Movies
Stephen King Shares His Thoughts on the ‘Salem’s Lot’ Remake; “The Feel of Old Hollywood”
The long-awaited adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot from director Gary Dauberman (Annabelle Comes Home) is still without a release date, but we did get a bit of an update on Halloween night earlier this week. According to the latest reports, Warner Bros. is toying with the idea of bringing Salem’s Lot straight-to-streaming sometime in 2024.
Originally set for theatrical release on September 9, 2022, the new Stephen King adaptation was recently bumped to April 21, 2023, before getting ejected from the theatrical slate altogether. As of now, Salem’s Lot still doesn’t have a release date. If this week’s latest update is accurate, the film will be debuting on the Max streaming service in the coming months.
Taking to Twitter this week, Stephen King himself has shared his honest thoughts on Gary Dauberman’s adaptation of his classic novel. And it sounds like he’s (mostly) a fan.
King tweets, “The Warner Bros remake of Salem’s Lot, currently shelved, is muscular and involving. It has the feel of “Old Hollywood,” when a film was given a chance to draw a breath before getting to business. When attention spans were longer, in other words.”
“It feels like a horror movie version of slow-burn movies like The Great Escape. It builds very well,” King continues in a follow-up tweet. “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.”
Stay tuned for more on the upcoming Salem’s Lot remake.
The Warner Bros remake of SALEM’S LOT, currently shelved, is muscular and involving. It has the feel of “Old Hollywood,” when a film was given a chance to draw a breath before getting to business. When attention spans were longer, in other words.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) November 1, 2023
Salem’s Lot 2023 is set “circa 1975 (when King’s book was first published).”
In Salem’s Lot 2023, “Haunted by an incident from his childhood, author Ben Mears returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover the town is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire and his loyal servant.”
The cast includes Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, Nicholas Crovetti, Jordan Preston Carter, William Sadler, Spencer Treat Clark, Cade Woodward, Debra Christofferson, and Pilou Asbaek.
Dauberman’s creative team includes director of photography Michael Burgess (Annabelle Comes Home, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), production designer Marc Fisichella (Ma, The Maze Runner), editor Luke Ciarrocchi (Glass, Split), composers Nathan Barr (The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Great) and Lisbeth Scott (American Son, Tumble Leaf), costume designer Virginia Johnson (The New Mutants, Mile 22), and first assistant director Jeffrey “JP” Wetzel (Malignant, Annabelle Comes Home).
Fresh off Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper directed the very first adaptation of Salem’s Lot back in 1979, and a new mini-series followed in its wake more recently, in 2004.
NEON has been absolutely slaying the marketing game for their horror output this year, and they’re kicking the Longlegs campaign into high gear with one more month until release.
A cryptic ad in The Seattle Times today (seen below) has led clever horror fans to discover TheBirthdayMurders.net, the brand new official viral marketing website for Longlegs.
The in-universe website details the victims of the serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), described as a “Satan-worshipping psycho” who has terrorized families throughout the Pacific Northwest for nearly three decades.
The website details, “A bloody trail of bodies here in the great state of Oregon attests to the depraved savagery of this one-of-a-kind serial killer. With over three dozen victims that we know of, LONGLEGS is one of the most prolific mass murderers ever to have graced the region, and his gruesome endeavors are the stuff of nightmares. At first, all of the killings appeared to be straightforward murder-suicides: the handiwork of average men who suddenly snapped and slaughtered their wives and children. But a series of eerie coded messages left at the crime scenes indicate that someone – or something – is influencing these horrific crimes. The cryptic letters are signed by someone calling himself LONGLEGS.”
“With thirty-eight kills to his name, LONGLEGS has torn apart the lives of eleven different families throughout the Beaver State. His victims were good people: honest fathers, decent mothers, innocent little children.”
The website is loaded with secrets, clues, and gruesome (faux) crime scene photos, and you might even find a mention of yours truly nestled in there. Poke around. Stay a while.
Longlegs arrives in theaters July 12.
The upcoming serial killer horror movie marks the return of director Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Gretel & Hansel). Nicolas Cage stars alongside Maika Monroe, with Monroe playing an FBI agent and Cage playing a serial killer.
In the film, “FBI Agent Lee Harker (Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer (Cage). As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.
The film is rated “R” for “Bloody violence, disturbing images and some language.”
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