After years of delay, the latest Salem’s Lost remake has finally premiered… on Max (formerly HBOMax) this weekend. This is the third Salem’s Lost adaptation of Stephen King’s book, and the second remake. This new version returns the setting to 1975 which gives the film a nostalgic edge during a simpler time.
The film follows writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returning to his Maine hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot to write about his traumatic childhood, where he begins a romance with local woman Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh). When mysterious European antique dealer Straker arrives and moves into the notorious Marsten House with a large coffin, children begin disappearing and dying from a strange anemia. As the town’s residents are systematically turned into vampires by Straker’s master Kurt Barlow, Ben teams up with schoolteacher Matt Burke, young student Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), and Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) to fight back.
The vampire plague spreads rapidly, forcing the survivors into increasingly desperate situations as nearly the entire town falls to Barlow’s growing army. The climax finds the remaining humans making a last stand at the local drive-in theatre, using sunlight as their final weapon against the undead horde.
Filmed in fall 2021 with additional filming taking place in spring 2022, the original release date was meant to see the movie hit cinema screens on September 9, 2022 but this was delayed until April 21, 2023, before being in limbo for all of 2023. The Warner Bros. restructuring and numerous cancellations for tax write offs plus the SAG-AFTRA strike put Salem’s Lot in serious jeopardy so its release now is a relief!
Like the original film, Salem’s Lot features several young teen/tween vampires, the first wave after one boy is sacrificed to wake the vampire. There’s one famous seen where a newly turned Danny arrives at the Mark’s second-floor bedroom window soon after his turning. The remake handled this scene with expertise while still giving the new young vampire an ephemeral quality. Mark plays a central character opposite Pullman’s Ben Mears, holding his own both against a gang of tween vampires and as a standout performance. Jordan was 13 during both shoots, and only just 16 when the movie premiered. Similarly Danny (played by Nicholas Crovetti, twin brother of Cameron Crovetti of The Boys) was only 13 at time of filming and 16 when the film arrived on Max.