SALEM'S LOT (1979)
Starring David Soul and James Mason
Early Stephen King adaptation ran as a miniseries on the boob tube. It's actually really good, if overlong, and stands out as one of "Texas Chainsaw" director Hooper's best efforts. It was the forerunner to a number of Stephen King miniseries which would be cranked out over the decades. In fact, it would even be remade in 2004 as an inferior miniseries.
Soul plays a writer who moves back to his hometown to write about a "haunted" house he remembers from his childhood. Convinced the house is a monument to evil, one that can only attract evil through its doors, he becomes suspicious when a European antiques dealer (Mason) moves there with his absent employer. As children and townsfolk either disappear, die under mysterious circumstances or become strangely ill, Soul himself comes under suspicion. Eventually, he begins to wonder whether the town is slowly being taken over by a plague of vampirism.
Like later King miniseries, this moves slow and is pretty low on action. But once the plot hooks you in, there's no letting go. There are some truly chilling moments in "Salem's Lot," which despite being made for television came out during a golden era of horror -- and it shows. Some of the best scenes involve vampires levitating outside of windows, seducing loved ones to let them in. When you consider that this was made half a decade before "Fright Night" and "The Lost Boys," "Salem's Lot" was way ahead of its time. But then the novel is a classic too. Needless to say, Hooper did an excellent job of adapting it.
Even today, the vampire makeup looks pretty cool, with the lead blood-sucker looking a bit like Nosferatu. The film was very well received by critics when it hit TV screens. The idea of a big-budget made-for-TV miniseries based on a horror novel was unheard of in 1979. Hooper would go on to make "Funhouse" and later "Poltergeist" for Stephen Spielberg. But "Salem's Lot" is much better than both of those movies.
Followed by a worthless sequel, "Return to Salem's Lot."