Nostalgia Kinky

I’ve always wanted to be a fan of Salem’s Lot (1979).
Let me explain.
As a Gen-X kid who grew up in the eighties, obsessed by Stephen King and horror in general, Salem’s Lot should very well be one of my favorite films. Yet, for whatever reason, Salem’s Lot has always perplexed me as a novel and film. Even with the added nostalgia of having read the book and seen the film as I was coming of age, it never flipped the switch for me. For whatever reason, I’ve just never been completely sold on Salem’s Lot, and it continues to leave me with the feeling that I’m missing something.

I’ve been especially eager to watch Arrow Home Video’s celebrated new deluxe 4K edition of Salem’s Lot. Here’s a beautiful set that contains the original miniseries, two theatrical cuts, commentaries, hours of interviews, a packed booklet, and much more. So, if ever there is a moment that I might finally get totally sold on Salem’s Lot, this is it.

Arrow’s presentation of all three cuts of Salem’s Lot is indeed stunning. This is a gorgeous restoration, and there is no question that Arrow has delivered the definitive version of Salem’s Lot. This is an impressive package for a film whose brilliance still sadly alludes me.

Watching all three versions of Salem’s Lot, the original two-part miniseries feels the most vital to me. Both the extended theatrical cut and the original shorter big-screen version feel compromised, with the shorter cut feeling more like a greatest-hits compilation than a fully realized film. I tried so very hard with these watches to see what it is that I have been missing my entire life, literally, and it’s just not there for me.

During a 2022 interview with Chris Alexander (that is reprinted in Arrow’s expansive book), director Tobe Hooper shared his thoughts on the three different takes on the film:

“there are three different cuts of Salem’s Lot,
and each one is very different from the others. My original version is the
three-hour-plus miniseries, and there’s a shorter two-hour-and-45-minute
cut, which I believe ran in syndicated reruns on television. And then, as you
mentioned, there’s the so-called feature-film version, the one called Salem’s
Lot: The Movie, which is just under two hours. And each cut got progressively
more screwed as it was hacked down, because you need all the characters
to make it work properly.”

And speaking of the devil, perhaps the most personally frustrating thing to me about my lack of wonder at Salem’s Lot is that my man, Toby Hooper directed this thing! You can absolutely sense that a real filmmaker is behind the wheel here, as even the original miniseries feels remarkably cinematic at its best moments. Ultimately, it kills me that I can’t warm up to a film made by one of my heavyweights, but the mystery of Salem’s Lot‘s appeal continues to mostly evade me.

Now, there have always been aspects of Salem’s Lot I’ve loved, most notably the wonderful setting (still thankfully unchanged as seen in a new Arrow supplement), and the film isn’t short of real WOW moments. I find so much of the film rather pedestrian, though, and a bit of a slog. This is true even in the shorter theatrical version. My favorite aspect of atmospheric horror movies is often the buildup, but I noted with these most recent viewings of Salem’s Lot that it is that ‘build-up’ that doesn’t quite sell me, leaving me a at odds with the film every time I watch it.

My favorite part of Salem’s Lot remains the side-story between the horror-collecting kid and his judgmental father. This has always been the main aspect of the film that’s struck me on a personal level, much needed considering how relatively cold so much of the film leaves me. Watching the film with that Arrow edition, I so wished for more scenes with these two. It gives a film about the undead some needed soul.

For fans of Salem’s Lot, this Arrow edition is absolute dynamite. My friends Bill Ackerman and Amanda Reyes provide one of the terrific commentaries found here, along with the additional lengthy interviews with the likes of Mick Garris and Douglas Winter. The 100-page book that accompanies the set is the real cherry on top. This is a beautiful set for a film that is just never gonna be my own.
Still an easy high recommendation.
Order Salem’s Lot directly from Arrow or MVD.

-Jeremy Richey, June 2026-