Salem’s Lot (2004)

Once again, the sorely running on empty creatively Hollywood remakes yet another classic, and there’s plenty more on the way. Sorely lacking in tension, suspense, and atmosphere we now see talented actor Rob Lowe as lead character Ben Mears, an author who returns to his home town of “Jerusalem’s Lot” with much scrutiny from his old friends who disagree with his writing. He has a horrid past in the town experiencing a horrifying incident in an abandoned house in the center of town which everyone always conveniently seems to see in clear view from their window.

So, there’s another new arrival in town Richard Straker who has opened an antique store and has shipped in a mysterious item which is delivered to the mansion under the care of his unknown partner Kurt Barlowe whom no one ever sees. Soon, mysterious incidents begin to happen when a child is found dead in his hospital room with severe anemia. But as the body count begins rising and people in the town slowly start getting sicker, Mears and a small group of towns folks begin to notice the change and realize that the small sleepy town of “Salem’s Lot” is being overrun by vampires. It’s now up to Ben to stop the vampire outbreak before they begin spreading and inhabiting the country.

There’s a rash of lack of creativity in Hollywood and on the way there are plenty more remakes of classics, remakes of foreign films, and sequels. As I guessed I didn’t like this as much as the original, as a matter of fact this was in no way on the same level the original set forth. Perhaps if it stuck to the mood of the original this might have been a lot more enjoyable, but all there is here is a lot of flashy special effects and unnecessary gore. I was very disappointed simply because the film comes off more as a long episode of “X-Files”.  We’re introduced to a large array of characters, some barely focused on, some heavily focused on, and some just entering the story to die later on or turn into a vampire.

That’s the main problem with this is that there are so many sub-plots and very little time in a two part film to set them up and finish them off, that there was nothing here to care about and no one to care about. All the characters were clichés, or stereotypes and it made it more difficult to feel tense whenever one turned or died. A lot of the supporting cast have menial sub-plots, the doctor character is having an affair with a patient, a disabled man is having an affair with the local Real Estate broker’s daughter whom he is molesting, and on and on the subplots go without any direction to take them.

Throw in a few blatant Stephen King references in the film and it all makes for a disastrous remake that wasn’t needed in the first place. A horrible remake to a classic horror film, it’s baffling to the reasoning and logic that thought “Salem’s Lot” actually needed a remake. It’s all style and very little substance. King needs to recover from this lag in creativity fast.

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