This takes a bit to get going but persevere and you will be treated to oodles of atmosphere, creepiness and tension galore, a great score and a stellar cast with Donald Sutherland providing some light relief. I do prefer the original but this is definitely one of the better remakes out there. Also the part when Floyd was squeezing through that teeny vent in the jail is just downright disturbing!

"This movie is literally worse than that time Rob Lowe filmed himself fucking children" - Chris Traeger.

Absolutely dreadful. A three hour endurance test of terrible acting, bad effects, and none of the charm of the novel or the Tobe Hooper version to be found.

I rarely outright hate movies but this really pushed me to the brink. One star for a campy Donald Sutherland but nothing else.

Tonally much closer to kings novel than the 70's version but still a mess. If you could combine the two movies into one maybe all the pieces would be there?

My problem with Salem's Lot comes from the fact I am an avid fan of the book. King packed so many characters and moved so slow in his story it's hard to convey that even in 3 hours, this fucker deserved a tv series. So what you get here is an attempt to pack as much of the story as possible into 3 hours and thus everything feels rushed, despite how slow the movie moves. And I don't know if it was the fact this was a made for TV movie or what, but nothing in this is remotely frightening unlike the tobe hooper version.

Action-packed and yet some how boring.

Action-packed and yet some how boring.

Do yourself a kind favor and watch the 1979 movie instead of this tripe. For those that have seen the 1979 movie, remember that creepy vampire boy well in this 2004 movie he's an awful CGI vampire boy - laughable, not scary at all.

Something about the way this 2004 movie is filmed looses all the dark foreboding dread that looms over the town; the town is way to bright and cheery looking to scare anyone.

90% of this cast is terrible. The characters are completely unappealing - unlike the original movie.

OK I'm going to quit my bashing of this film here - it's not worth it. Be kind to yourself and watch the original 1979 - it might be a bit dated but it's a heck of a lot better looking and scarier over all.

1/10

There's enough tonal and plot differences between this version and the 1979 Tobe Hooper miniseries for fans of the old one to check this. It has some interesting additions, especially when it comes to the expansion of a relatively small priest part from the novel, and can openly deal with issues like child molestation that the 1979 miniseries couldn't. Yet I still prefer the Tober Hooper take mainly because it uses the limitations for TV violence to its full potential as it delivers a melancholic soap opera/horror in tune with the original 1931 Dracula. This one tries to be too spiffy and cool, but since it's still TNT, can't really deliver on the gore and more intense horror elements. James Cromwell is fine as a dubious priest, but the rest of the cast is kind of on autopilot.

"This movie is literally worse than that time Rob Lowe filmed himself fucking children" - Chris Traeger.

Absolutely dreadful. A three hour endurance test of terrible acting, bad effects, and none of the charm of the novel or the Tobe Hooper version to be found.

I rarely outright hate movies but this really pushed me to the brink. One star for a campy Donald Sutherland but nothing else.

Can we just talk about how someone literally thought they could sit & spit in the face of the ICONIC 1979 adaptation like this when its made-for-TV, bloodless, watered down, no pace-having ass is legit half-way responsible for the last good decade of violent, scary, vampire-related horror we all got while still being as faithful as it could be to the novel w/out half-assing everything????

Liked it, didn't love it. But, I was surprised at characterization, very well done, considering that it had to be cut down from Mr. Kings books.