A Return To Salem's Lot
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''A Return to Salem's Lot'' is a 1987 American
vampire film Vampire films have been a staple in world cinema since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptat ...
co-written and directed by
Larry Cohen Lawrence George Cohen (July 15, 1936 – March 23, 2019) was an American filmmaker. He originally emerged as the writer of blaxploitation films such as ''Black Caesar (film), Black Caesar'' and ''Hell Up in Harlem'' (both 1973), before becomin ...
and starring
Michael Moriarty Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian actor. He received an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for his role as a Nazi SS officer in the 1978 miniseries ''Holocaust'' and a Tony Award in 1974 for his performance in the ...
,
Andrew Duggan Andrew Duggan (December 28, 1923 – May 15, 1988) was an American character actor. His work includes 185 screen credits between 1949 and 1987 for roles in both film and television, as well a number more on stage. Background Duggan was born i ...
,
Samuel Fuller Samuel Michael Fuller (August 12, 1912 – October 30, 1997) was an American film director, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, and actor. He was known for directing low-budget genre movies with controversial themes, often made outside t ...
,
Evelyn Keyes Evelyn Louise Keyes (November 20, 1916 – July 4, 2008) was an American film actress. She is best known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film ''Gone with the Wind''. Early life Evelyn Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, to Omar Do ...
, and
June Havoc June Havoc (born Ellen Evangeline Hovick;Ancestry Library Edition November 8, 1912 – March 28, 2010) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, stage director and memoirist. Havoc was a child vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her ...
. A theatrical sequel to the 1979
miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...
'' Salem's Lot'', the film follows an anthropologist and his son who encounter supernatural incidents and
vampirism A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...
in the small town of Jerusalem's Lot. Cohen had previously written a screenplay for the 1979 ''Salem's Lot'' miniseries that had been rejected by
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
at the time. Years later, the studio approached Cohen to write and direct a low-budget feature for them; he proposed a sequel to ''Salem's Lot''. While writing the screenplay, Cohen was inspired by
Thornton Wilder Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'', and a U. ...
's play ''
Our Town ''Our Town'' is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder in 1938. Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written", it presents the fictional American town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 ...
'', and sought to rework familiar tropes of the vampire film, presenting the vampires as typical Americans descended from Europe, having fled their native country to establish a colony in America in the 1600s. Filmed in
Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
in late 1986, ''A Return to Salem's Lot'' was screened at the 1987
Cannes Film Market Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The city is ...
before receiving a limited theatrical release from Warner Bros. in the fall of that year.


