"A fresh Stephen King adaptation should be exciting," said Christina Newland in The i Paper. "It's a shame, then, that Salem's Lot" – a small-town chiller set in 1970s Maine – has "zero new ideas or even a particularly frightening take" on the author's 1975 novel.
Directed by Gary Dauberman, the film stars Lewis Pullman ("a charisma vacuum") as a writer who returns to his home town to research his new book, and discovers that "a mysterious newcomer" (Alexander Ward), who is posing as an antiques dealer, is actually a "vampire with a burning desire to turn the entire population into fellow bloodsuckers".
'Deeply unscary'
The film has the "sense of having been cut and re-cut repeatedly, with scenes rushing into the next or characters cropping up late" with little introduction, and its weird pacing makes it "deeply unscary". Dauberman "does change the book's original conclusion to something more modern and satisfying", but "in the final analysis, this Salem's Lot is vastly inferior" to the popular 1979 miniseries.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This film was due for release back in 2022, and has gone straight to streaming in the US – which has made for rather a "shaky advance reputation", said Jonathan Romney in the Financial Times. But I'd agree with King (executive producer here), who declared on X/Twitter that the film was, "Quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big pay-off."
'No risk of nightmares'
I'm afraid I found Salem's Lot "half-baked and half-hearted", said Tim Robey in The Telegraph. Its vampires "send you to sleep without any risk of nightmares", and it looks abysmal, with most scenes either "ineptly underlit or horribly graded". Sure, "there have been a few worse King adaptations" – but not many.
-
Why Britain is struggling to stop the ransomware cyberattacksThe Explainer New business models have greatly lowered barriers to entry for criminal hackers
-
Greene’s rebellion: a Maga hardliner turns against TrumpIn the Spotlight The Georgia congresswoman’s independent streak has ‘not gone unnoticed’ by the president
-
Crossword: October 26, 2025The Week's daily crossword puzzle
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Ready for the apocalypseFeature As anxiety rises about the state of the world, the ranks of preppers are growing—and changing.
