Unless you saw it as one of your first King adaptations, this one doesn't really seem to grab your attention. By 90's standards (and even by 80's standards, when I first saw it), it seems curiously dated. it's definitely chilling, a good King adaptation (with one exception, see below), and an interesting homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula. The characters are interesting. But if you're familiar with the novel, you have to watch this and wonder, "Why isn't James Mason playing the vampire?!?" He seems much more suitable to play the suave charismatic vampire of the novel, rather than the bald drooling Nosferatu-lookalike we get here. It's a very odd choice of casting and alteration to the novel, and one that causes me to mark it down a point or two.
Review of Salem's Lot
