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| Director: Tobe Hooper
Actors: David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres
Studio: Warner Home Video
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $1.75
You Save: $18.23 (91%)
New (9) Used (10) Collectible (1) from $1.39
Rating:  169 reviews
Sales Rank: 23842
Format: Box Set, Color, Hifi Sound, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 112 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 630267686X
UPC: 085391271734
EAN: 9780790722443
ASIN: 630267686X
Theatrical Release Date: November 17, 1979
Release Date: December 13, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New! Mint in box. Factory sealed.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 169
 "Ah, yes, well, I can assure you that people will find Mr. Barlow well worth the wait." -Straker October 3, 2006
HorrorMan (The Marsten House)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
About this time every year, I always like to think of the greatest horror movies of all-time, and watch them during the month of October, to celebrate my favorite holiday which is Halloween of course. One of the first two or three movies that always comes to my mind every single time is Tobe Hooper's adaptation of the Stephen King vampire novel called "Salem's Lot". Ironically enough, "Salem's Lot" is a made for T.V. movie, which is unique for horror movies because most people erroneously believe that you have to have all of this blood and gore in a horror movie to create a truly scary movie. Those of us sophisticated and intelligent horror movie fans that appreciate really scary movies know that this is not the case. Tobe Hooper's "Salem's Lot" is a perfect example of a perfect piece of cinematic horror in every sense of the term, and yet there is minimal to zero blood in it. How can this be? How is this possible? Well, the short answer is that you do not need a lot of blood and gore to make a scary movie. In other words, the special effects are not what makes a movie scary, but it is the atmosphere, mood and the story itself that creates a pure horror movie that is really scary.
Thus, the reason "Salem's Lot" is such a great horror movie is because of the atmosphere created in this movie, the setting, the mood and theme, the scary music, the terrifying looking vampires that are in this movie (whomever did the make-up job on these vampires really did do a fantastic job when you think about it), and the way the movie really draws the viewer into the world that is "Salem's Lot" and shows the audience the unspeakable evil that resides in the Marsten House. Salem's Lot is just like any other small town in America...it is small, the air is filled with petty rumors of infidelity, it has small-town people, and it has its haunted house. What a great setting for a horror movie!
"Salem's Lot" is about a writer named Ben Mears, who grew up in Salem's Lot (short for Jerusalem's Lot), who returns to his home town to write a book. Mears, played quite well by David Soul, is an accomplished writer, but he has a dark secret, a deep-seated fear, the origin of which lies in Marsten House. It is Mears' obsession with this fear and evil that resides in the Marsten House that drives Mears' character throughout the movie. The small town of Salem's Lot is not used to strangers, and Mears is not the only stranger in town. Another stranger by the name of Straker, played brilliantly by James Mason, is truly a stranger in every sense of the word. Moreover, there is something dark about Straker and his mysterious partner Mr. Barlow, something unspeakably evil.
In the interest of not giving the movie away, it is sufficient to point out that Salem's Lot is in for a rude awakening, an awakening of pure evil that grips the town with terror, and it is this same terror that captures the audience and grips the audience with fear. The audience is able to empathize and/or step into the shoes of the characters in this movie, and experience the same fears along with the characters. "Salems' Lot" is a simple yet brilliant movie about darkness versus light and good versus evil. The darkness and evil which is so inherent and rooted in the Marsten House spreads like wildfire throughout the town of Salem's Lot. The question is whether Ben Mears, Dr. Norton, Jason Burke and a boy named Mark can stop this evil from taking over Salem's Lot, and destroying life as they know it.
Tobe Hooper employs great acting, a terrifying story, a very scary atmosphere and absolutely horrifying looking vampires to draw the audience into the dark world that is "Salem's Lot". True, so much of what happens in Tobe Hooper's "Salem's Lot" involves what the audience does not see, and it is this method that Hooper utilizes to perfection to haunt the imaginations of his audience. There are so many great scenes in this movie that I do not even want to discuss them in this review because the viewer should see these scenes without any warning. Suffice it to say that the vampires in this movie really are quite morbid, deathly, and absolutely horrifying. The mannerisms of the vampires in this movie are absolutely as you would expect such a demon/creature of the night would have. These are not rock n' roll vampires...these vampires are creatures of death, evil, and spawns of Satan himself from the very pits of Hell. Pure evil is what we are talking about here folks, and one look at Barlow's face will impress upon you what a vampire would really look like. Barlowe is a monster, he is not interested in romance, but he is evil incarnate, an unnatural creature symbolic of evil itself. The terror that Barlowe inspires upon the audience by his mere presence is incredible and much more than you could ever hope to garner from all of the blood, gore and guts of tasteless and spiritless horror movies of today. "Salem's Lot" gets you where the fear is...it penetrates your mind and sucks you in to a realm of the unknown, a realm of darkness, and it allows the viewer's imagination to run rampart into the fear that is "Salem's Lot".
As a final note on this great movie, I would like to take time out to warn all horror movie fans to STAY AWAY from the re-make of "Salem's Lot" starring Rob Lowe. In short, the remake of "Salem's Lot" (which first aired on TNT) is the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life, and that is no exaggeration. Also, not to take anything away from Stephen King who is a great horror novelist but, like Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining", Tobe Hooper's adaptation of "Salem's Lot" is clearly superior in every way to Stephen King's novel. And, yes, I have read both of these books. While both are good, Tobe Hooper and Stanley Kubrick revise, refine and simply give "Salem's Lot" and "The Shining" something more that accentuates the horror to audience to utmost degree that the novels simply are unable to do.
