad, but it was kind of unmemorable too. In fact, it’s so unmemorable, I totally forgot there was a 3 hour mini-series adaptation in the early 2000s (which I don’t even think I saw). It’s certainly one of his classics but I never hear anyone really talking about it… unlike Carrie, The Stand, or Pet Sematary.

So I wasn’t jumping up and down to see this direct-to-streaming (HBO) Max adaptation… and I’m not jumping up and down having seen it either. It’s aggressively ok. A perpetual motion machine of OKness. If someone through it from a moving car, I’d say “oh well”. It’s just… eh.

It’s about a writer (shocking, I know) who returns to his old stomping grounds of Jerusalem’s Lot in Maine. The Lot has a problem with vampires and only a motley crew of townies and the writer can dust ’em.

I think the book was meant to be King’s modern American gift to vampire lore. But time has passed and in a world where Midnight Mass eats Salem’s Lot for breakfast, this adaptation had to do a LOT more to make itself noticed.

And it didn’t, not really. There’s some cool human v vampire moments in an otherwise kind of slow and overly long film. It also looks a little cheap and underwhelming with characters that don’t exactly ingratiate themselves.

The head vampire looks cool in a throw-back kind of way and his minions are alright with fancy pants glowing eyes. But put one of these suckers up against one of the viscous bastards from Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain and we’d have a bunch of embarrassed vampires shuffling off into the Maine sunrise.

Salem’s Lot (2024) is very “I forgot I watched this”. It’s not bad and maybe superfans (of which I am not) will love a modern take. Everyone else can watch it, sure… and then forget about it.

Score: 76