Salem’s Lot: The Movie (1979)

          Even though the 1976 movie adaptation of horror novelist Stephen King’s first book, Carrie, was a solid success, it took Hollywood a few years to dip back into the King well—and the follow-up project appeared on the small screen rather than in theaters. After attempts to turn King’s book Salem’s Lot into a feature ran aground, the piece was reconceived as a two-part miniseries that would allow for the narrative sprawl that gives King’s stories their folksy texture. The shift worked, because the Salem’s Lotminiseries was an Emmy-nominated hit. Then, after its November 1979 TV run, the movie was chopped down to feature length and issued to theaters outside the United States. But here’s the twist—King stated at the time he preferred the shorter version, even though it excised nearly half the plot. Go figure.

          Watched as a stand-alone feature, Salem’s Lot: The Movie is underwhelming, and not just because of the choppy edits that appear wherever a big chunk of material was removed—even the unbroken scenes feel ordinary, with a few noteworthy exceptions. The story, of course, is a typical King lark about good people confronting a bad place. Ben Mears (David Soul) is a novelist who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, Maine, to write about the Marsten House, an imposing edifice just outside town where horrible things are rumored to have happened in the past. Mears wants to explore the notion of whether houses can truly be haunted. However, someone else got to the Marsten House first—elegant Englishman Richard Straker (James Mason), who plans to open an antique shop in town, recently bought the place. It turns out Straker is the accomplice to an ancient vampire who plans to feast on the people of Salem’s Lot, converting them to an army of bloodsuckers. Once a trail of bodies and a series of supernatural confrontations reveals what’s happening, Mears endeavors to defeat the monsters with help from unlikely sidekicks including a little boy and an old man.

          Viewed in the 112-minute version, the story feels contrived and overwrought, because useful elements including a prologue/epilogue device and various subplots aren’t there to buttress the outlandish narrative twists. Director Tobe Hooper stages several fun shock scenes—the best bits involve a ghostly vampire kid floating in fog outside a bedroom window while calling to a young friend on the other side of the glass—but Salem’s Lot merely seems like a classier version of the supernatural escapism that producer/director Dan Curtis made for TV throughout the ’70s, in projects such as the spooky 1972 telefilm The Night Stalker. Still, there’s a lot of nihilistic bloodshed here for a small-screen project, even though Salem’s Lot isn’t gory, and Mason is terrific as the charmingly evil Straker. (By contrast, leading man Soul, of Starsky & Hutch fame, is hopelessly bland.) Still, it’s a head-scratcher why King fancied this version over the three-hour mother lode.

Salem’s Lot: The Movie: FUNKY

Carrie (1976)

          It might be exaggerating to call Carrie a good film, since it’s unabashedly campy and lurid, but there’s no arguing with results—among other things, the movie earned two Oscar nominations, elevated director Brian De Palma to A-list status, turned leading lady Sissy Spacek into a star, initiated an epic relationship between Hollywood and novelist Stephen King, and became one of the most popular horror movies of the ’70s. Considering that the flick is so trashy it features beaver shots beneath the opening credits and culminates with a blood-soaked teenager using telekinesis to slaughter her classmates, that’s quite a list of accolades.

          Based on King’s first novel, Carrie tells the sad story of Carrie White (Spacek), a misfit American teenager so ignorant to the ways of the world that she freaks out upon getting her first period while showering in the school gym. Her vicious classmates, led by instigator Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), taunt Carrie mercilessly, pelting her with sanitary napkins, so Carrie is excused from school for the rest of the day. Once she returns home, we discover the source of Carrie’s troubles—her lunatic mother, Margaret White (Piper Laurie), is a Bible-thumping abuser who considers sexual development sinful and tortures Carrie with long imprisonments in a closet.

          As Carrie reels from the shower incident and her troubles at home, she discovers the ability to move objects with her mind. Meanwhile, Chris is banned from the upcoming prom—indirect punishment for tormenting Carrie—so she plans grotesque revenge. Adding a final thread to the story is Carrie’s sympathetic classmate Sue (Amy Irving), who persuades her dreamboat boyfriend, Tommy (William Katt), to take Carrie to the prom. One bucket of pig blood later, it all goes to hell.

          De Palma and screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen took relatively few liberties with King’s narrative, so they delivered his signature combination of gore and pathos intact, and Carrie zooms along at tremendous speed. Excepting two ill-conceived comedic sequences (both of which feature cringe-inducing music), Carrieis laser-focused on developing empathy for the protagonist and setting up a Grand Guignol climax. Generally speaking, Carrieis an efficient movie, and some of the picture’s elements exist on an elevated plane. De Palma’s trademark tracking shots manifest in full force, for instance (though the shots are akin to guitar solos in overwrought hard-rock songs, flamboyance for the sake of flamboyance). Additionally, De Palma uses the supporting cast like an orchestra, getting exactly the right single note each from Allen, Irving, Katt, Laurie, and others (including Betty Buckley and John Travolta).

          Spacek’s Oscar-nominated performance holds Carrie together, since her character’s emotional journey drives the story. As played by Spacek, Carrie is fragile during early scenes, ferocious when assaulting her enemies, and poignant once she realizes the tragic fate to which she has been consigned. De Palma’s ending represents his biggest departure from King’s book, and while the film’s concise denouement is more cinematic than the protracted conclusion of King’s narrative, it’s a bit much, right up to the notorious “gotcha” coda. Once again, however, there’s no arguing with results; Carrie made such an impression that it earned a Broadway adaptation in 1988, a low-budget movie sequel in 1999, and big-budget movie remakes in 2002 and 2013.

Carrie:GROOVY