Maybe it’s all the Universal Monster movies I’ve been watching lately, but I found that, for the most part, Dauberman’s adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel (the first one I ever read), Salem’s Lot, works.

I don’t like how he changed the climax of the film. He moves it out of the Marsten House which is as much a character in the book as everyone else to a location that allows for a somewhat happy ending with the destruction of all the vampires. He’s also removed some of the classic King moments that would have reverberations throughout the King-universe, specifically the fate of Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey). Don’t worry, the iconic child at the window is still there, and still works!

Beyond that, Dauberman delivers an old school vampire film that is more in line with the Universal Monsters and matinee films that helped inspire King’s original novel. This is illustrated by two characters, the returning hometown author, Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) and the geeky kid who knows how to deal with the supernatural because of his fascination with it, Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter).

More intent on creating arresting images than spraying lots of blood the story, set in the mid to late 70s, follows Ben Mears return to town seeking inspiration for his new work. At the same time, a new antique shop is being set up, Barlow & Straker. The town gets to know Straker (Pilou Asbaek) but Barlow (Alexander Ward) is an unseen, silent partner.

He’s actually in the Marsten House, in a coffin, and after a sacrifice to consecrate the ground, begins to turn the once lively town into a dead husk.

The first half of the film does a fairly solid job of being faithful to King’s novel, it’s not until after the escape from the Marsten House that things really skew away from the source material.

And that tends to be the real problem with King adaptations, they have to compress character arcs, sacrifice moments and narrative to work within the confines of a two to three hour feature film (this one runs just shy of two). If this had been done in a long form, like Tobe Hooper’s version from 1979, and to a lesser degree, the 2004 adaptation, it could really explore the classic vampire lore, as well as all of the character moments and scares that King weaved into the book.

It’s not a bad film, in fact, it has some nicely creepy moments, but it’s not the kind of vampire film film goers are used to, they expect lots of gore, and killing and body counts and scares, this is more old school, King’s riff on Bram Stoker’s Dracula with small Maine taking the place of bustling London.

Like I said, I didn’t care for the climax so much, but the rest of the film worked nicely.