Stephy Watched Salem's Lot (1979)

 Hello There! Time for me to ramble about another movie! And to finish out spooky month, I actually watched something spooky!

No picture this time. For reasons. Reasons that are I didn't have a picture this time...

You'll enjoy Mr. Barlow. And he'll enjoy you.

- Straker

no I won't...

About/Summary

A 1979 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's novel. 

A novelist returns to Salem's Lot, where he lived as a child, to write a book. But things begin happening to the residents soon after he arrives.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Violence

Non-graphic deaths

Lying about rape (a woman is cheating on her husband and when caught, says the other man was raping her. It is very obviously a lie)

Child Death

Characters/Casting 

Casting was pretty good. Though almost none of the characters were how I pictured when I read the book. Not sure if it's because Stephen King described them differently, or if my brain just came up with my own descriptions. 

Susan and her mother were less annoying this time. Which was nice. 

Atmosphere/Setting

The setting is a small town named Salem's Lot (actually, it's Jerusalem's Lot but it got shortened) in the 1970s. I enjoy fictional stories set in small towns because, unlike Jason Aldean, I actually live in a smallish town (not sure what counts as a small town, but the town I live in has less than 3,000 people). I always find it a bit interesting to compare fictional small towns to my own. My small town is lacking once again because it does not have a spooky house on the hill. But I feel like the movie kind of got the small-town vibe down pretty well. I feel that the book did a better job, but the book had entire chapters dedicated to telling you about the town and the people in it. A lot of which was cut in the movie, but I understand. Couldn't fit all that into three hours. If they tried there would have been at least one hour of just that. So, good job with the setting. 

The atmosphere was spooky. Which was good. I really got nothing else to say about it. Sorry? not sorry

Writing

Stephen King wrote the novel. Paul Monash wrote the screenplay. And both did a damn good job. Five stars, sirs.

Adaptation

This is a weird adaptation. There were a lot of odd little changes. Like, character names were changed. Some of the changes were okay. The combination of characters was a change. For example, Bonnie Sawyer was having an affair with her boss, Larry Crockett, instead of a random teenager (did he work for the phone company or something? I can't remember). It worked because it was one less character to introduce. And there were a lot of characters in the novel. So, those changes worked for me.

One change that did not work for me was Barlow. Just... Nope. Did not like that.

But otherwise, it was a pretty good adaptation, in my opinion.

Plot

The plot was really good. I mean, the whole plot was "Dude moves to small town then weird shit happens, and look at that, vampire." And the mini-series (and yes, I keep referring to it as a movie and as a mini-series because my brain refuses to pick one...) did well to convey that plot over three hours.

Costuming

Is this how people dressed in the 70s? Interesting 🤔

Larry Crockett's suits, though. Why? Was that fashionable back then? Way too much white.

How diverse is it?

I think I saw a black man. Not sure though cause it wasn't a long shot and I think you just see his back.

Also, everyone is straight... Boring.

Overall Thoughts

Quality mini-series. Pretty good adaptation. Four out of five stars. Y'all lost a star for that Barlow change. I did not like it. Sorry. not sorry this time either.

And that's all I got for this one. See y'all on Saturday for the post that makes me realize I did nothing once again for an entire week.