Salem's Lot: Not enough bite

Salem's Lot (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for bloody violence 

Available via: MAX

By Derrick Bang

Film adaptations of Stephen King’s novels have run the gamut, from the excellent — Misery, Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Carrie — to the deplorable: Thinner, Cell, Lawnmower Man and many, many others.

 

With sundown rapidly approaching, the wary vampire hunters — from left, Susan
(Makenzie Leigh), Ben (Lewis Pullman), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Mark (Jordan
Preston Carter) and Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) — contemplate how
best to invade the dread Marsden House.

Most often, the fault lies with inept directors and scripters. Sometimes, though, the fans who inhabit what King calls Constant Reader Land are upset because a given adaptation changed so much that it “ruined the book.” To those folks, King always cites what James M. Cain said to a student reporter who bemoaned how Hollywood had altered books such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

“The movies didn’t change them a bit, son,” Cain replied, pointing to a shelf of books behind his desk. “They’re all right up there. Every word is the same as when I wrote them.”

 

Director/scripter Gary Dauberman’s respectful handling of King’s famed 1975 novel does pretty well, when it comes to fidelity. He includes almost all the central characters, hits most of the story’s key plot points, and deftly maintains the unnerving atmosphere King established so well, with the juxtaposition of quaintly bucolic, small-town Americana invaded by macabre, old-world Evil.

 

And when Dauberman does slide the story into different territory — notably during the third act — he does so cleverly; the climax is both ingenious, and suspensefully mounted with an assist from editor Luke Ciarrocchi.

 

That said, this film fails in another, equally important manner: overall pacing. 

 

After taking time, during a leisurely first act, to introduce the key players and set up the looming threat, a fleeting second act rushes far too quickly into the aforementioned finale. King’s luxurious attention to detail — the nuances of sidebar characters, and their back-stories — are completely absent.

 

This is particularly egregious with respect to school teacher Matt Burke and local priest Father Callahan (although that’s getting ahead of things a bit).

 

The result is a jarring case of whiplash, as if great chunks of this film had been left on the cutting-room floor. Dauberman has admitted that his first cut ran three hours, which I suspect would have been preferable; director Tobe Hooper’s 1979 two-part TV miniseries, running 183 minutes, was — and remains — vastly superior.

 

Glass: Should be shattered

Glass (2019) • View trailer 
Turkey (zero stars). Rated PG-13, and much too generously, for gore, violence, dramatic intensity and profanity
By Derrick Bang

This may not be M. Night Shyamalan’s worst film — The Last Airbender will hold that trophy, forever and always — but damn, it runs a close second.

Restrained and shackled for a group interview, our three misfits — from left, Elijah Price
(Samuel L. Jackson), Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) and Davis Dunn
(Bruce Willis) — await their next encounter with specialist shrink Dr. Ellie Staple.

Mind you, this is amid considerable competition; Shyamalan also is responsible for bottom-of-the-barrel dreck such as The Visit, Lady in the Water and After Earth.

Nor do these statements tell the entire story. Airbender isn’t merely a Shyamalan stinker; it was by far the worst big-budget studio film of 2010. And even though we’re only halfway through January, I feel quite confident in dismissing Glass as the worst studio film of this year.

Shyamalan has become an insufferably arrogant and self-indulgent filmmaker: one who feels that his cinematic contributions are akin to Moses delivering unto us the 10 Commandments. The signs are obvious: the measured, portentous line readings, with individual words separated by pauses so pregnant they could deliver; the needlessly weird camera angles, which serve no purpose save to call attention to themselves; the protracted, silent close-ups on cast members, as if to suggest they’re always Thinking Weighty Thoughts; and a torturously lethargic pace — and deadly dull storyline — that could make watching paint dry the height of entertainment.

I long ago grew suspicious of any film that opens in the office of a psychiatrist or psychologist; with very few exceptions, they’re inevitably bombs. And while it’s true Glass doesn’t do so, we spend an unbearable amount of time listening to shrink Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) prattle away, often with cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ camera just this side of being jammed up her nostrils.

On top of which, poor Paulson spends most of the film buried beneath enough make-up to satisfy every member of the Radio City Rockettes. Honestly, she looks like an embalmed corpse, newly risen from the grave.

Is all this pancake, rouge and eye shadow somehow intended to be Significant? Who knows? Who cares?

Shyamalan would have us believe that Glass is the final installment in his so-called “Eastrail 177 Trilogy,” supposedly gestating ever since 2000’s Unbreakable. To borrow the phrase that has become the rallying cry of Florida’s Parkland teen activists, I call bullshit. Shyamalan’s merely re-writing history to grant his newest film even more cachet, when it deserves none at all.