Starring Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, John Benjamin Hickey, Bill Camp, Jordan Preston Carter, Nicholas Crovetti, Spencer Treat Clark, William Sadler, and Pilou Asbæk.

Directed by Gary Dauberman

New Line, out now

An author returns to his childhood home in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover it’s being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire.

IT writer Gary Dauberman’s second directorial feature after Annabelle Comes Home comes with loaded expectations and a hefty legacy. For a generation of horror fans, Tobe Hooper’s two-part TV movie of Salem’s Lot was their introduction to Stephen King, and has rightly became regarded as a touchstone of small-screen horror. With this in mind, was it wise to remake this classic?

A further TV version was made in 2004, starring Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland, but apart from Rutger Hauer’s Barlow being closer to King’s master vampire, it didn’t improve on Hooper. Twenty years later and Dauberman’s new version, starring Lewis Pullman as author Mears, arrives at UK cinemas a week after it was premiered in the States on streaming service Max. And to be honest, this feels more like a TV movie than a theatrical event.

At just under two hours, this version is an hour shorter than the previous two (though a similar length to the edited European theatrical cut of Hooper’s) meaning that a lot of the interplay between the citizens of Jerusalem’s Lot has been pared down or removed entirely. Things happen a lot quicker – the graveside cliffhanger of Hooper’s series that happened ninety minutes in now occurs at 41 minutes – and there’s a lot of exposition rapidly dumped on us before we’re asked to move on.

The 1970s setting is contemporary to King’s novel and Hooper’s series, and the production values are excellent. The town and Marsten house are rendered perfectly and the grading of the film has that washed-out look of movies made in that era.

But ultimately this feels like a pointless exercise. There’s vampire kids at the window, Barlow is back to his 1979 Nosferatu look, and there’s more blood and jump scares than before, but it’s not that scary. Pilou Asbaek’s fruity performance as Richard Straker is not in the same class as James Mason or Donald Sutherland, and the Glick kids are just a bit too cute to be truly terrifying. Nice try, but apart from the relocation of the finale, it’s as redundant as the remakes of Carrie, The Shining, Pet Sematary and Firestarter.

Verdict: There’s nothing terribly wrong with this remake, but it’s best suited to those who have never seen the previous versions or read the novel. And if that’s the case, I’d refer you first to Hooper and King. 5/10

Nick Joy