Plot

Joe Weber, an
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
working in South America, is summoned back to the United States by his ex-wife, Sally, who informs him that their dysfunctional adolescent son, Jeremy, will be committed to a psychiatric institution if Joe does not intervene. Joe takes custody of Jeremy, and decides to return to his hometown of Salem's Lot, Maine, where he owns an abandoned, rundown farmhouse passed down to him by his deceased Aunt Clara. Unbeknownst to Joe, Salem's Lot is in fact a
vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...
colony. One night, a group of teenagers are stopped by police officers who subsequently—along with other various townspeople—begin feeding on them. Sherry, one of the teenagers, manages to hide out in a church before fleeing to the outskirts of town, stumbling into Joe and Jeremy's home. Joe brings Sherry to meet with Judge Axel, the town mayor, to report the incident. Inside, Joe, Sherry, and Jeremy are welcomed to a dinner attended by various high society, among them Amanda Fenton, the young granddaughter of the town doctor. At the urging of her grandmother, Amanda takes Jeremy on a tour of the town while the adults congregate. When Sherry notices one of her attackers at the gathering, she becomes hysterical, and is escorted to another room to be killed and fed upon. To Joe's shock, Judge Axel reveals himself and the townspeople to be vampires. Axel attempts to appeal to Joe's objective anthropological methodology, hoping he can give their community mainstream exposure, and eventually write a
religious text Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, moral commandments and ...
for their people. Axel gives Joe a tour of the town, during which he explains the dangers of drinking human blood in the late 20th-century, amongst them various contractible viruses such as
hepatitis Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver parenchyma, liver tissue. Some people or animals with hepatitis have no symptoms, whereas others develop yellow discoloration of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice), Anorexia (symptom), poor appetite ...
and
AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...
. To remedy this, Axel has arranged for the locals to primarily feast on the blood of live cows at their local dairy. During the tour, Joe is met by his Aunt Clara, whom he believed to be dead—she, too, is a vampire. During the feeding on the cows for blood, Mrs. Axel states " I must confesses I prefer human blood" and "Axel says I have a drinking problem". Bewildered by what he has learned, Joe nevertheless decides to remain in Salem's Lot and renovate his familial home. At a nighttime school meeting, Jeremy and Joe learn that the townspeople have bred "drones", people who can safely be exposed to sunlight in order to oversee daily operations of the community, maintaining a façade of normalcy. The school principal also explains the vampires' origins, and how they traveled to the United States concurrent to the pilgrims. Joe soon rekindles a romance with Cathy (also a vampire), a woman whom he had an affair with as a teenager. Meanwhile, Jeremy tells Joe that he plans to become a vampire and live eternally in the community. When Jeremy becomes sensitive to sunlight and grows ill, Joe realizes he has already begun his transformation. When Joe attempts to flee with Jeremy, he is attacked along a river by two of the local drones, one of whom he bludgeons to death with a rock, before being knocked unconscious himself. Joe awakens from the attack in the Axels' home, where Aunt Clara, Cathy, and others reveal that Cathy is pregnant with Joe's child. They also inform him Jeremy is about to be "reborn". Shortly after, Joe is met by Van Meer, an eccentric
Nazi hunter A Nazi hunter is an individual who tracks down and gathers information on alleged former Nazis, or SS members, and Nazi collaborators who were involved in the Holocaust, typically for use at trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against hum ...
who has been surveilling the town. Joe and Van Meer bond together, hoping to save Jeremy from the vampires' influence. After staging a siege against the townspeople with Van Meer and burning down their homes, Joe and Jeremy are confronted by Axel, who reveals himself in his true, grotesque vampiric form. A fight ensues in a barn, culminating in Axel being impaled with an
American flag The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen horizontal Bar (heraldry), stripes, Variation of the field, alternating red and white, with a blue rectangle in the Canton ( ...
. Van Meer, stealing a schoolbus, saves Joe and Jeremy. The trio drives away from Salem's Lot as the sun rises, and the remaining vampires burn in the sunlight.


Cast


Themes

Larry Cohen biographer Tony Williams describes a unifying theme of ''A Return to Salem's Lot'' as that of "becoming a human being." Williams also notes the film's vampires as being presented as part of a
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
consumer society, writing that the "ancient consumer society of vampires are really all-American...
he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...
presents vampires as a fundamental part of America's economic and institutional structure." Author Mike Mayo, writing in ''The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies'' (2013), notes that Cohen "uses Stephen King's premise of a small town overrun by bloodsuckers as a platform from which he can satirize conservative American smugness."


Production


Development

Larry Cohen later said the film began when he went to
Warner Bros Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American film studio, filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and th ...
with
Andre de Toth Endre Antal Miksa de Toth, known as Andre de Toth (; May 15, 1913 – October 27, 2002), was a Hungarian-American film director, born and raised in Makó, Austria-Hungary. He directed the 3D film House of Wax (1953 film), ''House of Wax'' (1 ...
and pitched them the idea of remaking '' House of Wax'' (1953). Warner was not interested. However the studio wanted Cohen to make a film for their video division. Cohen was only willing to do this if Warner would pay for two films, to be shot back-to-back. Warner agreed. The two films were to ''It's Alive III: Island of the Alive'' and ''A Return to Salem's Lot''. Both had built-in name recognition ideal for the straight-to-video market. Cohen had previously written a draft screenplay for the 1979 miniseries based on
Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...
's novel of the same name, but it was rejected by
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
at the time. Years later, Warner Bros. approached Cohen to direct another low-budget feature for them, and he proposed a sequel to ''Salem's Lot'' that only loosely used King's source novel for its basis. Cohen was influenced by the
Thornton Wilder Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'', and a U. ...
play ''
Our Town ''Our Town'' is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder in 1938. Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written", it presents the fictional American town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 ...
'' when writing the screenplay. "The intention was always to bring a sense of humor to the picture in playing with the established elements of vampire movies. Audiences recognize aspects of the mythology and know what they mean, but I don't like vampire movies particularly. In fact, I find them very tedious. With ''A Return to Salem's Lot'', I tried to revamp the vampire legend by making vampires the most persecuted race in Europe."


