A Return to Salem's Lot

....that I had to force myself to see it through to the end.... how bad? Well the kid who played the exceedingly foul-mouthed boy has NO other acting credits to his name on this movie database! That should say something...to think that Michael Moriarty, an actor with many fine films to his credit, would appear in a piece of crap like this... I first saw it last year after renting it at a video store, because the original Salem's Lot is a pretty good film, but this movie has nothing to do with the original....it looked like they shot it about 10 minutes after the writer wrote it, and they had one shot only...if you forgot your lines, just adlib something...the plot was preposterous....the only attribute it made to vampire movies at all was the concept of the "drones" who could function during the day as normal people and guard the real vampires.

Really I must say, that of "major" studio movies, this one truly has a shot at worst of all time, as they had real actors, a real budget, location, scenery and etc....and it is still horrible. So you can't judge it against awful movies that were shot for video only with a $100,000 budget....No, this one really is unbelievably bad considering its backing and the name it had to trade on..... I gave it a "2" but I think I was charitable. Because of this movie, there will never be a "Salem's Lot 3" and that's too bad.

A good story can survive all but the worst treatment. Unfortunately, this really is the worst treatment.

The acting is terrible. The editing is worse--choppy and inept. It's the kind of editing that's so bad you have a number of those "What? How'd he get over there?" moments. It's hard to believe that Larry Cohen had ever directed anything before this, it's so amateurish. I would have guessed this to be a first film, if I didn't know better. It looks as if the director just didn't get the shots needed to cover the action and left the editor scrambling to stitch together a movie.

Similarly, lines of dialogue come out of nowhere, completely unmotivated, almost nonsensical.

The sad thing is, there are good ideas buried in this mess: vampires trying to run a sustainable community by feeding on cows' blood, their attempts to recruit a journalist to record the details of their lives for future generations, the protagonist's perpetually-17-years-old childhood sweetheart seducing him into the Devil's bargain. They're good elements for a story.

But the details don't hang together. None of it quite makes sense. And the one or two good special effects are overwhelmed by all the lousy ones.

If, like the inhabitants of Salem's Lot, you plan to live forever, you might want to take a look at this movie. But for the living: Believe me, you don't have enough time to waste two of your precious remaining hours on this one.

If you are a fan of the horror and cult genre, especially of original screenplays and imaginative plots, you can't but have tremendous respect for Larry Cohen. The creative mastermind had an extremely busy career, during which he wrote more than eighty scenarios and also directed a good twenty films between the early 70s and the late 80s. Moreover, and what I personally appreciate most about Cohen, there is a huge diversity in his films. From pioneer blaxploitation cult like "Black Caesar", over micro-budgeted horror classic "It's Alive", towards the absurdly playful "Q - Winged Serpent" or "The Stuff"; - each of these is unique and 100% original. As a matter of course, not all of Cohen's scripts and/or films can be equally flawless. Notably the ones where he experimented with comedy and homage, like "Full Moon High" and this "A Return to Salem's Lot", are rather large disappointments.

In fact, "A Return to Salem's Lot" is more than a disappointment. It's a huge misfire. I honestly can't fathom what Cohen tried to accomplish with this redundant, in-name-only sequel to Tobe Hooper's successful TV mini-series based on the Stephen King novel. Here, an estranged father and son land in the little Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot and it's apparently already inhabited by vampires since the time of the Pilgrims. This wouldn't be a Larry Cohen flick if it didn't contain at least a handful of worthwhile elements. There are some nifty plot elements (for instance, the vampires use humanoid "slaves" to run the town during daylight), the gore is fairly outrageous and it's great fun to see the controversial director Samuel Fuller ("White Dog") as a bonkers vampire hunter. Still, throughout most of the running time, "A Return to Salem's Lot" is dull and utterly pointless. Michael Moriarty is once more incredibly irritating. Sometimes I really dig him, sometimes I can't stand him. In this film, it's the latter.

PS: I also hate misleading film posters. The poster for this film leads you to believe that Reggie Nalder's notorious character from the original, Kurt Barlow, also still appears in the sequel, which obviously isn't true. And yet, in spite of all this, you are still a favorite of mine, Larry Cohen!

I actually feel embarrassed for Michael Moriarty. He has never had the really good roles he deserves. And he did not deserve this. It is obvious that the studio wanted to exploit the popular "Salem's Lot" without "shoveling" out the cash to do a decent job. This film cannot even in good conscience be called a sequel. There was nothing left of the town at the end of the last film, and suddenly all new characters are coming home to a place that isn't even supposed to exist. I really felt as if my intelligence was being insulted, by this truly poor representation of the subject. If you are renting the film OK, you just wasted a couple of bucks, no big deal. But if you bought it, you've just been bitten big time. This movie deserves an early grave.

This movie had a good idea, that is, how a colony of vampires might live, what they do to survive, etc. However, it just didn't work out right. The pacing and performances were not up to snuff, and any movie in which you have characters standing in a barn full of Holstein cattle, and explaining that "Jersey cows make richer milk", obviously had problems in the design phase.

Just a bad film...