While a well-ed classic, director Tobe Hooper's 1979 Dracula, although King himself might quibble with that assessment. Unfortunately, Salem's Lot still has yet to get the screen adaptation it truly deserves.
Published in 1975, Salem's Lot first became a miniseries in 1979, as mentioned, then was later adapted into a second miniseries in 2004. Both miniseries have their good points, although the 2004 version is lesser known, despite featuring a better overall cast. That's mostly due to its inability to hit the heights reached by the best moments of the 1979 adaptation, many of which have become legendary in the realm of vampire pop culture. Considering those moments, it's not hard to see why Salem's Lot carries such a cultural footprint.
The problem is that outside of the moments everyone knows, such as the undead Danny Glick trying to gain entrance to Mark Petrie's room, or the monstrous appearances of the Nosferatu-esque Kurt Barlow, Salem's Lot 1979 just really isn't that great. It's by no means terrible, but it isn't deserving of such a glowing legacy.
Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot Isn't As Good As You
The biggest issue with Salem's Lot 1979 is its length, with the miniseries running for nearly 3.5 hours. While the book is 439 pages, that's actually far from long by King standards, and whittled down to its main plot, Salem's Lot just doesn't need that kind of space. It's a mistake the 2004 miniseries also made, running about the same length. While little side plots about marital infidelity and small town backstabbing work fine when reading a book, something most people do over the course of multiple sessions, onscreen they seem extraneous to the central tale of Ben Mears and company facing off with the scourge of Kurt Barlow.
Somewhat related to Salem's Lot 1979's excessive length and poor pacing is also its boredom factor. There are so many scenes of people calmly talking that could've easily been trimmed to get to the legitimately good vampire stuff quicker, and not helping things is that the cast has some weak links. Casting one of the guys from Starsky and Hutch as Salem's Lot's dramatic lead wasn't a good move, and Ben Mears often comes off as a flat character, which he doesn't in King's book. Being a 1970s TV production, Salem's Lot 1979 also often exhibits a dull, soap opera-esque look and feel that screams "TV movie." As mentioned above though, none of this makes Salem's Lot 1979 worthless, or ruins any of its many great moments. It's just about time the miniseries' exalted place in horror history got reexamined a bit.