Filming

Filming took place in
Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
in St. Johnsbury, as well as Newbury and Peacham, in the fall of 1986. Some additional photography took place in New York City. Recalling the shooting experience in Peacham, Cohen said: "The inhabitants virtually gave us the entire town. I disrupted normal activities for several weeks. Since the film was about vampires, I shot late into the night and recruited the townspeople to be extras and their children to play young vampires." The film was shot by cinematographer
Daniel Pearl Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' On January 23, 2002, he was kidnapped by Jihadism, jihadist militants while he was on his way to what he had expected wou ...
, who had previously shot
Tobe Hooper Willard Tobe Hooper (; January 25, 1943 – August 26, 2017) was an American filmmaker, best known for his work in the horror film, horror genre. The British Film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influential horror filmmakers of al ...
's ''
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a 1974 American independent horror film produced, co-composed, and directed by Tobe Hooper, who co-wrote it with Kim Henkel. The film stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, ...
'' (1974).


Release

''A Return to Salem's Lot'' opened at the Cannes Film Market on May 13, 1987 It was given a
limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
theatrically in the United States by
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
in September 1987.


Critical response

''
The Des Moines Register ''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa, United States. History Early period The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cab ...
'' gave the film a zero-star rating, referring to it as "a festival of bad acting" and "quite possibly the most amateurishly made vampire movie in memory," adding, "''Return'', in fact, plays like a movie made by people who've heard about how movies are made but who've never seen one." Jim Schembri of ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' noted that the film "outstay its welcome after about five minutes." William Thomas of ''
Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
'' gave the film a one out of four star-rating, writing, "Larry Cohen, the man who helmed ''Q'' and ''It’s Alive!'', directs as if he has been possessed by some middling incubus of the film industry. Pallid doesn't do it. This is offensively bad in every department and should be left to rot in a vault somewhere." Alan Jones of the ''
Radio Times ''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...
'' gave the film a favorable review, awarding it 3 out of 5 stars and writing: "Cohen happily whittles away at the
American Dream The "American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. The phrase was popularized by James Truslow Adams during the ...
, offering plenty of satire and allegory, as well as examining moral dilemmas, plus fine performances by old-timers June Havoc, Evelyn Keyes and director Samuel Fuller, who steals the show as a single-minded vampire hunter." ''
DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...
'' commented that the film was "Too interesting to miss, but regrettably not very scary."


Home media

''A Return to Salem's Lot'' was released on
VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...
by
Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...
the following year. The film was released to burn-on-demand
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
by the
Warner Archive Collection The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...
in 2010. In June 2021, it was announced that
Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios (formerly doing business as Shout! Factory, its current legal name), is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued i ...
, through its horror sub-label Scream! Factory, would be releasing the film for the first time on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on August 21, 2021.


See also

* ''
'Salem's Lot ''Salem's Lot'' is a 1975 American horror fiction, horror novel by author Stephen King. It was his second published novel. The story involves a writer named Ben Mears who returns to the town of Jerusalem's Lot (Stephen King), Jerusalem's Lot ( ...
'' *
Vampire films Vampire films have been a staple in world cinema since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptat ...
*
List of vampire films This is a list of vampire films. Dracula films Carmilla films Elizabeth Bathory films Other vampire films See also * Vampire films * List of vampire television series *Vampire literature * List of fictional vampires *'' Bloodsu ...


Notes


References


Sources

* * *


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Return To Salems Lot 1987 films 1987 horror films American sequel films American supernatural horror films 1980s English-language films Films based on works by Stephen King Films directed by Larry Cohen Television shows set in Maine Films shot in Vermont Films with screenplays by Larry Cohen 'Salem's Lot American vampire films Warner Bros. films 1980s American films English-language horror films