SALEM'S LOT Director on How Adapting Stephen King's Novel Was "More Challenging" Than He Expected
I’ve been very excited about finally being able to watch the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s vampire novel Salem’s Lot. The movie has been met with mixed reviews, but I can’t wait to watch it for myself.
The version of Salem’s Lot was directed by Gary Dauberman, who recently talked about his experience making the movie and how he found it difficult to fit that massive vampire story into a film that run under two hours.
While speaking to SFX magazine Dauberman said the project was “more challenging than I anticipated, and I anticipated it being really challenging!”
He went on to say: “My initial goal was to try and stick to the book as much as I could, but when the first draft started to feel like it was going to be just as long as the book, I knew some changes would have to be made."
Some of those changes to make the story work for the film included cutting a few side characters. The filmmaker wanted to "focus on the core group of Ben, Mark, Susan, Dr Cody, Matt, and Father Callahan."
Lewis Pullman (Bad Times at the El Royale, Top Gun: Maverick) stars in Salem’s Lot, and he will take on the role of author Ben Mears, “a man who returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a vampire, leading him to band together with a ragtag group that will fight the evil presence.”
When previously talking about the Gary Dauberman-directed movie, Pullman said: "It's a scary thing doing these remakes, man. It's like, this and [Top Gun: Maverick], there's such pressure, it's a hard concoction to conjure up to make it successful.
“But Gary Dauberman, the director, is really keen on doing justice to the book. But also, the previous adaptation was a two-parter, because it's such a hefty book and there are so many different moving parts and so many characters.
“So there are some parts where Gary had to press and find what was really at the heart of the movie to keep in, but for the most part, he's really true to the book and keeping a lot of the original dialogue in there. He's a Stephen King hound dog so he doesn't wanna do Stephen dirty."
He added: "So I think it's in good hands, Gary's a really smart guy who has a keen eye for things. I think, not just lean on the jump scares, but lean on the more conceptual and visual things that, rather than a shock that fades out of your body in the next five minutes, something that's more visual, like an imprint that burnt into your retinas as a disturbing image that you'll wake up in the middle of the night that you can't shake out of your head."
While the film is getting mixed reviews, King was impressed with it and his support helped the movie get released. He previously said: "Between you and me, Twitter, I've seen the new SALEM'S LOT and it's quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff.”
King previously talked about the film several months ago, saying: "It feels like a horror movie version of slow-burn movies like THE GREAT ESCAPE. It builds very well.
“There are diversions from the book I don't agree with, but on the whole, faithful. Best scene: Danny Glick in the hospital, trying to claw down a blood bag. The Glick scene could have been directed by John Carpenter in his prime."
Salem’s Lot will be released on October 3rd.