A Return to Salem's Lot

Infobox Film
name = A Return to Salem's Lot


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director = Larry Cohen
producer = Larry Cohen Paul Kurta
writer = Larry Cohen James Dixon
narrator =
starring = Michael Moriarty Andrew Duggan Samuel Fuller Rick Reed June Havoc
music = Michael Minard
editing = Armond Leibowitz
distributor =
released = September 11, 1987
runtime = 101 min.
country = USA
language =
budget =
gross =
preceded_by = "Salem's Lot"
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:41135
imdb_id =

"A Return to Salem's Lot" is an 1987 horror film and in-name only sequel to "'Salem's Lot", written and directed by Larry Cohen. It jettisons Stephen King's original story and characters to explore the premise of a small town inhabited by vampires. The movie was filmed almost entirely in Newbury, Vermont and featured a number of native townspeople in small roles. Tara Reid was also cast, making her screen debut.

Plot

Michael Moriarty plays an amoral anthropologist who has been lumbered with his dysfunctional adolescent son and who returns to Salem's Lot, the town of his birth, to find that it has been taken over by the undead. A few living people are kept around to provide blood for the vampires and to operate the gas station and shops in the daytime. Knowing of the anthropologist's refusal to moralise about other people's lifestyles (in the opening scene he is seen refusing to interfere in a human sacrifice and concerned only for the quality of the film he is shooting), the vampires employ him to write their story. As the vampires' evil nature becomes clear, the anthropologist is joined by a Nazi-hunter (played by Samuel Fuller) who helps him save his son, and at the climax the master vampire is impaled on the American flag instead of the traditional stake.

Criticism

Stephen King did not comment on this movie. ManyFact|date=May 2008 feel this movie is a sequel in name only, as its story line does not fit into the original novel. However, King did not remove his credit or initiate any legal action against Larry Cohen.

Cast

*Michael Moriarty - Joe Weber
*Ricky Addison Reed - Jeremy Weber
*Samuel Fuller - Van Meer
*Andrew Duggan - Judge Axel
*Evelyn Keyes - Mrs. Axel
*Jill Gatsby - Sherry
*June Havoc - Aunt Clara
*James Dixon - Rains
*David Holbrook - Assistant
*Katja Crosby - Cathy
*Tara Reid - Amanda
*Brad Rijn - Clarence

External links

*imdb title|id=0093855