This was one of my favorite King books when I was a teen, along with The Shining. My first exposure to this came in 1979 with the original TV movie, when I was flipping the channels looking for something to watch and just happened to land on a station showing the movie. What I saw that night terrified me so much that I immediately changed the channel. It was dark, in a prison cell with an open door - and then the vampire popped up. I didn't fully watch it until a couple of years later. It remains one of the best vampire movies I've ever seen along with the original Dracula and the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I see some differences in this iteration, and I'm talking about differences to the book, not the original or remake movie (the latter of which I own but have yet to watch). Before someone comes along and gives me what-for about these differences, I don't believe the differences will be a big deal, but I question the need for them. But whatever, I'll watch this one.

Love the book. This looks good. Is it a series or a movie?

This is a movie. I believe it will be on Max in October.

What blows me away is the original miniseries from the 70s was about 3 hours and this one is less than 2. It has been a very long time since I've read SL or watched the original so I don't really have a sense of what "fat" could be cut. In any event, I'm really interested and will catch this at some point.

Possible spoiler for Stephen King related works:Just started a reread of The Dark Tower series so I'm going to watch this before getting into the tie in and hopefully it will complement Wolves of the Calla better than reading the book without refreshing myself on the Father Callahan storyline.

Love the book.

Can't really get behind this though.

The 2004 miniseries was very well done and plenty "modernized", so not sure how swapping out the actors is going to significantly impact it. Actor downgrades almost across the board.

And if you're really jonesing on an even more updated version of the story, just watch Midnight Mass and swap Gordon Lightfoot for Neil Diamond. Quite obvious Salem's Lot was Flanagan's inspiration.

Watching this now. Not terrible or anything. I am digging the 70s setting with the drive-in and the Aurora monster models Mark Petrie is building.

Just about done. While it is telling the basics of King's story, I am going to have to call this version a steaming pile of dog ***** Too many significant deviations from the book. Caricature characters, probably a result of the less than 2 hour runtime.

If you like the novel and the original 1979 mini-series, I don't recommend this garbage.

Why is it apparently impossible to just film the book? There is crap in this movie that was not in the book. And it's not like they could not have at least set the final confrontation against Barlow at the Marsten House rather than the drive- in theater.

honestly I think the book is overrated.

but yes, this adaption was a bunch of meh and does not justify its existence.

Yeah, pretty paint-by-numbers movie with the standard cliche horror movie scenes - characters making dumb decisions like going out to investigate a noise in the complete dark after knowing there's vampires in the town; going to investigate the vampire's house on their own; completely freezing up in panic right when the bad guy is about to get them.

I honestly don't understand making a movie like this and not trying to do something different with the scenes, the cinematography, whatever, just so you're not recreating what's been done a thousand times before.

I was taken aback by how young Homelander's kid looked for a movie released in 2024, but sure enough this was shot in 2021, touched up in 2022, and then sat on until whomever was too embarrassed to release it relented.

Quote:

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. . . In February 2024, King once again questioned why there were still no confirmed release plans for the film, stating that he is "not sure why WB is holding it back; not like it's embarrassing, or anything. Who knows." . . .

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Salem%27s_Lot_(film)

Maybe a little embarrassing. The UK gets a theatrical release, so that could be like being big in Japan for the flick.

I love much of King's work, but he's an absolute ***** when it comes to shilling for anything he may get residuals on. He tweeted all about how happy people would be with The Dark Tower movie.

I thought it was ok. Some scary parts but it did get pretty annoying with how utterly stupid the characters acted. I haven't read the book or watched the original series so I don't have any history with the story so I am probably more forgiving

Not a bad movie. The ending was anticlimactic and lame but it was entertaining beginning to end. It passed the "Good enough to not play with my phone" test.

It really felt like a B horror flick rather than a SK adaptation.