Stephen King is so popular in Hollywood that many of his stories have been adapted more than once — with mixed results . King’s second novel, 1975’s Salem’s Lot , was his second adapted work and the first made for TV, thanks to Tobe Hooper’s miniseries in 1979. A second miniseries followed in 2004.
And now, a feature film—not intended for TV, but for reasons only Warner Bros. can know, getting a straight-to-Max release—is arriving in October . That’s a lot of small-town vampires, but Salem’s Lot is timeless enough that it doesn’t feel like overkill to keep bringing it back.
The book, of course, will always be the best version of the story; it’s an early King tale that contains a lot of his now-familiar touchstones (a man—an author—haunted by a terrible thing that happened in his youth; an idyllic village stuffed with bitter people and dirty secrets; a creepy house; monsters lurking in the dark). Ben Mears is the protagonist, but as the title suggests, the town is the main character. Salem’s Lot digs into many different troubled minds as it crafts its setting, a place that can’t escape deeply awful events in its past thanks to a prominent reminder: the Marsten House, a ramshackle mansion built at just the right elevation to loom over everything.
It’s just a house, but it emits a sinister energy, to the point that Ben and other characters have discussions about whether the house is evil because notorious murderer Hubie Marsten lived, killed, and .