"Salem's Lot"

I picked up "Salem's Lot" at Duane Reade a few days ago. Apparently their sale on Halloween theme spooky movies did not move all the films, and I got the DVD for $5.

I read the novel by Stephen King years ago, probably at least 15 years back. I remember enjoying the shivers up and down my spine but did not remember much of the plot except that it involved a town being taken over by vampires.

Basically, that's what it was about. The main character, Ben, arrives in town to write a book about the weird happenings at the Marsten house. But he finds that a mysterious and creepy antiques dealer, Mr. Straker (James Mason) has rented the place. Strange and creepy things begin happening. Characters die off right and left and come back as vampires, eager to convert others to their evil cause.

This movie really scared me. I had clammy hands while watching it. It wasn't the makeup on the evil Vampire Master that was so frightening. It was the anticipation and the built up tension in each scene, so that by the time something supernatural happened I was ready to jump out of my skin. It takes an excellent movie to be that scary, and I was duly impressed with the skillful acting and direction.

Mason was particularly creepy as the dapper and urbane gentleman who aided and abetted the master Vampire in his aim to convert the townspeople into vampires. One wonders why Mason himself was not turned into a vampire and what reward he got from assisting the Master. One also wonders how Mason, who was around 70 at the time, could have been strong enough to lift a younger man and carry him down a hallway to impale him on a knife protruding from the wall.

But these little discrepancies aside, "Salem's Lot" was a marvelously spooky movie and I appreciated it a great deal though I am not so sure I will ever watch it again.