'Salem's Lot (Movie Tie-In)

Jerusalem's Lot is an unassuming small town in southern Maine. It is the kind of town where everybody knows everybody else and most of the residents have lived there all of their lives. In this atmosphere it was odd indeed when three strangers came to town at almost the same time. One of these strangers wasn't really a stranger at all. He had spent part of his childhood there and had returned in hopes of ridding himself of some old demons. The other two strangers also had an old connection with the town but it was a much darker and sinister connection. Stephen King starts his macabre tail with these facts and then begins to weave a fascinating tail. He introduces the reader to the town in such a way that it makes one feel as if he had actually been to this fictional place. The reader will get to know many of the residents, some all too well. Some are likable, some are loathsome, and some are described so well that the reader will actually mourn their passing. One can easily feel Ben Mears' pain when he finds out that someone that he is very close to is gone. As the dark cloud of vampirism spreads across the town there are a few residents who figure out what is going on. Some refuse to believe what logic and their senses tell them and they fall victim to the curse while others figure things out in time to flee. A few try to stop the spread of this evil and pay dearly. For those who have not seen one of the movies based on this book, this is all of the story that I am going to give away. For those who have seen the movies, neither movie follows the book too closely and the book is far superior to either film. King's flair for this type of story is well known and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed with this book. It will entertain you, it will scare you, and it will delight you. While reading parts of this book I was able to feel the sense of dread that many people in the Lot were feeling. King is indeed a master when it comes to bringing gloom and doom off of his pages and into the hearts of his readers. There are a few places where it is a little hard to follow just who is saying what in some of the conversations but beyond that I could find few flaws. I found it very interesting that the reader would not be able to figure out what was happening to the town until about the same time some of the characters do. Of course, that was when this book first came out. I dare say that few people who start this book now, nearly thirty years after it was written will be surprised by the basics of the story. The creepy factor must have been much greater before the plot was given away by the movies, but rest assured, there are still plenty of creeps between the covers of this book.

In my opinion Salem's Lot definitely is the second best modern vampire story ever told. Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" is the best. This is a typical Stephen King book: quiet small town, mysterious stranger arrives and settles in the Marsten House (which has already a history of its own), vampires start to knock on your windows. The story is fast-paced, with well-written characters, and interesting twists and turns that make the hair at the base of your neck stand up. And even if you have already read it, it's certainley a book you can reread without losing the original thrilling atmosphere you experienced when diving into the story for the first time.

This is King's best book. I read it fifteen years ago, when I was the last student still living in my gothic dormitory at Yale. It scared the hell out of me. Too bad, but by now, almost everyone knows that 'Salem's Lot is a vampire novel. I consider that a spoiler. What was so frightening for me the first time through was not quite knowing what was wrong with this town. Much is made of the old vacant Marsten house, and I thought I was reading a haunted house story. It's not until well into the book that King makes any overt reference to vampires, and when he finally does, it is with a sense of both discovery and inevitability that the reader learns the true nature of what is afflicting the town. Why, of course it's vampires. What else could it be but but vampires? As for the book being a ripoff of Dracula--well, yes. In the same sense that the movies Blade or The Hunger rip off Dracula, or that the novel Mary Reilly is a ripoff of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They are retellings. The Dracula thing isn't much more than an imaginative launching point. As someone who's actually read Stoker's Dracula, I think it's an important Gothic novel and preFreudian allegory -- but not all that scary. Not nearly as frightening as 'Salem's Lot. King is at the top of his game here, and he portrays people who make sense, who belong in this story, and whose character is their destiny. For all his prolific output, I wish King would do a sequel. This remains his most elegant, most successful, taut and transporting novel.