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Salem’s Lot (2024) – 0 stars

October 5, 2024
0 stars, 2024, Scary
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The umpteenth remake of Stephen King’s classic tale of a town feasted upon by a vampire.

A sickness borne of a haunted house in an isolated New England hamlet, a pre-COVID parable for an existential plague, and Halloween approaching? I’m in. I mean, it’s Stephen King, fer crissakes!

Plus, the story lies deep within me. When I saw the original Tobe Hooper miniseries as a kid, it was at my friend Joe’s house on a school night. I had to ride my bike home in the dark alone right after the episode where the first victim – a boy – is killed. I was more than freaked out. I was terrified.

Well, had I seen this version, it would have been me whistling zip-a-dee-doo-da. Not a care in the world.

Hard to settle on any one fault. Just riddled with nonsense and idiocy throughout.

Off the bat, the vampire familiar (a Renfield stand-in) who brings his master to the town is so laughably sinister he should be twirling his mustache. When he steals a little boy to feed him to the Nosferatu, he tells the kid what’s going to happen, so we, the morons, are not confused.

“Master!  Dinnahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

And when the little boy goes missing, all signs point NOT to the mustache-twirling Renfield character but to the famous author from New York who has come back to his hometown. Sure, let’s definitely not look at the weirdo who just opened a creepy antique shop and had a big coffin shipped in. What would be the point of taking a closer look at the new guy who also follows kids slowly in his stupid old car practically handing out Werthers? The guy who also bought the old Marston house, which has been haunted for 40 years?

No. It couldn’t be him.

Must be the aaaaaahhhthaaaaaaaah from New York.

Another. When they try to convince the doubting town priest of the infestation (we know he is doubting because when someone asks if he knows the time, he says, “There is no God” and when someone asks when Mass is, he says, “I’ve lost my faith”), they bring him a book.

Dracula.

Swear to God.

Okay. One more. When they try to get at the vampires, it is always-

A) 7:30 am
B) 9 am
C) 10:30 am
D) 6:54 pm

Guess!

The flaws of this execrable flick aside, like a lot of movies based on Stephen King’s work, it also sports the same lazy hallmarks. A town of bullies, dimwits, busy-body caricatures and Baaaaaahhhston accents. A school principaaaaaaaahl who knows the bully but appears powerless to do anything about him. A sheriff who calls pernicious anemia persimmaaaaaahhhn. A place that does not like outsidaaaaaaahhhhs. Everyone just this side of cartoon.

In the original mini-series, there is a beautiful scene between a loner teen son (Lance Kerwin) and his father, the latter unable to connect with his geeky boy who is so into monster mags and magic and all that is spooky. It sets up the later relationship between Kerwin and the returning author (David Soul), who as a little boy was also fascinated and traumatized by the Marston House. The characters have a connection and a backstory and as the town degenerates, they cleave together as, at first, the only two believers.

Here, the Kerwin “character” is an Urkel knock-off able to suss out the vampire infestation with a quick read of a comic book (presumably, because the priest had the sole town copy of Dracula) who is given nothing to work with other than moxie. In fact, everyone kind of lands on “vampire” pretty quick. So quick, I expected someone to say, “Hey, isn’t this what happened to a town in an old Stephen King book?”

Basically, there are no characters. Just targets for the night feeders.

Bad, through and through. Depressing.

On MAX.

Longlegs – 3.25 stars

July 24, 2024
2024, 3 stars, Scary
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There are very real and unsettling moments of dread and terror in this story about FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) tracking a serial killer in the rural areas of Oregon, circa 1990s. The film is eerie, creepy, and meditatively brooding. It also commendably avoids gore porn and hackneyed, now seemingly obligatory jump scares, while credibly blending the occult with the manhunt. Director Oz Perkins is deft and ingenious with the camera, particularly in flashbacks to various murders. He, or his editor, know how to cut a film.

But … the picture is loaded with plain dumb choices. Perhaps the dumbest being the selection of Nicolas Cage as the serial killer.

I’m not spoiling anything. He appears in the first scene and he is most definitely the serial killer. Ghostly white, screechy voice, clearly deranged, and yet, comfortably ensconced in the same community that has been suffering mass killings for a significant period of time. He’s almost as bad as Pennywise, the clown in It, who lives in a burg where children have a 43% mortality rate. Okay, the FBI can’t really do anything about a supernatural clown that haunts the sewers, though people inexplicably stay in whatever preposterous New England town Stephen King presents (“But honey, the teacher-to-student ratio in Londonderrychester is to die for!”). But a clearly deranged loon who looks like the adult child of Edgar Winter and Phyllis Diller flipping out when he buys supplies at a hardware store that he frequents, and no call to the police? Too much.

The story also relies on a plot device that could work if some care were given. A little bit of a spoiler does follows in this paragraph. The supernatural force controls individuals, and thus they are possessed, for lack of a better word, into doing the Devil’s work. The explanation of how that possession works, is, shall we say, lacking in elucidation (a trusted film correspondent writes, “The silver ball. WTF? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb”). There is also the problem of how the ball is deposited. Better suited to the 1950s and early 60s in terms of getting a foot in the door. Not in Bill Clinton’s America.

There’s also the issue of Agent Harker, who appears to be on the spectrum and whose own tortured background plays heavily into the story. She just doesn’t seem like an FBI agent. She veers between catatonic and stilted, but Monroe can’t imbue any heart. It is critical you care about her fate, but as presented, she’s often just above a mannequin. Worse, other characters (her boss, Blair Underwood and family) are supposed to somehow warm to her, which, given her clear aberrant mien, is asking way too much. 

And for a picture that in many ways rejects some of the formula and tropes of the genre, are we really going to put a rookie agent on the floor, poring over spread-out photos and reports as she tackles the conundrum of Phyllis Winter, who practically wears a sash emblazoned with, “Been Killin‘ Families Since the 70s!”?

 And light switches. Nobody seems inclined to turn on the lights. That’s Jimmy Carter’s America!  

Okay. I’m being hard on a film that ultimately, I recommend. Because the feel and tone and a lot of the choices are right. And it was directed by Anthony Perkins’ son. Who played this guy in Legally Blonde. Which is, like, my favorite movie ever.