Salem's Lot (2024)

Anybody have any strong opinions about this? I finally saw it last night.

It wasn't as good as I had hoped it might be, but it had some redeeming moments. I didn't hate it.

It started off sticking pretty close to the book and the 1979 film, but it took more and more liberties as it went along. That whole scene at the drive-in, towards the end.... um, WHAT?!?!?

Mark Petrie could be black, of course. Why not. I had no problem with that. I did feel a little sorry that they didn't stick with the 1930s and 40s horror movie posters that Mark had on his wall in the 1979 miniseries. That showed something important about the state of horror movies all the way through the 1970s, IMHO. The classic Universal monsters were still emblematic of horror, they were still the "main monsters" that any self-respecting kid had to know about, all the way through the 70s. Leatherface and Michael Myers were part of poular consciousness, but I think they were still seen as flukes at that point. By the mid-80s, of course, MM, Jason, and Freddy were the real triumvirate of horror. But... whatever, this is all kind of tangential, I just wish they kept the 30s and 40s horror movie posters.

They changed some things about Sue Norton and Matt Burke. I don't want to talk too much about that. I think I prefer the 1979 miniseries, in some ways, when it came to Matt B, especially. But, I guuess I can still respect what the 2024 version does... by making relatively small changes, at least they keep the audience on our toes! If we don't know quite what to expect, we will be surprised more, etc. That's cool.

Barlow was still sort of a Nosferatu clone, but done with more CGI, I think? At least facially? I'm not 100% sure I'm right about that.

Sue Norton was a babe, soooo that's good! She was also... more cool? More cool than in the 1979 version? I mean, at least in the sense that she was very quickly persuaded that they faced vampires, whereas she waffled a lot more in the book, and in the 1979 miniseries.

The 70s background stuff was decent, overall. The clothes, hair, music, cars, Red Sox references, etc all felt about right, for the period.

They kind of merged some stuff that happened at the Marsten house with stuff that was supposed to happen at Eva Miller's boarding house. I guess that makes some sense. I can respect it. It just makes the story move a little more quickly.

Spencer Treat Clark did a very solid job as Mike Ryerson! I thought they did good stuff with that character. They made his scary silvery vampire eyes a lot more subtle, at some points, which I thought added a lot to his spookiness. I thought he was one of the high points of this adaptation.

Basically, I didn't love it, but I wouldn't say I hated it either. I'm not saying it was meh... I will take anything related to Salem's Lot, just hit me with whatever you've got, I'm all over it. So, I'm pre-inclined to find good things to say about it. But, it really did have some good moments, so... yah.

Anybody have any strong opinions about this movie??