hen he was a child, Ben Mears discovered there was evil in the world. It lived in the Marsten House, a place that looked down from its hill over the small town of Jerusalem's Lot. Horrible things happened in that house, things that Ben witnessed.
As an adult, Ben (Lowe) returns to the home of his nightmares. He's a noted writer and has plans to write a new novel about Jerusalem's Lot and its inhabitants. He knows the small picture-perfect Maine town has secrets, and he intends to expose them.
Ben wants to rent the old Marsten House to provide inspiration, but two other new arrivals in the town beat him to the property. Richard Straker (Sutherland) and his silent partner, Kurt Barlow (Hauer), have an antique business, and they buy the house to live in. Ben moves into the local boarding house and begins to make connections with the locals.
No sooner do the newcomers arrive in Jerusalem's Lot than strange things start happening. People begin to turn up missing or dead, and Ben becomes a suspect. However, he's sure Straker and the ominous Marsten House have something to do with what's going on.
As the body count increases, Ben, waitress Susan Norton (Mathis), high-school English teacher Matt Burke (Braugher), Dr. James Cody (Robert Mammone), Father Donald Callahan (Cromwell) and a teenage boy named Mark (Dan Byrd) are forced to face off against the evil that's infested their town. Unfortunately, the horror Barlow has let loose on Jerusalem's Lot is an evil
the unlikely band of heroes can't possibly be prepared to go up against. The journey will lead Ben back into the heart of the Marsten House and the nightmare that's waiting for him within.
A scary psychological thriller
TNT's original four-hour miniseries Salem's Lot is a good update of Stephen King's classic horror novel. There are plenty of well-done special effects, and the cast is excellent. The story is a doozy, which is why this is the second time it's been brought to television as a miniseries (the first was in 1979, starring David Soul).
In his story, King does what King does best, by drawing us into a character-filled world that appears simple on the surface but is teeming with secrets and horrors underneath. The problems with Salem's Lot have to do more with the things that work well in written fiction but aren't visual enough to make dynamic television.
Peter Filardi's teleplay is about as faithful as a four-hour miniseries can manage to be, considering that the source material is more than 600 pages long. There's also enough updating to make the tale, which was published nearly 30 years ago, feel modern. The story is filled with suspense and foreboding, and there are plenty of thrills and chills to keep interest. While this is Ben's story, the large troupe of characters and their stories are spun together with the trademark depth of a Stephen King tale.
Ben Mears is a flawed, rich character like so many of King's best. Rob Lowe does an outstanding job at bringing the character to life, and he can add Mears to the list of wonderful characters he's portrayed, including Nick Andros in another King classic, The Stand, and Sam Seaborn in The West Wing. He's an actor who's only gotten better with time.
The cast is filled with Emmy and Oscar nominees and winners, and it shows in the depth of character each actor brings to his part. Andre Braugher, Donald Sutherland and James Cromwell shine in their respective roles.
While Salem's Lot is scary, exquisitely acted and well produced, there are problems that stem from turning a novel that is often a psychological thriller into television. The big showdown between Mears and Barstow is anticlimactic, considering all the cool stuff that's come before, and
Hauer's Barstow gets so little screen time he's not an effective villain. While not major quibbles, these nonetheless come at the end and diminish the story's effectiveness.
