Vampiress Review: Salem's Lot (2004)

 

The Gist: An author named Ben Mears returns to his hometown in order to use it for inspiration to write a new horror book and ends up unraveling a plot to turn everyone in the town into vampires. 

Female Vampire Factor: The first female vampire in the film is a woman by the name of Marjorie Glick (Rebecca Gibney).  She is the mother of two young boys who were targeted and killed by Richard Straker at the order of his vampire business partner Kurt Barlow.   After their death Marjorie begins hearing their voices and we eventually see her open a door just to be attacked and killed.  After Marjorie's death protagonist Ben Mears along with Dr James Cody stake out at the coroner's office suspecting they are dealing with vampires.  They are proven right when she raises from the coroner's slab and attacks them, only sabed by Ben's cross made from taped together tongue depressors.

 

The next is Ben's attempted love interest Susan Norton (Samantha Mathis).

She's an aspiring writer that Ben meets at the coffee shop her parents own.  She heads to the creepy house that is the center of all the happenings to help solve the mystery of what happened there years ago that haunted Ben in his childhood and ends up getting captured in the process.  Once Ben kills the vampire Barlow and goes to destroy the house he is confronted by Susan where she informs him that she did solve the case exonerating Ben from the guilt of thinking he allowed one of his friends to die in the house (the kid was already dead when he got there apparently).  She gives him a nice pep talk before being staked by Ben when she vamps out at his young accomplice mark. 

Finally we have young Ruth Crockett (Penny Mcnamee)

Ruth is a rebellious young girl who has the unfortunate luck to have a really overprotective father.  She also gets enjoyment from teasing the local handicapped garbage man Dud who believes that she is his girlfriend.  Eventually she breaks his heart and tells him the truth but that becomes short lived when the vampire Barlow turns Dud curing him of his handicap and Ruth becomes his obsession.  The film ends with Dud eventually turning her and Larry finding her with Dud at the town dump where Dud lived.  Dud and the other kids who are now vampires end up eating Larry. 

Final Opinion:  Out of the two televised versions of the story this is easily the most complete version and is dramatic horror almost all the way through unlike the 1979 version that starts very soap opera like and doesn't get to the scares until almost the very end.  I give this film a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  They cram a lot of female vampires in the last hour or so.  If the story had more in the first 2 hours it would definitely get a 5 but the female vamps are basically one and done with most of the vampirism in the story being done by the kids of the town.

. 

Vampiress Review: Salem's Lot (1979)

 

The Gist: An author named Ben Mears comes back to his home town in order to use it for inspiration to write a horror novel and ends up uncovering a plot by a vampire to take it over. 

Female Vampire Factor:  The first female vampire in the film is a woman by the name of Marjorie Glick (Clarissa Kaye-Mason).  She is the mother of two young kids who are initially targeted by vampire Kurt Barlow and his accomplice Richard Straker.  The boys once turned appear to their friends and family at night and feed on them.  After Marjorie's death she is the first to be witnessed by anyone turning as film protagonist Ben Mears as well as his girlfriends father Dr. Bill Norton are waiting in the coroners office with her body when she raises and is attacked by her, only saved by Ben's tongue depressor created cross. 

 

The last vampiress comes in the form of Ben's love interest in the film Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia) 

She's a school teacher in the small town who and as mentioned she ends up getting into a relationship with Ben.  As people in the town begin mysteriously dying and the culprit is figured out to be the residents to a creepy house in town she ends up going to confront them just to get captured.  In the final scene of the film which takes place two years after the events of the film she finds Ben (who destroyed the vampire and his house but couldn't save the town along with a young kid from the town named Mark).  She tells him that they can be together forever before fanging out but is staked by Mark before she could bite Ben. 

Final Opinion:  While this is a decent adaptation it does take awhile to get to the vampire stuff.  As this was originally a mini series watching it in one sitting is over 3 hours and the vampire stuff only takes up the last hour or so with most of the film just revolving around Ben and Susan's relationship.  I give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 2 out of 5.  The 2004 remake is much more complete from a plot standpoint as well as much more female characters turned.