’Salem’s Lot

751 pages (plus uncounted Roman-numeraled introduction pages) in 3.75 days – started as soon as I got it home 15:30ish on Tuesday, finished this (Saturday) morning at 10ish – pretty pleased with myself and amazed that a book of this length could draw my attention so well that I could barely put it down to sleep (and then only when I was starting to lose track of what was going on).

My favourite part, because it was absolutely the scariest (and that’s what I was looking for in this book), was the scene where Crockett’s men were making the delivery to the store and then the Marsten house. My heart still pounds a little with the tension of that scene. I’m a pretty picky horror reader because I’m so hard to scare when there’s no tension ratchetting music before something jumps out from off camera. Horror movies don’t have to work nearly as hard to get me jumping, which is why I’m really looking forward to watching one or both of the tv miniseries that were made (after Wikipediaing it I was very interested to read that the 2004 version was actually filmed in country Victoria, Australia).

The edition I read, ISBN 9781 444 708 141, was extra fantastic because they’d included the two short stories from the Lot’s universe, One for the Road and Jerusalem’s Lot, as well as interesting background straight from King in the introduction and afterword, AND a pile of deleted scenes showing the different directions King was thinking of taking the book in. Reading the two related short stories right after finishing the book was the best time to read them. If I had unknowingly waited till I got to that short story collection somewhere down the line (I’m mostly reading them in publication order), it might have taken me a bit before I realised One for the Road was a Lot story and it’s possible I wouldn’t have enjoyed the epistolary Jerusalem’s Lot as much as I did because I wouldn’t have picked up on the little bits of background it included.

There were a few scenes that I think would have worked better than what ended up getting published (at least for me). I liked King’s original name for Barlow, Sarlinov; I was really creeped out by the rat hordes; I thought Ben and Susan’s original discussion in Ben (II) was better, plus we get more information about the book Ben is writing and I thought that was interesting; the same with Ben’s discussion with Matt over a plate of spaghetti; the deleted scenes of Dud visiting Ruthie Crockett and Randy McDougall visiting his mother were very disturbing and I guess that’s probably why King omitted them; Barlow using a tape recording instead of a letter was nearly enough to make me jump; Callahan’s original fate was much more gory and upsetting for the others when they find him, but of course then he wouldn’t have been able to make appearances in future books (I wonder if King was already contemplating that and that’s why he changed what happened?); the scene where Jimmy and Mark start flushing out the vampires was completely switched (maybe the sensibilities of the readers was on King’s mind?); and finally the scene in Eva’s basement obviously had to be changed if the rats were gone, but I think the rats would have terrified me – the idea of them swarming over me and biting me makes me shudder in combined disgust and fear.

For me, ‘Salem’s Lot lost something with the removal of most of the rats, with those deleted rats scenes included I probably would have given this five stars and actually contemplated whether I might have had nightmares that involved swarming rats in dark cellars, as it was I just didn’t feel the horror the way I wanted to. On to The Stand!!!!

Just finished the 1979 movie. Wasn’t impressed with the directorial changes or the way things like the sight of blood had to be removed to appease the television censors. Straker was nothing like the way I imagined him from King’s writing – he was too polite, too nice to the townspeople, with no hint of menace beneath the smile, and also seemed nervous of Barlow, an impression I definitely didn’t get from the book. I also didn’t like the choice to turn Barlow into a physical monster with no power of speech. The hissing noises he made while being staked reminded me of Darth Vader’s death scene mixed with the sounds my dog makes when he wants my attention. I think a monster who appears to be a charming older man who can stroll the streets hunting victims any night he wants is far more scary than one who can only be seen by those he intends to kill because his appearance can not fail to go unnoticed. I was also disappointed by the cuts made to Susan’s part – even though the result ended up being the same, it felt like a case of ‘get the weak woman away from the danger so that the men can fight it’. Overall, I’d give that adaptation 1.5 stars out of 5.

Finished the 2004 adaptation and compared to the previous one, it was fantastic. Much more faithful to the book, what changes the director decided to make made much more sense to me and kinda made the director of the previous series seem like a liar. He said, for example, that the final scene with Barlow had to be moved back to the Marsten house because it didn’t make sense otherwise (according to a quote on the Wikipedia page from an interview he made about the making of the movie); it was in Eva’s basement, where it belonged, in this version and it worked perfectly. I loved, and also laughed at, the Australian filming location – country Victoria (even if some of the snow on the ground might have been natural, if it was filmed in June/July) is no substitute for Maine. The trees were completely wrong – evergreen gum trees everywhere – making the wide shots of the town completely unrecognisable as being located in Maine (no sign of gum trees in a picture of Bangor in winter shown on the Maine Wikipedia page). But, because of the filming location I got to play ‘pick the Australian star’ with all bar one of the supporting cast members – Dan Byrd is American, everyone else was Australian with varying degrees of fame. I would give this adaptation 4 stars out of 5, it was about as good as the source material with a few tweaks and updates due to the 30 years in between.

My favourite Steven King book. Still scary after all these years.

Admitidly I have not read many horror books so I’m biased in this review. ‘Salems Lot is my most favorite vampire movie so I knew I would love the book.

Loved the Vampires. Didn’t expect this from King.

As a King fan, this is my favorite novel. I recommend it to anyone who likes to be scared.