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Salem's Lot

Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2025 9:27 pm
by yoloswegmaster
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4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
Brand new 4K restorations of both the original two-part miniseries and the shorter theatrical cut distributed internationally
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentations in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of both versions of the film
Original lossless mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
Collectors’ perfect-bound booklet containing new writing on the film by critics Sean Abley, Sorcha Ni Fhlainn, and Richard Kadrey, plus select archival material including interviews with director Tobe Hooper, and stars Lance Kerwin and Julie Cobb
Salem’s Lot town sign sticker
Double-sided foldout poster featuring two original artwork options
DISC 1 - ORIGINAL TV MINI-SERIES VERSION
Two viewing modes: Play as miniseries in two parts as per the original broadcast or as extended movie
Brand new audio commentary by film critics Bill Ackerman and Amanda Reyes
Archive audio commentary by director Tobe Hooper
Alternate TV footage: commercial bumpers and original broadcast version of the antlers death
Original shooting script gallery

DISC 2 - THEATRICAL VERSION & EXTRAS
Brand new audio commentary by film critic Chris Alexander
King of the Vampires, a new interview with Stephen King biographer Douglas Winter
Second Coming, a new appreciation by author and critic Grady Hendrix
New England Nosferatu, a new interview with filmmaker Mick Garris
Fear Lives Here, a new featurette looking at the locations of Salem’s Lot today
We Can All Be Heroes, a new featurette with film critic Heather Wixson, co-author of In Search of Darkness
A Gold Standard for Small Screen Screams, a new featurette with film critics Joe Lipsett and Trace Thurman, co-hosts of the podcast Horror Queers
Trailer
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Re: Salem's Lot

Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2025 6:08 am
by colinr0380
Excellent! Hopefully this will include both the three hour two part mini-series version (didn't this kick off that trend of Stephen King mini-series?) and the cut down theatrical feature. Amusingly in the UK the mini series was rated as a 15 whilst the feature was an 18 purely because it became more intense through removing the longeurs and brining the attack scenes closer together!

Re: Salem's Lot

Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2025 8:36 am
by The Curious Sofa
The theatrical version features violence and gore that had to be cut for the TV version, which is what justified the 18 rating.

I rewatched the mini-series not too long ago, and the horror elements still hold up really well, these are among the scariest vampires ever put on screen. Unfortunately, the human drama doesn't, and that makes up 80% of the plot. Tobe Hooper never did well with character development, apart from in the one film where his authorship is in dispute.

It got a lot of flack, but I think last year's Gary Dauberman adaptation could have been really good if the studio hadn't ruined it by forcing him to cut an hour. What's there is promising and I like how it retains stuff from the 1979 mini-series that worked. But it's obvious that a third of the movie is missing and it feels very rushed (in a situation similar to David Lynch's Dune). And then, after years on the shelf, it got dumped on HBO Max where a longer running time would have been an advantage as it would have meant "more content".

The Stephen King novel is a small-town soap slowly taken over by vampires and for that you have to give as much weight to storylines of the large cast of characters as you do to the vampires and neither version did that (though the Rob Lowe starring version from the early noughts is far worse than the other two). A good adaptation would lend itself well to a six or eight-episode miniseries.

Re: Salem's Lot

Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2025 4:04 pm
by colinr0380
Ah, that makes sense then The Curious Sofa! I have only ever watched the mini-series version so am only familiar with the sudden ferocity of the attack scenes (such as that scene in the kitchen which nothing ferally vampiric really came close to until 30 Days of Night), and that scene involving James Mason at the end of impaling someone on a deer's head!

For my part though, I watch the mini-series every couple of years (including having bought it on Blu-ray a few years ago, so there is a Tobe Hooper commentary available over the full mini-series version at least) and love how the multi-plot strand dynamic of romances and affairs soap operatic style somehow always manages to lull me into a false sense of security before the ramping up in intensity scare scenes continually disrupt that veneer (which is probably the main way that this bears comparison with Poltergeist). James Mason's genteel-with-an-edge antique shop owner as the initial foreign presence in an American small town really works too and sort of anticipates the main character from King's later Needful Things! And I kind of love David Soul and Bonnie Bedelia in this, where in their callow but kind-hearted middle aged characters you can see a romance later in life aspect to it with a tinge of tragedy that I wonder if was something that carried forward to It!