With only his second novel, Stephen King delivered what may still be the scariest with 1975's 'Salem's Lot, a sprawling vampire epic set in his usual stomping grounds of a small town in Maine. Following the theatrical success of Brian De Palma's Carrie, the book was slated for adaptation as a two-night, four-hour TV miniseries with a stronger 112-minute cut created for some international markets. The miniseries aired in 1979 while Stanley Kubrick's divisive but masterful loose adaptation of King's third book, The Shining, was in production and set for release the following year. The author himself wasn't really gushing with praise at the time for any of these now-classic translations of his work and reserved his harshest comments for Kubrick's, and all of them have since been remade in various capacities over the years.

Ben Mears (Soul), one of King's usual anxious novelists, returns to his home of Salem's Lot (now minus the first apostrophe). While striking up a romance with Susan Norton (Die Hard's Bedelia), he begins to suspect that something may be amiss in the town. Residents are turning up dead, drained of blood, while others are listless and stay indoors all day. A young monster movie fan, Mark Petrie (Kerwin), even spies one of his dead friends floating outside his bedroom window and scratching on the glass. Ben deduces that this macabre transformation may have something to do with the arrival of Mr. Barlow, a mysterious antique dealer living in the spooky old Marsden house? And what about Straker (James Mason), Barlow's suave but menacing business partner?

Director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) may not have seemed like the ideal choice for a TV saga about small-town vampirism, but here he pulled off what remains the best King adaptation for television. Unlike such subsequent missteps as The Tommyknockers and The Langoliers, Salem's Lot keeps a tight grip on the characters and the viewer's emotions by delivering a hefty number of scares and adhering faithfully to the novel. From Soul's restrained heroism to Mason's seething menace, all of the actors are well up to the task of King's tricky narrative. Horror regular Reggie Nalder (Mark of the Devil) turns up sparsely in Nosferatu drag as Mr. Barlow, and while some fans of the novel found this visual choice questionable, there's no denying that Nalder is scary in the role. The climax really packs a wallop thanks to brilliant atmosphere, lighting, and editing, and all of the character actors get moments to shine with Geoffrey Lewis in particular getting some terrifying highlights. The miniseries made such an enduring impact that King's book was given a notoriously eccentric sequel directed by Larry Cohen, Return to Salem's Lot, and was adapted twice more: a 2004 miniseries with Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland, which was flawed and visually ugly but justified itself with a few scary twists on the story, and a 2024 feature film by Gary Dauberman that's much better than the attacks it received after getting dumped straight to streaming following extreme, wholly unjustified studio butchery of its running time. If any label ever finds a way to release the full cut of that one, it would be greatly appreciated.

The home video history of this film is a little tricky, but essentially the theatrical cut made the rounds on HBO (playing often in afternoons and freaking out a whole generation of latchkey kids) and was available on VHS from Warner Bros., initially as a big clamshell edition circa 1984 and then in the usual cheaper cardboard option at the end of the '80s. The miniseries version, sort of, was released on VHS in 1995 followed by a DVD in 2006; it's the full running time, though the more gruesome fate of one character near the end impaled on some antlers has been slugged in from the theatrical cut. It's also worth noting that from this point on, the stronger theatrical version of the confrontation between George Dzundza and Fred Willard (with the latter forced to put a rifle barrel in his mouth, in keeping with the source novel) was out of circulation for decades. A Blu-ray of that mostly-miniseries cut was released by Warner Bros. in 2016 featuring an audio commentary by Tobe Hooper (who passed away a year later), delivering a thorough and engaging account of the making of the film that fills up the entire running time. A trailer for the theatrical release is also included.

In 2026, Arrow Video released a two-disc UHD special edition that marked the much-needed return of the theatrical cut after many decades of unavailability. Both the miniseries version (with the bloody antler substitution) and the theatrical are given their own disc with a heaping of new bonus features in addition to the Hooper commentary carried over here. The transfers of both are comparable and look excellent here with the HDR10-compatible Dolby Vision grading giving the image far more depth here than any prior release; the blacks are nice and deep, rectifying some obvious brightness boosting on the earlier Blu-ray and DVD. Colors look great here with the blues and grays in particular popping nicely, and detail is excellent throughout. Some critics over the years have derided the occasional graininess of some shots, but that's inherent to the optical effects including some post-production zooms added to shock moments just before a commercial break. The DTS-HD MA 1.0 mono audio sounds excellent with the dramatic music by Harry Sukman sounding robust, and optional English SDH subtitles are provided. In addition to the Hooper track, the miniseries version (which can be played as one full movie or as a two-parter with a five-minute recap and additional credits added to the front of the second half and end credits for the first. In addition to the Hooper track, the miniseries comes with a new audio commentary by Bill Ackerman and Amanda Reyes, one of the best teams out there who deliver another exceptional audio companion here. They start off with a suitable salute to the late Lee Gambin and then plunge into three hours of rich material about King, producer Richard Kobritz and screenwriter Paul Monash, Hooper of course including some unrealized projects around the time, connections to other TV vampires, the cast's backgrounds, and tons more. Also on the first disc is a 16s selection of commercial bumpers and the abbreviated antler death scene if you really need it, plus a 197-image shooting script gallery with a few minor differences from the final result.

The second disc is devoted to the theatrical version which, as mentioned above, streamlines the pacing and is great to have here again looking much better than ever. The differences here are too numerous to fully list but basically you lose the prologue and epilogue (which seem like a setup for a potential TV series), much of the Ben and Susan romance subplot, and much of the screen time for actors like Kenneth McMillan and Elisha Cook Jr. The pacing is quite different, obviously, with the second half moving like a high-speed train of nightmare imagery. For this one Chris Alexander provides an energetic new audio commentary comparing the versions, with the new video extras here kicking off with "King of the Vampires" (21m9s) with writer-critic Douglas E. Winter talking about the author's writing process, the obvious autobiographical elements here especially in the Ben character, his own first exposure to King's work, the socio-political commentary coming after several recent historical traumas, and the book's importance early on in the writer's career and within the horror genre as a whole. In "Second Coming" (26m), Grady Hendrix -- whose King coverage is fantastic reading -- gives a terrific and very funny overview of the book's place in the horror blockbuster literary bonanza, King's pop culture significance, the revival of vampires with this book and Interview with the Vampire the same year, the prevalence of pissed-off characters in all these early novels, and the brilliant paperback marketing that put King over the top with working class readers. In "New England Nosferatu" (13m8s), frequent King adapter Mick Garris chats about his own relationship to the novels including this one as well as his long friendship with Hooper whom he brought on for the series Masters of Horror. In "Fear Lives Here" (6m56s), Elijah Drenner takes a tour of the filming locations in Ferndale, California, where its two main intersections provided almost everything you see in the film and have largely stayed the same decades later as we can see from some fine detective work here. In "We Can All Be Heroes" (9m19s), critic Heather Wixson appraises her favorite elements of the film, and in "A Gold Standard for Small Screen Screams" (19m50s), Horror Queers co-hosts Joe Lipsett and Trace Thurman give a thumbnail history of the miniseries' creation including Hooper's career at that point and the challenges of making the book palatable for the small screen. Trailers are also included for this version, the sequel, and the 2024 version, and a 90-image photo gallery. The limited edition package comes with a Salem's Lot town sticker, a double-sided foldout poster, and a booklet with essays by Sean Abley, Sorcha Ni Fhlainn, and Richard Kadrey plus archival interviews with Hooper, Kerwin and Julie Cobb.

Arrow Video (UHD)



Warner Bros. (Blu-ray)

Reviewed on March 7, 2026