Much further back in time for us now, as this disc has a recording of one of my older tapes. It’s the TV Miniseries of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. This one is well remembered by a generation of traumatised kids. It’s directed by Tobe Hooper, but as it’s a TV movie it’s not as gruesome as his Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or as weird as Lifeforce.
It starts off in a church in Guatemala, where David Soul and (it seems) teenage David Soul are on the run from someone who makes bottles of holy water glow.
After the titles, there’s a time jump. David Soul plays Ben Mears, a writer, who has come to the small Maine town of Salem’s Lot, looking for somewhere to stay for a while. He seems particularly interested in the old house on the hill.
Fred Willard plays the local real estate salesman. When Ben asks him about the Marsten House on the hill, he says it’s just been bought.
He meets a young woman who’s reading one of his books. She’s Susan Norton, played by Bonnie Bedelia off of Die Hard. He grills her quite intensively about whether she’s really reading his book, which comes off as a bit defensive, and then asks her to dinner.
He takes a detour to the Marston house, and encounters the man who bought it, Mr Straker, played by James Mason. He’s textbook creepy.
Kenneth McMillan plays the local sheriff. He’s creepy too, but you get that by casting Kenneth McMillan.
He tells the local drunk, Elisha Cook Jr, to keep an eye on Ben. This town is very suspicious of visitors.
Before their date, Ben is introduced to Susan’s family. Her mother is played by Bonnie Bartlett.
Her father is played by Ed Flanders. I’m assuming that’s a hairpiece, as he didn’t have hair that black in St Elsewhere, a couple of years later. incidentally, Bonnie Bartlett also appeared in St Elsewhere.
Next day, Ben visits the local high school. They’re rehearsing the school pageant, written by one of the pupils, Mark Petrie. He’s the boy we saw in the opening flash-forward. There’s a very slight whiff of Rushmore here, although they’re doing the revolutionary war, not Vietnam.
Ben is there to see his old teacher, Jason Burke, played by Lew Ayres. We saw him recently in The Questor Tapes. Ben tells Jason that he inspired him to become a writer, although he must have done that pretty fast, as Ben also says he left the town when he was 11 years old.
Susan Norton has an ex boyfriend, plumber Ned Tebbets. Obviously he’s controlling and jealous.
Mr Straker asks realtor Fred Willard to organise a delivery of a large crate containing some antique furniture, giving a long and detailed description of how it must be delivered, and how the house must be secured with padlocks after it’s done. Willard in turn delegates the task to George Dzundza, the husband of his secretary. Risky, since he’s secretly having an affair with her, and thinks Dzundza doesn’t know.
Dzundza, in turn, delegates the job to Mike Ryerson (Geoffrey Lewis) and angry plumber Ned Tebbets. Ned is a loose cannon all round. All the time he’s “I want to open the crate, see what’s in it”. I’m surprised people trust him to be in their houses fixing their plumbing. Maybe he doesn’t get much work and that’s why he’s angry all the time. Ryerson seems a lot more chill.
Young Mark Petrie (played by Lance Kerwin) has a bedroom filled with monster models, masks, sculptures. I guarantee that he’s a Fangoria reader (the first issue of that magazine came out in 1979, the year this came out). He’s rehearsing a piece about the old Marston house. I’m still convinced he’s actually young David Soul, and there’s a time travel story underneath this.
Mark hangs out with his friends. the Glick brothers. They take a shortcut home, and young Ralphie gets separated from older brother Danny, there’s spooky wind, then a shadow rises suddenly in front of him, accompanied by what’s almost the ‘Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition’ Brass stab.
Danny arrives home later, and immediately collapses.
Mr Straker arrives back at the Marston House to find that Ryerson and Tebbets haven’t followed his strict instructions about locking everything. What’s more, the big shipping crate that they delivered looks like it’s exploded from the inside. Straker is carrying a package wrapped in black plastic. He unwraps it, and inside is young Ralphie Glick.
George Dzundza has been watching his house, and sees realtor Fred Willard go in to meet his wife. He bursts in on them with a shotgun, and threatens Willard with it. He pulls the trigger, but it’s no loaded, and Willard runs out of the house is terror, only to be attacked by an unseen someone with skinny fingers.
Ben and Susan hang out at the lake. They hear cars stop, and then one drives off, and when they check, they find Willard in his car, dead.
Danny Glick is in bed, unwell. This is the scene that everyone who saw this show remembers. There’s spooky mist outside, and younger brother Ralphie floats into view, scraping at the window. Danny opens the window, and Ralphie floats in to the room. Later, Danny is admitted to hospital, and Doctor Norton tells Ben that he’s thinks it’s ‘Pernicious Anaemia’. I think this was the first time I’d ever heard of that.
While Danny’s in hospital, he’s visited again by Ralphie. I’m unsure, dramatically, why they are effectively repeating exactly the same scene, but the fact it’s the show’s most iconic scene means they probably realised what they had. The effect when Ralphie floats into the room this time is very dreamlike, thanks to it being shot in reverse, so the smoke billows backwards. It’s extremely effective. The discovery in the morning of Danny’s twisted dead body is a nice scare, too.
Danny’s funeral takes place fairly quickly. His mother faints, which was something that often happened to women in 70s TV shows. After the funeral, Mark Ryerson is burying the body, there’s scary wind all around, and he seems mesmerised by the coffin, so much so that he jumps into the grave (another box to tick on your Movie Funeral Bingo card) and pulls open the top of the coffin. Danny’s there, looking very blue – those morticians have a very strange colour sense – and he suddenly sits up and bites Ryerson.
