A scene from the upcoming film adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem Lot has been released online – and the footage finds a group venturing into a basement without stairs. Inspired by Stephen King’s 1975 novel of the same name, the story focuses on Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman), who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot (an abbreviation for Jerusalem’s Lot) to write about a house that has tormented him with terrors since childhood.
Upon his return, he finds the town has been overrun with vampires and with a small group of believers, urges them to help him combat the creatures. In the scene, Mears is joined by Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter), and Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh). A door leading to a basement without stairs leads the party into the shadowy pits of the house as unnatural, almost human noises begin to stir within the gloom.
Watch the full clip below.
In a post from King last November, this is what he had to say about the adaptation: “The Warner Bros remake of SALEM’S LOT, currently shelved, is muscular and involving. It has the feel of “Old Hollywood,” when a film was given a chance to draw a breath before getting to business. When attention spans were longer, in other words.”
In an interview with ComicBook, Lewis Pullman, also recognised as Lieutenant Robert “Bob” Floyd in Top Gun: Maverick, described director Gary Dauberman as a “really smart guy” who has a keen eye for things. I think, not just lean on the jump scares, but lean on the more conceptual and visual things that, rather than a shock that fades out of your body in the next five minutes, something that’s more visual, like an imprint that burnt into your retinas as a disturbing image that you’ll wake up in the middle of the night that you can’t shake out of your head.”
Salem’s Lot is scheduled to arrive on Max in October 2024 and is the third adaptation of Stephen King’s source material – following two miniseries in 1979 and 2004. Written and directed by Dauberman, known for his work on The Conjuring Universe and It: Chapter Two, executive producers James Wan and Michael Clear (Atomic Monster), Roy Lee (Vertigo), and Mark Wolper join the project.
