SALEM’S LOT
The Beast Barlow
RELEASED OUT NOW! 1979 | 15 | Blu-ray
Director Tobe Hooper
Cast David Soul, James Mason,
Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia
First sneaked out in HD here late last year as a Zavvi-exclusive steelbook, this miniseries of Stephen King’s vampire novel is a game of two halves. King prides himself on fleshing out his small-town Maine folk, but nevertheless the opening 90 minutes’ focus on the love-lives of non-entities may have you glancing at your watch.
Thankfully part two shifts up about three gears, as David “Hutch” Soul – playing yet another of King’s author surrogates – faces off against an impeccable James Mason’s supercilious acolyte, and eventually his undead “partner” Mr Barlow (not Gary). Once you’ve got over his double-denim ensembles, Soul is surprisingly good – especially when the time comes to convey limb-trembling terror. And the decision to make Barlow a savage, ragged-fanged Nosferatu-alike rather than the urbane figure of the book pays off.
But it’s the boom crane-assisted sequences where vampirised boys float outside bedroom windows, shrouded in reverse-footage mist, that are Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper’s key triumph. Impressively eerie, it’s no wonder they still haunt the memory of ’70s viewers.
Extras Sparse: informative if intermittent commentary by Hooper; a trailer. Ian Berriman
The exterior of the sinister Marsten House was actually a three-storey facade, built over an existing hillside property.