Salem’s Lot (1979) Was the First Bite, Not the Worst By Released in 1975, Salem’s Lot was Stephen King’s second – also his favorite – book and the second one of his stories to be adapted. It was originally going to be a shorter theatrical release. However, none of the scripts could properly condense the large tome while still holding onto the essence of what made the source material work, and since other vampire movies were on the horizon, it was decided to put this story on the small screen.
It was a risk for the genre, which was still gathering power on television and had to tone down the sex and blood, but somehow, this 1979 miniseries managed to pull it off. What audiences received was a two-night event, horror shown a week apart, which ran for a total of three hours and three minutes without the commercials and second set of credits. After numerous scripts and several directors (including George A.
Romero), they landed on Tobe Hooper due to his work on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Even with an appropriate name at the helm and an extended runtime, the script still had to cut elements from the novel to make it all work. Some characters are completely omitted or combined with others for ease, while a few underwent simpler changes, such as occupations and ages.
Of course, several plot points had to be removed, along with a good portion of King’s character-building. Still, strangely, some characters had random name changes, and the main antagonist was dras.