The direction, acting, production values, special effects or lack thereof in Tobe Hooper's "Salem's Lot" are all carefully calculated and presented to the audience to bring you the ultimate in terror, the ultimate in horror, the ultimate scary movie experience. You will NOT watch this movie in an unfamiliar and dark two story house by yourself with the lights off on Halloween night. You would not be able to do it without being scared. This movie is the embodiment of what every horror movie should strive to be, a truly scary experience for the viewer, and Tobe Hooper's vampire masterpiece in "Salem's Lot" is one of the top two or three scariest movies of all-time and garners HorrorMan's HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION as one of the very greatest horror movies ever made!!
As an interesting piece of hodge-podge, Lew Ayres played Jason Burke in this film...Ayres also starred in another great horror movie called "Damien: The Omen II" and he also starred in the the 1930 World War I classic, "All Quiet on the Western Front"...interesting selection of movies there!
Classic January 20, 2005
N. Durham (Philadelphia, PA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Everything clicked on this ratings smash mini-series adapted from Stephen King's visionary novel. The purposely slow and steady direction of Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper the original, and best, Salem's Lot, in which Ben Mears (David Soul) returns to his childhood home, and soon finds that a powerful vampire has taken up residence and is preying on the town. What helps make Salem's Lot so effective is the same formula that helped make Hooper's original Chainsaw movie so great: giving the atmosphere an intense sense of dread and fear, almost without having to shed a single drop of blood. Not to mention that the cast does terriffic work, including a creepy James Mason as the mysterious Straker who serves as the vamp's henchman. With knowing nods to classic films of the genre, including the classic german silent film Nosferatu, the original Salem's Lot is lightyears beyond the recent TNT remake, and is by far the best Stephen King adapted TV mini-series of all time.
WHAT A MASTERPIECE! July 11, 2006
N. HAGAN (Lynchburg. VA USA)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Stay away from the piece of crap remake and stick with this classic Stephen King horror. This movie to me, is scarier than the book which was also very good. This was made back in the days when C.G.I. had not really been in use, yet the effects really looked real. This is Tobe Hooper's best film along with Poltergeist. Do not even bother with his Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, because they are total crap. Just watch Poltergeist and this great Stephen King vampire story. Oh, and on a side note, Stephen King liked this film as well.
Quite Interesting, Time Consuming TV Movie April 10, 2000
Bryan A. Hicks (Heidelberg, MS USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
After purchasing "Salem's Lot: The Movie" for 9.99 a few years back (without watching it first), I felt cheated. I felt as if there was something missing. When I looked into it, I discovered that this had been a television mini-series that aired in 1979. I found out that the film was originally released as a 2-parter at approximately 200 minutes. It was, then, later cut to about 150 minutes. Due to it's success, Warner Bros. decided to release it as a theatrical film overseas and trimmed it considerably. (They cut approximiately 1 hour and 11 minutes of footage.) The finished product was the 112 minute, "butchered" version of the mini-series. Well, when I found out that Warner had released the full mini-series on DVD, I had to scoop it up to get the whole story. And, man, what a change! While the European theatrical version runs 112 minutes, the DVD runs 183 minutes. It fleshes out the characters and restores, what I think, is vital information that was missing from the 112 minute version, making it illogical and confusing. So, by all means, avoid the 112 minute version and watch this one. Although, it is fun to watch the short one first to see what changes there are. This DVD is presented very well. The sound is crisp and the colors have a much "browner" feel to it than the VHS version. Warner Bros. has only put a international trailer on the disc in the special features department, but probably because there wasn't much else that existed. The only reason this one didn't get 5-stars is because the film is not perfect and is extremely dated. But, if you are a Stephen King or a Tobe Hooper fan, by all means, watch this one at least once!
Believe It Or Not But This is More Faithful To The Book Then The Remake! January 21, 2006
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
First off I want to warn some reviewers that my review has a spoiler so if you haven't read the book or seen this movie then you may not want to read this review!!.. Okay so this movie isn't 100 percent faithful to the book and isn't as good as the book but it's still a good movie and very scary! Ignore reviews that say the remake is more faithful to the book. While the remake is an okay movie it isn't as good as the 1979 version and despite what fans say isn't really all that faithful to Stephen King's book and I find it hard to believe that people who said the remake was more faithful actually even read the book! This 1979 version may have made changes, like having Bonnie Sawyer having an extra marital affair with her boss Larry Crocket when in the book she was having the affair with a young guy about 18 years old but despite that this is still a good movie and very faithful in spirit to the book and it's not like the remake didn't make changes too, like combining the cheating Bonnie Sawyer with Sandy MacDougal, the character who was physically abusing her baby and making Sandy have an affair with the doctor which didn't happen in the book at all and was even more untrue to the book and also in the remake they had Ben Mears kill Father Callahan and then Ben Mears is shot by the police and dies at the end of the movie. These two characters do not die in the book or this movie and that's my main problem with the remake so that's why I reccommend the book and this 1979 movie instead of the remake!
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