Nicholas Crovetti | Through the Shattered Lens

The new version of Salem’s Lot, which has finally been released on Max after sitting on the shelf for nearly three years, is not very good.

At the same time, it’s definitely not terrible. There are a few effective scenes. The finale, which is a bit different from what happens in the book, is enjoyably berserk. The film made good use of Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown and, as a history nerd, I appreciated the fact that the movie used the book’s original 70s setting as opposed to trying to update the whole thing. When writer Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) wants to investigate the history of the old Marsten House, he has to go to the library. People looking up stuff on microfiche is always, from a cinematic point of view, more compelling than them pulling up Wikipedia.

Ultimately, the movie is just kind of forgettable. It’s mediocre in the bland way that so many recent horror films have tended to be. The movie’s style has far more in common with David Gordon Green’s unfortunate forays into horror than to anything done by Mike Flanagan. While it may not have originally been meant for a streaming release, streaming is where it begins because it feels like something that would get dumped on Netflix without much fanfare.

It’s a shame because Salem’s Lot really is one of Stephen King’s better novels, written at a time when King was still embracing his pulpy side and without any of the self-important commentary that’s come to mar some of King’s more recent works. The novel is essentially a small town soap opera, documenting the often sordid lives of the citizens of Jerusalem’s Lot. King introduces a vampire to the mix and most of the town’s problems are solved by folks dying and then coming back from the dead. Ben Mears is a typical King protagonist, a writer from Maine who is trying to deal with a childhood trauma and who discovers that ‘Salem’s Lot has a long and apparently cursed history. In both the book and the movie, Ben teams up with a group of vampire hunters to battle Kurt Barlow (played here by Alexander Ward) and his human servant, Straker (Pilou Asbaek).

The book works because it takes the time to turn Salem’s Lot into a vivid community and, as such, it’s hard not to feel the loss as the town dies off as a result of Barlow’s vampiric invasion. Clocking in at less than two hours, the movie really doesn’t have time to do that. The movie’s version of the town just comes across as being another stereotypical New England town, full of flinty characters and mudrooms. The community never comes to life and, as such, there’s not much emotional resonance as the community dies off. (It’s not a coincidence that the most successful adaptation of Salem’s Lot was a miniseries.) Add to that, the 2024 film features some truly unfortunate acting, which again makes it difficult to accept the town as a community with its own traditions and culture.

There are certain character types and themes that seem to appear in all of Stephen King’s novels and the subsequent adaptations. At its worst, the new Salem’s Lot feels like it’s quickly going through a checklist of all of the expected Stephen King elements. It’s like, “Main setting — check! Writer protagonist — check! Schoolyard bully — check! Child in danger — check!” The end result is a film that feels almost like a parody Stephen King, containing all of his familiar tropes without any of the literary flair that made the original book a classic of vampire literature.

The good thing is that the Tobe Hooper adaptation holds up well and it’s also available on Max. Check it out this weekend.

Poor Naomi Watts.

I mean, let’s just be real here. Naomi Watts is an excellent actress. One could argue that she’s one of the best actresses working today. She’s someone who can be convincing in just about any genre. She can do drama. She can do comedy. She can do horror. She can star in small indie films and expensive blockbusters. She can play suburban housewives and sultry femme fatales with equal skill. She’s an actress who has played a wide variety roles and has shown a willingness to take risks in her career.

And yet, far too often, she gets cast in disappointing and misconceived films. Indeed, it sometimes seem like David Lynch is the only director to really understand just how good Naomi Watts can be, whether he’s working with her in Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, or Twin Peaks: The Return. Watts provided Twin Peaks: The Return with a heart and the scene where she tells off the two crooks who are extorting money from her husband still carries a punch. She brought a lot of genuine and needed emotion to a miniseries that would have otherwise been cold and impersonal. Unfortunately, not every director has the insight or the skill of a David Lynch.

Just consider 2022’s Goodnight Mommy, a thoroughly unnecessary remake of a 2014 Austrian film. Watts is cast as the Mother, a former Hollywood actress who now lives on an isolated farm and who spends most of her time drinking and sulking in her room. Due to some recent plastic surgeon, the Mother’s face is completely and totally bandaged.

This concerns her twin sons, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lukas (Nikolas Crovetti). They worry about how strange the Mother has been acting ever since they moved out to the farm with her. (While the Mother was getting plastic surgery, the twins were living with their father.) The Mother orders them to stay out of her room and hardly speaks to them. When Elias notices that his mother’s formerly blue eyes now appear to be green, he worries that his real mother may have been replaced with an imposter.

As I mentioned earlier, Goodnight Mommy is based on a 2014 Austrian film. The original film, if I remember correctly, was effective creepy, well-acted, and full of atmosphere. The remake feels more than a bit pointless and slow. The big twist that was so effective in the Austrian film falls flat in the American remake, largely because the kids playing the brothers in the remake are both directed to give boring and inauthentic performances. The remake of Goodnight Mommy mistakes a slow space for a creepy atmosphere.

That said, Naomi Watts gives a good performance as the Mother, one that will probably keep viewers guessing if they haven’t already seen the original film. In fact, Watts is so good that it just makes it all the more disappointing that the film itself feels so pointless. When it comes to Goodnight Mommy, go with the original and ask your local film producers to give Naomi Watts a role in a decent movie.