One Of Stephen King's First Adaptations Used A Simple Trick To Make Its Vampires Even Creepier

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Stephen King became a worldwide sensation early in his career. His first novel, 1974's "Carrie," was adapted into a hit film in 1976, and from there it was off to the races. "Carrie" became a phenomenon, and most of King's novels were hits thereafter. His works were adapted to film frequently, with "The Shining" coming out in 1980, "Creepshow" (which King wrote) in 1982, and "Cujo," "The Dead Zone," and "Christine" all coming in 1983. Even if King adaptations stopped being made after 1983, the author would still be considered a huge force in the world of horror cinema. 

King was also working his way onto television, mostly in the form of the 1979 CBS miniseries "Salem's Lot," based on King's novel from 1977. "Salem's Lot," directed by Tobe Hooper, is a pretty straightforward vampire story set in the titular small town in Maine. The main character is a professional author named John Mears (a post-"Starsky & Hutch" David Soul), who returns to Salem's Lot to investigate a nearby spooky mansion that the locals say is haunted. It will eventually be revealed that one Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder) is the owner of the mansion, and that he is — you guessed it — a vampire. 

There are a lot of vampy shenanigans throughout the slow-paced, 191-minute miniseries. The most famous scene in the show comes when a young boy named Ralphie Glick (Ronnie Scribner), who has been transformed into a vampire, uses his eerie powers to fly up to the second-story window of his brother Danny (Brad Savage) in a cloud of vampire smoke. It's eerie AF. To achieve the effect, as explained in a 2022 oral history in Vanity Fair, Hooper filmed the sequence backwards, making it look like the smoke was being sucked into Ralphie's body. 

Brad Savage was interviewed by Vanity Fair about the window scene specifically, as it's not only the best scene in the miniseries, but one of the scariest scenes in any TV show of the era. Ralphie floating toward the window through the dark is a terrifying sight, and the smoke not only adds atmosphere to the scene, but also an eerie, otherworldly quality to the show's vampires in general. It plays out like a nightmare. Ralphie then bites his brother. The scene became so famous that it was parodied on "The Simpsons." Savage recalled the filming technique, explaining: 

"I remember we did the bite shots backwards. So you'd start with with the fangs in the neck and then he'd pull back and then float around a little bit. [...] Then they played it in reverse." 

Ronnie Scribner went into a little more detail, noting that most of his eerie vampire scenes were filmed with the intention of playing them in reverse. The scene begins with Ralphie scratching on Danny's window, and Scribner recalled having to scratch in an upward motion to get the desired effect. He said: 

"I put my hands, my fingernails, on the window and then lift them up. It was an unnatural move for me, and Tobe Hooper guided me every single step of the way. I mean, he just gave me direction. He would do what he wanted and then ask me to repeat it, then he would look at it and give his approval or, 'Hey, let's try it again. Let's try it a different way. Go slower.' He was the circus master, the maestro." 

Hooper was already known for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" at that point, so indeed he was respected. 

Bev Vincent authored the book "Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences," and she too is quoted extensively in the Vanity Fair oral history. She pointed out that "Salem's Lot" aired just after Halloween, and was one of the early examples of a TV phenomenon; big televised events were less common in the late 1970s than they are now. She also noted that the window scene is indeed the best-remembered part of the "Salem's Lot" miniseries and marveled at Tobe Hooper's backward filming technique. It's so simple, and yet the reversed movement gave the vampire character an ethereal quality that can't be captured any other way. These days, it would have been done with CGI, which would have been slick ... but not nearly as scary. 

It should be noted that popular culture hasn't quite been able to let go of "Salem's Lot," and one may theorize that it lingers in the mass consciousness because of that creepy window scene. In 1987, filmmaker Larry Cohen made a feature film sequel called "A Return to Salem's Lot," which no one really remembers. In 2004, there was TV miniseries remake with Rob Lowe in the David Soul role, but even fewer people remember that. Even the more recent 2021 TV series "Chapelwaite," based loosely on Stephen King's original "Jerusalem's Lot" short story, didn't leave much of a cultural impact. Ditto the King-Interconnected-Universe series "Castle Rock." The 2024 Max Original film "'Salem's Lot" is ... wait, that was a thing? 

/Film's own Chris Evangelista once ranked the three extant "Salem's Lot" adaptations (not counting Larry Cohen's "Return"), and concluded that the 1979 original is still the best.