BBC Genome: BBC One London – 15th August 1985 – 21:25
In the next episode, Mike Ryerson is showing the ill effects of having been bitten by a vampire (although nobody in town has yet realised that’s what’s happening). He interrupts Ben and Jason Burke having a meal at the local restaurant.
Now it’s Mark Petrie’s turn to have a visit, this time from the older Glick brother Danny. Mark, though, as a good Fangoria reader, knows enough not to open his window, and drives him off with a cross. (Which he pulls from one of his models. Score one for the nerds.)
Ben is woken at 4am by his landlady, with a phone call from Jason Burke. He throws on a dressing gown and goes to take the call. It’s a very small thing, but David Soul’s body language in this is amazing. You might expect the big-time hero of a TV movie to act everything like a hero, but his movement and posture in this very short scene read perfectly as a man who’s just woken up in the middle of the night. I like small moments like this. And the phone call is good too. We don’t hear the other side of it, as he tells Jason he’ll be there in ten minutes, then he’s asked something else. “Hell no, I was a Baptist” and you just know he’s been asked if he has a crucifix.
It’s opening day at Straker’s antique shop. I haven’t said much about James Mason yet, as he’s mostly been lurking, but he’s great in this, polite yet menacing. Incidentally, dialogue in this episode says he’s supposed to be 58, although he was around 70 when it was made. He’s frequently referencing his partner, a German man called Mr Barlow. “You’ll enjoy Mr Barlow. And he’ll enjoy you.”
Ben goes back to his room, where Ned Tebbetts is waiting for him, hiding behind a wooden screen. He beats Ben up.
Jason is sitting at home reading up on vampires when he hears a noise upstairs. Investigating he discovers the previously dead Mike Ryerson , now with glowing eyes. He manages to drive him out of the room – “I revoke my invitation” – but then starts having a heart attack.
Ned Tebbetts is in the local jail, and he has a visitor. It’s the mysterious Mr Barlow that Straker has been talking about. It seems an odd story choice to have Barlow’s reveal be here, since Tebbetts isn’t a character anyone really cares about, and this scene just happens with little build up. Barlow is played by Reggie Nalder, a fact that I can still remember to this day, an actor whose iMDb credits go back to 1938. His look is definitely inspired by Max Schreck in Nosferatu.
The local Catholic priest has come to visit Mark Petrie after his nocturnal visit from Danny. His father thinks it’s all because of his models and masks. But then there’s a lot of shaking, plates falling off shelves, windows smashing, and suddenly, Mr Barlow is in the house, smashes Mark’s parents’ heads together, and grabs Mark by the throat. The priest tries to fend him off with his crucifix. Is it just me, or have they deliberately cast an actor who looks a little bit like Jason Miller from The Exorcist? Straker is there too, and challenges the Priest to throw down his crucifix and face Barlow with his faith, and Mark will be released. “I’m going to kill you” promises Mark before running off. The Priest doesn’t fare well.
Ben is in the funeral home, where the dead body of Mrs Glick is a lot more sprightly than you’d want. He’s fashioned a cross out of a couple of tongue depressors which makes her fade away. Cheaper than crumbling to dust, I suppose.
Susan, ill-advisedly, goes to the Marston House. She sees Mark breaking in. It’s not in a very good state. Classic Spooky House.
She meets Mark in the house, but is captured by Straker. Mason is terrific, polite and scary, never turning into a ranting monster.
Ben and Susan’s father (who’s called Bill – Bill and Ben) arrive at the house, having gone by the church to get some holy water. But Ben pauses – he remembers being in the house when he was eleven, and being traumatised by what he saw. His trauma is interrupted by the door opening and young Mark running out – Straker had tied him to a chair, not realising he’d already established that he can get out of any knot.
They make the rookie mistake of splitting up once they go in the house, and Bill goes upstairs, only to meet Mr Straker who demonstrates that when politeness and a cut-glass English accent aren’t enough, being able to pick a man up by his shoulders and walk him backwards into a wall full of pointy antlers will have to do.
Straker’s had it with etiquette now. He strides back to the top of the stairs and rips a bannister up to use as a weapon. This is a 70 year old man, but I’m totally convinced by this. Lucky for Ben that the departing Sheriff gave him his gun before he left town, although it takes every bullet in the gun to stop Straker.
Finally it’s time to take on Mr Barlow in the basement. I’m not impressed with the tiny hammer Ben brought, as it take him ages to drive the stake in.
There’s a bit of timelapse to show the vampire decaying – although in one of the transitions his two front fangs disappear, but then reappear on the next transition.
They set fire to the house, and the wind carries the fire to the town. “It will purify Salem’s Lot” says Ben, but there will be vampires left. And he never found Susan.
Then, we’re back in Guatemala from the opening – in fact, they play the whole scene from the opening again, just in case you’d forgotten it. But now we see what follows. They return to their house to find a visitor. It’s Susan. “I found you.” “I know.” “I love you.” “Yes.” “We’ll always be together. We’ll always be young. We’ll love each other forever.” Until Ben stakes her. But he’s really sad when he does it.
The last shot it a shot of the moon, and there’s a brief moment where there’s a superimposition of a skull, just for a moment.
I was expecting to find this rather schlocky, and a bit naff. I actually really enjoyed it, and came away with a far better opinion of David Soul as an actor. Sure, this was a TV miniseries, so it was relatively bloodless (strange for a vampire story) but it had good scares, plenty of gothic horror, and some great performances. Great stuff
BBC Genome: BBC One London – 22nd August 1985 – 22:10
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