Second Coming

 

The original title of Stephen King's second novel “Salem's Lot” was “Second Coming”. King was inspired to write the novel after brainstorming about what would happen if Dracula were to appear in modern-day small-town America.

“I decided I wanted to find out, so I wrote a novel,” said King in 1975.

Though he initially planned to title the novel “Second Coming, he changed it to “Jerusalem's Lot” on the advice of his wife, novelist Tabitha King, who thought the original title sounded too much like a "bad sex story." King's publishers then shortened it to “Salem’s Lot”, considering that “Jerusalem's Lot” sounded too religious.

The corruption in the government was a significant factor in the inspiration of the story, King recalls at that paranoiac time of Nixon, corruption and the Whitehouse tapes in 1973 –

“Every novel is to some extent an inadvertent psychological portrait of the novelist, and I think that the unspeakable obscenity in 'Salem's Lot has to do with my own disillusionment and consequent fear for the future. 

In a way, it is more closely related to Invasion of the Body Snatchers than it is to Dracula. The fear behind 'Salem's Lot seems to be that the Government has invaded everybody.”

The novel was first adapted into a highly successful CBS miniseries in 1979, directed by Tobe Hopper [renowned for his Texas Chainsaw Massacre] and now in 2024, a new film version directed by Gary Dauberman has been released. Dauberman is best known for writing horror films Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation and The Nun, as well as co-writing the 2017 film adaptation of Stephan King’s “It”.

So it was excitement all the way when Shots Magazine Editors Mike Stotter and Ali Karim were invited by Stephen King’s UK publishers [Hodder and Stoughton] to a press screening of the new film version [and reworking] of Salem’s Lot ahead of its UK Cinema release.

It should be noted that Warner Brothers [Discovery] released Salem’s Lot in America to its streaming service MAX [much to Stephen King’s irritation] while in the UK Warner Brothers Pictures opted for a full nationwide cinema release. To celebrate this theatrical release Warner Bros UK hired out the prestigiously historic venue, London’s Regent Street Cinema for its launch on Tuesday 8^th of October.

The Regent Street Cinema was first opened in 1848 and is housed in the flagship building of the University of Westminster. When it was first opened, it was used as a theatre. In late February 1896, the cinema played a short movie by the Lumière Brothers. It was the first motion picture shown in the United Kingdom.

The cinema was decorated in spooky fashion, with actors mingling amongst the invited guests and assembled journalists – with bloody cocktails, wine and blood bags with a weird concoction.

The film though two hours long moved at a frantic pace, with plenty of jump scares bound to a rousing soundtrack which included the late Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown, as well as Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man.

We were talking to journalist and editor at The Express Jon Coates prior to the start of the film. It was no surprise that Salem’s Lot was his first Stephen King novel and how it deeply impacted his love of this author’s output. Coates was not alone.

Jeffery Deaver noted that “King Singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since John D. MacDonald, brought reality to genre novels. He's often remarked that Salem's Lot was Peyton Place meets Dracula, and so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampires and make them fresh again.”

Peter Straub recalls that "One day I wandered into a very good book store and saw Salem’s Lot on the main table. If I had known that the book was about vampires, I might not have bought it. But I did buy it, and when I learned that one of the main characters was a vampire, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, 'Oh my God, this guy is working with a very tired, almost exhausted, trope and he’s making something really vibrant out of it.' So I became a huge Stephen King fan on the spot."

So as the curtain came down, and we mused over the new film, the consensus we agreed upon was -

It’s hard to pare down such a dense and thematically complex novel such as Salem’s Lot into a two hour movie, even Tobe Hooper struggled with a two part miniseries back in 1979/1980. In our opinion Gary Dauberman had crafted an elegant updating to this gothic tale – though as readers, we would always steer you to grabbing a copy of King’s novel from Hodder and Stoughton – click here

Or explore Stephen King’s more recent books – reviewed here at Shots Magazine via the links below.

HOLLY – now out in paperback

YOU LIKE IT DARKER – still out in Hardcover

And an article here WORKING WITH THE KING is worth perusing.

We present a few photos from the launch party for SALEM’S LOT 2024 in LONDON

Shots Magazine would like to thank Philippa Pride and Francesca Russell of Hodder and Stoughton as well as Warner Brothers Pictures UK for a wonderfully creepy evening.