1974 was a big year for horror. In April, a young writer named Stephen King published his first novel, Carrie, kicking off five decades of bestselling fiction. In October, Tobe Hooper released The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a chaotic nightmare centering a cannibalistic family in a bone-strewn home.
Both creators would go on to become titans of the genre, but in 1979, they were hungry creators, still cementing their legacy. Five years after releasing their breakthrough masterworks, these visionaries would combine forces to create a seminal text in the vampire sub genre.
Based on King’s second novel, Salem’s Lot is Hooper’s fourth full-length directorial outing, a TV miniseries filled with iconic imagery still influencing the genre to this day. Paul Monash’s screenplay is a relatively straightforward adaptation of King’s sprawling story with a few deviations along the way, but it’s in these changes that each creator’s intentions shine through.
Hooper’s version follows a sinister force invading a small town while King’s story explores the effect an evil being can have on a community already consumed with its own dark secrets.
King describes the fictional town of Salem’s Lot as one that “knew darkness.” A picturesque village in rural Maine, the tight-knit community is made up of flawed humans consumed with their own petty gripes and daily struggles. Having grown up in similar towns, King presents Salem’s Lot as a character in and of itself, reflecting on the presence of mundane evil taking root in the human heart. He introduces the town and its citizens in a series of roving vignettes spiraling through a typical day in the Lot. From scandalous affairs and playground bullies, to local busybodies and contemplative codgers, King describes the town as a nightmarish, yet relatable version of Peyton Place.
Hooper incorporates some of these scenes, but only if they further the vampire plot. We meet Father Callahan (James Gallery) but don’t learn the extent to which he’s lost his faith. We get to know Eva Miller (Marie Windsor), proprietress of a local boarding house, but we don’t see her complicated relationship with a pitiable tenant. Larry Crockett (Fred Willard) is a lecherous real estate developer in Hooper’s version, but King describes his shady deal with the vampire’s familiar and his attempts to cover up a horrendous crime. Despite these omissions, Hooper places him at the heart of a much darker story. Larry is having an affair with his assistant Bonnie Sawyer (Julie Cobb) when her gun-toting husband Cully (George Dzundza) confronts them in bed. Hooper includes the scene in which Cully forces the rifle’s barrel into Larry’s mouth then pulls the trigger on empty champers, before implying the horrific bedroom abuse King describes. The story’s original version sees Bonnie seduce a young telephone repairman, but this clever revision condenses the story while highlighting the darkness already lurking in Salem’s Lot.
Hooper gives us this upsetting scene, but removes others that are equally dark. While touring the town, we meet a teenage mother who hates her life. One year after a shotgun wedding, Sandy McDougall routinely beats her infant son to cope with similar abuse from her discontented husband. Vampires target the ill-fated baby and a heart wrenching scene describes Sandy stumbling upon the tiny corpse then tearfully attempting to revive him with long-overdue motherly love. Hooper also excises Dud Rogers, custodian of the town dump. An outcast due to his malformed back, Dud takes pleasure in lighting trash fires then shooting the rats as they run for cover. He also fantasizes about a teenage girl named Ruthie Crockett who has repeatedly spurned his inappropriate advances. Ruthie becomes a dehumanized gift to Dud after his vampiric transformation–an upsetting end to a young girl’s life.
This gradual erosion of collective morality lays the groundwork for an inhuman monster to set up shop. An austere gentleman named Richard Straker (James Mason) opens Barlow & Straker: Fine Antiques, though his partner Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder) is suspiciously absent. Their arrival causes quite the stir in town, but is actually a front to transport Barlow–a centuries-old vampire–inside his antique coffin. Both versions of the story relay his arrival in an ominous crate delivered to the basement of the Marsten House, an abandoned mansion overlooking the town.
Reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, the literary Barlow is an urbane and handsome gentleman with dark hair combed straight back from his face. He charms his victims and draws them in with a mix of faux empathy and hypnotic power. When Bonnie’s young lover flees Cully’s gun, Barlow is waiting to console him, promising sweet revenge as he goes in for the kill. The powerful vampire uses a similar tactic on Dud, pledging Ruthie Crockett’s undead devotion and revenge on a town that has turned him away. King’s Barlow appears translucent in direct light and hovers a few inches above the ground, but passes for human to the poor souls unfortunate enough to make his acquaintance.
The cinematic Barlow spends much of the film’s runtime in the shadows, but Hooper’s grotesque bloodsucker still packs a punch. Taking inspiration from F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, he is a bald creature with batlike ears and long misshapen fangs protruding from his mouth. Unlike King’s head vampire, Barlow does not speak, instead communicating through Straker and unthinkable violence. It’s a significant change, but one that has stood the test of time. This iconic creature design has become an indelible figure on American horror and inspired some of the world’s most popular modern horror.
Though author Ben Mears (David Soul) is the story’s ostensible hero, his fate quickly intertwines with a young woman from town. King’s Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia) is an artist and college graduate determined to escape the Lot and its limited opportunities. She meets Ben in the park while reading his novel and quickly falls in love with the progressive author. King’s Susan has vague dreams of escaping to New York City–plans that horrify her controlling mother. Ann (Bonnie Bartlett) dreads her daughter’s inevitable departure and tries to turn her against Ben with information about his late wife Miranda. This leads to a devastating, but cathartic argument in which Susan finally reclaims control of her life. Hooper’s Susan has already achieved her dream, having worked in a New York ad agency after graduating college. But downsizing forced her to return to the Lot and she now passes the time drawing in the park and applying for jobs in larger cities.
King ends this apple pie love story midway through the novel when Susan falls victim to the vampire, but Hooper makes her ill-fated courtship the heart of his film. The literary Ben stumbles upon Susan while searching the Marsten House. She’s been discarded by Barlow and lies in his coffin–an “appetizer” meant to dissuade the accidental Van Helsing from defending the town. Mirroring Lucy Westenra’s devastating second death in the pages of Dracula, King uses this scene to define the story’s lore while building sympathy for his reluctant hero. In one of the adaptation’s larger deviations, Hooper changes this timeline and sequence of events. After the cinematic Barlow has been defeated, an undead Susan tracks Ben and Mark to their hideout in Mexico, inviting them to join her in eternal night. The film ends with Ben reluctantly staking his former lover and admitting that he will never be free of the vampire’s curse.
In addition to fleshing out troubled small towns, King excels at creating beloved ka-tets– the author’s own word for a band of noble warriors coming together in the face of evil. Similar groups fill the pages of It and The Stand, but it’s King’s Dark Tower series that coins the term. In an updated intro to the novel, King references Tolkien’s fantastical fellowship along with Stoker’s disparate band of vampire hunters as inspiration for the team defending Salem’s Lot. Hooper creates his own version of this crew, remixing the characters and they’re relationship to the town.
In addition to Susan, Matt Burke serves as Ben’s closest ally. A teacher at the local high school, this aging bachelor first meets the writer at a local tavern where they bond over literary cynicism and knowledge of the Lot’s darker secrets. Matt first discovers the vampyric plot when he invites local gravedigger and former student Mike Ryerson (Geoffrey Lewis) to spend the night in his guest room. The ailing Mike is bitten and bled in Matt’s house, later returning with plans to spread the curse. Matt fends him off, but suffers a heart attack in the process and spends the rest of the story in the local hospital. Aside from changing the character’s name to Jason (Lew Ayres), Hooper keeps much of this story the same, albeit with an abbreviated ending. After hospitalization, Matt Burke serves as the Van Helsing of the group, compiling research to shape a master plan. He eventually suffers a second and fatal heart attack when one of Barlow’s minions attempts to break into his hospital room. Hooper’s Burke presumably dies in the hospital as well, but contributes much less to the story’s ka-tet.
Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) is the youngest, but arguably strongest member of this makeshift team. New to the town, we first meet King’s Mark as he’s besting a bully on the elementary playground. Determined to kill the bloodsucker who murdered his friends, Mark breaks into the Marsten House, stake in hand. Captured by Straker, he frees himself from tight bonds before he can be delivered to the monster. Hooper keeps much of Mark’s story, while condensing the timeline of his heroism. The cinematic Mark resolves to kill Barlow after his parents are murdered, presumably as punishment for reporting the vampires. Hooper’s version of Mark is also slightly older and a historian of the town rather than a new student still finding his footing. Much of Hooper’s exposition is delivered during rehearsal for Jason’s student play, an annual pageant detailing the history of Salem’s Lot.
Jimmy Cody is another beloved member of this ragtag team, but Hooper significantly changes his persona. A young and idealistic doctor, Jimmy accepts Matt’s story of vampire infestation with an open mind and a pragmatic plan. He facilitates a sunset vigil over the body of a recently deceased mother to see if she will rise from the dead then helps search the town for the villainous master. Hooper reimagines this character as Bill Norton (Ed Flanders), Susan’s father who befriends Ben as his daughter’s new boyfriend. Despite their differing origins, both versions of this likable character succumb to a gruesome death. King’s Jimmy walks down sabotaged steps and falls onto knives left upright as a trap. Hooper’s Bill is impaled on a reddish wall of mounted antlers in the Marsten house, a visual nod to the iconic introduction of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
But Hooper’s most significant alteration lies with Father Callahan. King’s priest is a conflicted alcoholic struggling with various manifestations of good and evil. His drinking corresponds with a loss of faith and he secretly doubts the existence of God. Hooper’s Father Callahan has a much smaller place in the story. In both versions, Barlow challenges the priest to throw down his cross and battle the vampire on the strength of his faith–an epic battle he sadly loses. Hooper’s Callahan simply dies then and there while King’s character suffers a more horrific fate. The literary Barlow forces the priest to drink his blood, transforming Callahan into an unclean soul. He is unable to reenter his beloved church and flees the Lot to parts unknown. Twenty-four years later, the disgraced Father Callahan makes a triumphant return in another of King’s beloved novels, redeeming his name in an alternate world where he once again battles a horde of vampires.
While most of Hooper’s timeline fits neatly with King’s, the film takes a significant turn in its final act. King’s story follows the ka-tet to the Marsten House intent on confronting Barlow, only to find an exsanguinated Straker hanging in the foyer–punishment for Mark’s escape–and an undead Susan lying in the master’s coffin. They stake her then retreat to consult with Matt and form a new plan. With Barlow resting in a new location, much of the next day is spent strategizing and preparing for nightfall. After a few false alarms, they find Barlow sleeping in the root cellar of Eva Miller’s boarding house. Ben and Mark, the story’s only survivors, defeat the vampire then set fire to the town, hoping to drive out his remaining followers.
But Hooper makes a dramatic change. After escaping his bonds and attacking Straker, Mark bursts out of the house just as Ben and Bill arrive. All three infiltrate the house looking for Susan, but find Straker lying in wait. He kills Bill then dies on the stairs, felled by Ben’s pistol–a human death for a mysterious familiar. Down in the basement, they find Barlow sleeping in his coffin, surrounded by vampiric members of the dying town. Ben stakes the head vampire while Mark locks his remaining followers in the root cellar. They set fire to the Marsten House, hoping it will eventually spread to the rest of the town, a variation of King’s original ending. Combined with Hooper’s romantic coda, these disparate conclusions not only serve their respective media, but reveal the differing interests of each creator. Hooper is concerned with a terrifying monster infiltrating a quaint small town, while King–evidenced by the name of his novel–probes the ease in which external evil can exploit the darkness already lurking in a troubled community.
Salem’s Lot returns with a new movie on Max beginning October 3.