Salem's Lot - The Miniseries
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Movie Reviews of Salem's Lot - The Miniseries
Movie Review: Great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This 2004 remake of Salem's Lot is excellent. I'm a big fan of the 1979 original, but the remake is much better. The choice of actors and the modern special effects make this current version a definite hit. Rob Lowe's narration and the focus on the individuals and the makeup of the town lend very well to character development and story telling. I highly recommend buying this dvd.Movie Review: Great
Summary: 5 Stars
I just watched this in school last week & im gonna buy it now its realy great i loved the story but the ending sucks but get it if you like a good story.Movie Review: Good Remake
Summary: 5 Stars
For a remake this one is very good, there are scenes i was waiting for that turn out different (the monster) but overall the movie stands on it's own!!!Movie Review: FUN UPDATE OF THE KING CLASSIC NOVEL FOR TV AGAIN
Summary: 4 Stars
SALEM'S LOT
I happen to like this updated mini series from the King classic which was also adapted much earlier into a mini series with Tobe Hooper at the helm. This version is not that movie and is not exactly like the book either but I must say that I found it really entertaining. From the acting to the over all story this just seemed like a good time to me, those around me agreed. Even though it is not completely faithful to the original work it is still worthy enough that King put his name on it, there have been others he hated enough to not have his named attached no more.
The story is the same about a writer coming back to his hometown and an unspeakable evil is lying in wait. Of course you all know that the evil in which I speak is vampires with Barlow [Rutger Hauer] of course as the lead heel in this. As the small town slowly starts to die around poor Ben Mears [Rob Lowe] who is still traumatized to an incident as a youth he starts to realize something is going on. People are disappearing and others are acting a bit strange and this all coincides with the arrival of Mears and the never seen around town Kurt Barlow. Barlow's assistant Richard Straker [Donald Sutherland] is out and about running an antique store, he is an odd fellow. But when it all comes down to it there are some vampires running around and a select few have to step up and take them down. Those few are probably the most unique and diverse group of hunters ever but hey it makes for a good time. There is the returning home writer who witnessed a murder/suicide as a child in Mears, the doctor who is sleeping with a patient and also being set up by her in Dr. James Cody [Robert Mammone], the priest who may be more gone then he appears in Father Donald Callahan [James Cromwell], a school teacher who likes the fellas in Matt Burke [Andre Braugher], and of course a kid named Mark Petrie [Daniel Byrd] who has more lives than a cat.
That group comes together to stop this evil virus that has invaded the town and they may or may not be successful. Director Mikael Salomon keeps things moving and makes the film look very atmospheric but at times the film seems uneven. Sometimes one thing will be going on and the next we switch gears, some films do that intentionally but I doubt this film was supposed to do that. Still it is an enjoyable film and writer Peter Filardi did a decent enough job up dating this film into today's world. The film looks good and there are actually some pretty good moments in this version of the King classic.
As far as performances go I think every one was up to par and delivered well, no weak performances as least from what I could see. Rob Lowe as always been a favorite of mine and did a good job in this film in the lead role. Rutger Hauer was good as the evil lead vampire named Barlow and pulled of the role well, as did his side kick played by the great Donald Sutherland. As for the rest of the hunters that accompanied Rob in this film they all did great jobs. Robert Mammone was excellent as Dr. Cody and was one of my favorites in the film and James Cromwell was equally as good as the disgruntled priest. Andre Braugher was great in his role bringing something very new to the character and of course the surprise of the film Daniel Byrd was good in this as well, in fact his character may be the best and most fearless of the hunters.
Every one else in this film was great as well with like I said no one giving a bad performance at all. If you did not catch this one TV or even if you did I recommend this one to every one, it's good for a lazy Friday night or Saturday. To all King fans out there this may be a disappointment to you if you don't give it a chance, just know that this is an up date for our time we live in now with cell phones and all that stuff. This is a fun mini series that I thought was worth the purchase.
Movie Review: Entertaining, Imaginative
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm sort of writing this is response to all the negative reviews of the movie I've read here, something I normally wouldn't do. I came at this from a different angle, I think. I'm not particularly a Stephen King fan; my reaction to his written work is one of ambivalence. I think he's an entertaining, engaging storyteller, but he's hardly a great writer, at least in my humble opinion. His characters are almost never convincing or genuine, his dialogue is contrived, artificial, his story endings almost invariably lose steam and go flat, and he seems to share Steven Spielberg's weakness of inserting the "precocious" child into nearly every storyline. Having said all that, "Salem's Lot" was probably my favorite of King's books. For all the weaknesses mentioned above, and more, it worked (albeit in the way a lurid comic-book can work), and has been a favorite of mine through the years. The TV movie of 1979 was a bitter disappointment. Granted, James Mason is one of the all-time great actors, but making him the centerpiece and relegating the character of Barlow to a non-speaking Nosferatu rip-off was truly a misguided move. One thing one can say of the book, regardless of its flaws, is that it wasn't boring. The 79 tv movie was boring. Not so this new adaptation. Yes, liberties are also taken with the original story, but they show true inspiration and imagination, virtues sadly lacking from the 79 version. It many ways, to my mind, the innovations enhance King's story. The characters come across as more fragile, more damaged, and nuanced, less stereotypical, more disturbed and, hence, more disturbing. The acting is first-rate; I'm no big fan of Rob Lowe, but he's surprisingly effective here. Also, Rutger Hauer is not the actor I would have picked to play Barlow, but he does his job admirably, with commendable restraint and presence, and my only quibble is that the character isn't given more screen time. The whole atmosphere conveys a sense of a dark, crawling pestilence and aura of miasmic menace that was missing even from King's book, much less the 1979 travesty supposedly based on that work (and if you think King's concept was really all that original, check out the low-budget movie "Return of Dracula" from the 1950's with Francis Lederer). Is this the best vampire movie ever made? Hardly. But it's probably the best film adaptation of King's work that's ever been made, and considering that artists as diverse as Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg have offered their own interpretations of King's work, that's not faint praise.