Hooptober... And Then There Were Nine

10th Kill

Ugh, I feel like I've just spent an evening in the company of Colin Robinson. #losingthewilltolive

It's not that this is terrible, it's just bland. Bland. Bland. Credit the producers for trying not to ape the more iconic scenes from Tobe Hooper's original adaptation, but in every single case they feel like misguided variations which suffer in comparison. Reference the famous window visitation from the vampiric Glick brother - here it's replaced with Ralphie appearing on the other side of a translucent hospital curtain and it's just not scary at all.

To be honest, none of the horror scenes or set pieces have any kind of impact. Their conception is less than inspired anyway, but their execution is entirely representative of that old-style televisual flatness of presentation. We all know television has changed in the last twenty years or so, but Salem's Lot feels like something from before the "golden age" - a very 90's TV aesthetic.

Trying to focus on the positives: there are some really good performances, especially Donald Sutherland as Straker, who actually succeeds in creating an entirely new interpretation of the character. When he exited the narrative with around an hour still remaining, I took it like a gut punch, because he was one of the few things still giving me a reason to keep watching. Rutger Hauer is great too. Unfortunately he's only in about three scenes in the whole thing. It also struck me how good an actor Andre Braugher is - I know he does a lot of TV, but I only know him from The Mist.

Everyone else is pretty ordinary, though. Rob Lowe is grossly miscast as Ben Mears - that comically hangdog expression he wears on the poster is plastered on his face for three straight hours. I was wishing he'd just kill himself and save us all the drudgery of following his desultory escapades in the doomed township of Jerusalem's Lot.

They did a good job making Melbourne look like Maine, though. The only reason I even looked up the shooting location was because almost the entire supporting cast is made up of Australian actors.

Best Kill (may contain traces of spoiler)

I'm honestly struggling to remember any, although to be fair, I think most people are turned into vampires rather than killed, anyway. The most impactful scene is early on when the Glick boy gets shoved into an ice hole - it's pretty simply staged, but the whole idea of someone doing that to a kid is just so horrible. Sorry, that's the best I can come up with on this occasion!