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A review by effingunicorns
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
3.5
The major obstacles to me finishing this in a timely fashion were a bunch of shit happening IRL at the end of October and beginning of November (in addition to the god-awful election) and Chapter 13 being an entire fucking novella.
Anyway, there's a solid air of mystery even if you already have a general idea of how things play out from either or both movie adaptations, and some equally solid tension in waiting for the bad things to happen. The glimpses of the human darkness that make Salem's Lot a prime target for Barlow feel almost mundane in how recognizably horrible they are--especially when we finally saw the bus driver again, and that one I admit was satisfying. I think otherwise the main points of interest for me are how wild it was to discover Barlow in the book is more Dracula than Nosferatu, and seeing how the various events played out when not condensed for runtime.
I do feel like the whole "let's look at the whole town" thing stretched coverage of individual characters a little thinner than I would've liked, and the whole Hubie Marsten thing in particular felt underutilized, but overall there are far worse things you could read for spooky season (extended).
Anyway, there's a solid air of mystery even if you already have a general idea of how things play out from either or both movie adaptations, and some equally solid tension in waiting for the bad things to happen. The glimpses of the human darkness that make Salem's Lot a prime target for Barlow feel almost mundane in how recognizably horrible they are--especially when we finally saw the bus driver again, and that one I admit was satisfying. I think otherwise the main points of interest for me are how wild it was to discover Barlow in the book is more Dracula than Nosferatu, and seeing how the various events played out when not condensed for runtime.
I do feel like the whole "let's look at the whole town" thing stretched coverage of individual characters a little thinner than I would've liked, and the whole Hubie Marsten thing in particular felt underutilized, but overall there are far worse things you could read for spooky season (extended).