Some creatures are doomed to live between worlds, and the same can be said of some movies: Salem's Lot, the new version of the Stephen King classic, had been in limbo for months after AT&T's WarnerMedia unit and Discovery merged in 2022.
The new horror movie was originally planned for a cinematic release that year with a streaming debut planned for 45 days later, then was pushed back to 2023 and then was shelved altogether. But now it's back, and it's coming to Max.
We don't have a date yet, but according to The Hollywood Reporter "a fourth quarter release is likely". That means the film has escaped a fate much worse than death: being written off by the studio and never shown to anyone.
What's the plot of Salem's Lot?
Like the two-part miniseries from the late 1970s, Salem's Lot is based on the book of the same name in which a writer returns to his childhood home only to discover that the town is being haunted by a vampire whose condition is extremely contagious. Don't you hate it when that happens? The novel mixes haunted house and vampire tropes to entertaining effect, and while the 1979 adaptation is obviously pretty dated now it still retains its creepy charm.
This new version is written and directed by veteran horror writer Gary Dauberman (It, Annabelle, The Nun / The Nun II and many more), and according to one viewer – a certain Mr S King of Maine, New England – it's "quite good... old-school horror filmmaking, slow build, big payoff".
There have been a lot of Stephen King adaptations over the years, because of course he's one of the world's best known and most prolific horror writers – and like his books some are good and some are great. We've put together a guide to what we think are the 10 best Stephen King movie adaptations right here – and I'm in full agreement with our number one choice, which is an absolute masterpiece.
