If you're a King or vampire fan then you'll probably love this, it starts off showing a lot of potential but then goes down hill from there on.

I must admit I found it too daft really. I prefer to have the suggestion of something disturbing rather than showing something totally unrealistic, such as some crazed child corpse gnawing away at his mate's neck. Did his parents forget to buy any Jaffa Cakes that week??

I would say this is mediocre at best and my husband actually left part way through to do the dishes. So obviously hiring it again next week, ENOUGH SAID!!!!!

I was quite looking forward to a different take on Stephen King's classic.
What a disappointment! This version lacks everything that the original mini series did wonderfully well. The characters were weaker in almost every instance - even Donald Sutherland was an inferior Straker. Despite more realistic special effects, the suspense was not maintained and the ending seemed to go on for ever. I think the director also made the mistake of trying to include too much of the original story, making the film an overbloated, feast of boredom.

This recent (2004) TV film is adapted from Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot. This adaptation had been waited for and expected by many years since the first old adaptation and especially the scandalous second episode that had transformed Jerusalem's Lot into a blood farm for a community of vampires. This adaptation is very faithful to the novel though it adds a different end in concentrating the hatred against vampires onto the probably catholic priest who had been obliged to drink some of the vampire's blood, going as far as making the main character trace him in New York and kill him, though in a traditional way, which makes us doubt he will die. The second element in this film is the great dynamism, the upgrading and updating of the world that has cell phones and other modern technology. This gives to the film a modern look and feel and that is good and bracing. The characters are also speaking today's language and behaving in today's fashion. The film has also gotten rid of some of the gross surreal if not supernatural elements in the very looks of the two culprits, the vampire and his ghoul. They look so much more human than in previous adaptations. But I remain doubtful about the message of the film, or of the novel. The vampire is in no way regenerated and the myth is taken in exactly the same terms as it had always been taken, or nearly, up to Anne Rice's rewriting of it. I think this vision is making the audience get used to the necessity to kill and destroy the foreigner because he is the very image of evil, even if he does not look evil at all. This adaptation also has the merit of lightening the sentimental side of things, the various love affairs and the innuendo about such possible sexual perspectives. Everything is better concentrated on the vampire and his action and conquest of the town.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

I was a real fan of the original movie and then the book. The wrong way round, I know, but I was only ten and then along came this. Now I really hoped for something brilliant but didn't quite get that. I expected absolute trash but didn't get that either. What I thought we got was a fairly faithful take on the book and a stand up good try at re-making what I think is the best horror flick of all time. I quite like modern re-makes because they give you something new even if it is just a change of cast - I watch stage plays with different casts all the time. Some are better than others but we don't suggest there should only ever be one version. So I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy Rob Lowe and his mates running around The Lot and giving me the chance to hide behind the furniture all over again. Go on, give it a chance.

i simply love this version of salem's lot.i was a big fan of the 79 version,but i was always disappointed with how they made the character of barlow into a nosferatu,when in fact in the novel he was a charming but utterly evil humanesque vampire.true,it's still not exactly like the novel,i would've preferred to see the vampire baby etc,and more use of the danny glick character,and the eva and weasel storyline was a bit sugary and the larry crocket incest thing was totally uncalled for,and i didn't like the way they handled the father callahan character,but it's still better than tobe hooper's version,as far as being faithful to the novel goes.i also wish that they'd made better use of rutger hauer as barlow.they could've kept the bonnie sawyer/corey affair in there,instead of changing it to the cody/Mcdougal affair,then we would've seen more of barlow.even though the hooper version had a sense of dread throughout the movie,this one is even darker in my opinion,and i love the soundtrack,especialy when ben is walking to the soup kitchen during the opening scenes.
i have to say that i think that the guy who plays floyd tibbets is great,as well as rob lowe.rob lowe IS ben mears.
anyway,i love this,despite it's faults,so i recommend it to anyone who's read the book and who's a fan of king.
thanks for reading this and i hope it helps.
Stephen.