A Return to Salem’s Lot

Larry Cohen – 1987 – USA

The only thing I could think about while watching A Return to Salem’s Lot was how bizarre it was to see the great director Samuel Fuller, aged 75 at the time, not only acting but actually doing stunts; running around, falling, shooting guns, stepping into bear traps.  Very odd indeed.  Shot back-to-back with Cohen’s other 1987 release, the hilariously titled It’s Alive 3: Island of the Alive, the two films share a freakishly histrionic lead performance by method actor Michael Moriarty, a favorite of director Cohen’s.  The film doesn’t seem to have much to do with either Stephen King’s book or Tobe Hooper’s mini-series adaptation from 1979, except for there being a town called ‘Salem’s Lot that vampires have taken over.  Moriarty plays an arrogant anthropologist who is summoned from the field back to the United States to take charge of his delinquent teenage son, and decides that the best thing to do is spend some time in sleepy Jerusalem’s Lot in Maine.  The elders of the town are vampires who waylay tourists for their blood but also have a desire to be respected by the rest of the world; hence they want Moriarty to write their history into a “Bible” that will make humans not so scared of them.  Or something like that.  Much of it is howlingly cheesy, but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad film.  As in It’s Alive 3, Cohen is very much in tongue-in-cheek mode here; playing up camp, satire and flat-out wackiness over genuine scares or creepiness.  Larry Cohen didn’t likely have any illusions about winning awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his films, but they are never just shameless schlock either.  His sense of humor and flair for oddball scenarios always make his films memorable and enjoyable, even if they often leave you slightly curious about how hard he was really trying to do something substantial.