Go ahead. Tell me I’m stupid. But I’ve never been a fan of Salem’s Lot. I feel it’s horribly dated, slow, and just not scary. I loved the book, but just felt that the book was on such a high pedestal, that no movie could reach it. I’m hoping the newest remake comes out okay, because the 2004 version sucked.
Synopsis:
A man and his son vacation to the quiet vampire populated town of Salem’s Lot.
IMDb: 4.3
Rotten Tomatoes: 24%
Tagline: Salem’s Lot. Population: Dwindling. Primary industry: Terror.
Cult director Larry Cohen directed It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent, It’s Alive Trilogy, The Stuff, along with so many more genre films, while writing and producing all 3 Maniac Cop films. This was one of his last theatrically released studio films, instead, focusing on writing and producing for his last 25 years before passing from cancer in 2019.
Ronnie Blakley, Nancy’s mother in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and genre vet and Larry Cohen regular, Michael Moriarty, star in this vampiric sequel. Evelyn Keyes, Suellen O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, appears in the film after 31 years absent from the big screen. A 12-year-old Tara Reid, of American Pie and Sharknado fame, also features.
Themes of consumerism and humanism permeate throughout the film. Cohen based the film off of the play Our Town, only loosely using the original novel as a basis. He chose to instead show the vampires as the most persecuted race in Europe. All of this aside, the film was almost universally trashed.
It’s every bit as bad as the rating on IMDb suggests. The originality of the vamps trying to go legit and having their plight documented by a legit anthropologist IS a decent enough idea, but I don’t think it should have been a sequel to Salem’s Lot. It might have been better served as a stand-alone film. The logic of the father and son sticking around after finding out everyone is a vampire is just completely idiotic.
The ludicrousness just goes on and on until the standard ‘school bus as a getaway car’ shows up, and then you barely have time to laugh before the movie is over.
The music is pretty cool, very synth and keyboard driven, almost sounding like a Goblin soundtrack at times. I really enjoyed it at the opening credits, and it feels very aristocratic at times, almost like it would be played at the Grand Ball in the 1790’s where everyone has a white wig and black shoes with golden buckles.
My memory must be terrible, because there’s no boobs at all until 37 minutes in. I remember some crazy orgy chock full of nudity down by a bonfire, but I have no idea, now, what movie that scene is from. I wanna watch it though, so if you know, please shout it out. Anyway, the nudity is old man Moriarty humping on his undead high school lover who hasn’t aged a day, which is pretty weird. I mean, he’s 46 in this film and she’s a high schooler or at least freshly graduated. She’s hot, though. She just can’t act. Which explains why she only has 3 acting credits, two of which are Cohen films. Oh, and by the way, she was 19 here. And old man Moriarty was kissing all over her boobies.
Fun fact: Katja Crosby, the nude hottie in the film, married a guy named Ali Moghadam. In September 1999, they were sentenced for tax evasion and money laundering stemming from bootlegging CDs in L.A. He spent 6 months in Federal prison and 6 months house arrest while she was sentenced to 3 years of probation. More recently, they own a gas station and have been involved in Occupy Las Vegas, a chapter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The logic is incredibly stupid. The effects are not good and illogical. The acting is pretty rough at times. It’s fun seeing Tara Reid as a little girl, but her acting skills haven’t improved from this film 36 years ago.
Not Cohen’s finest hour, and it stands to reason why this was his last theatrical release.
2.5/10 Stab Wounds
