At long last, Gary Dauberman‘s once-shelved Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot has found the light of day on Max. Released on Thursday, the reboot was initially primed for a release back in 2022 until it was delayed and then ultimately pulled off the release calendar altogether by Warner Bros. Discovery. The film that finally graced streaming, however, wasn’t exactly what the director originally intended. In an interview with Den of Geek about his return to Jerusalem’s Lot, he revealed that the initial runtime before the movie was cut down to its breezy 1 hour and 53-minute runtime was much longer, nearly three hours to be exact, and featured a pivotal opening scene from the book that would’ve fleshed out the town and Lewis Pullman‘s Ben Mears.
Part of what makes Salem’s Lot such a beloved novel in King‘s catalog is how it depicts the various townsfolk and their lives before even introducing the main survivors properly. A lot of time is spent on making Jerusalem’s Lot feel truly alive with side stories and relationships blossoming around every corner, making it all the more impactful when vampires destroy the richly-characterized town. It’s a key reason why the book has been notoriously difficult to adapt, with Tobe Hooper and Mikael Saloman both opting to create two-part miniseries that spanned over three hours to capture as many details as possible. Had his original cut remained, Dauberman‘s take would’ve ended up with a similar length, as he explained:
“My first cut was about three hours. There’s a lot left out. My first draft of the script is 180-odd pages or something because you’re trying to include everything. And a lot of it has to do with a lot of the secondary characters and stuff that I spoke about. So it was sad to see that stuff go, but it’s like a necessary evil.”
One of the main criticisms of the writer-director’s adaptation was that it didn’t have enough space to do its characters justice. Despite his strong horror and King credentials between helming Annabelle Comes Home and penning the screenplay for It Chapter Two after co-writing Andy Muschietti‘s first part, his work hasn’t resonated with critics or audiences given their respective 47% and 38% scores on Rotten Tomatoes. Whatever reason so much footage got left on the cutting room floor, it creates questions about whether the Dauberman cut could’ve remedied many of viewers’ concerns had he been given the all-clear to keep most of the scenes he wanted and whether a theatrical version, as initially planned, would’ve kept more in.
For what it’s worth, Salem’s Lot does mostly keep the key beats of King‘s original tale. The film follows writer Ben Mears’ return to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot as he seeks inspiration for his next book. Particularly, he has an interest in the old Marsten house that haunted him as a child and begins investigating, sparking a romantic relationship with Susan Norton (Mackenzie Leigh) and getting acquainted with other townsfolk in the meantime. When he discovers that the town is being overrun by vampires, he joins forces with a few of the remaining survivors to fight back against the menace.
One scene from the book that is notably left out, however, is the moment a young Ben sneaks into the dilapidated Marsten house and witnesses the hanging ghost of Hubie Marsten. The scene establishes why the house has forever been burned into Ben’s memory and how it ultimately drew him back to the Lot. Dauberman hated to cut it, especially because he felt the moment helped make Ben’s mindset about the vampires more understandable. He deemed it important enough to make it the opening shot of the film, but the combination of test audiences and limited runtime meant it had to be sacrificed.
“In the book, Ben sneaks into the Marsten House and he sees the ghost of Hubert Marsten. I shot that and it used to open the movie, but it seemed to muddy the waters for audiences; the ghost story within the vampire story. To me it’s so important because it’s why Ben believes the vampire stuff, but we’re not telling that story, so that was the hardest thing to cut because I love the sequence.”
Salem’s Lot is now streaming on Max.
via Collider