hey everybody it's Chase with AV pop culture again and today I am here to continue spooky season content with a first look review at the new 2024 Salems lot that just dropped on HBO Max dropping today so pop that tape in I got you let's go do this all right so this is going to be as spoiler free a review as possible I don't think I'm going to have like anything that you couldn't know from having seen the original or from seeing the trailer for this new movie but uh first I want to apologize to
all you followers uh my subscribers I love you guys all um I've just been kind of having one thing after the other my computer with all the power surges the power repairs they're doing around here yesterday blew out some hard drives it took me about 9 hours to get my computer back on um I've still lost a lot of footage I lost several recorded videos that I had for you guys that I need to redo um and a lot of editing work so I'm going to try to get stuff out here as much as I
can uh this does YouTube does help me actually like pay for some of these repairs like every that I can make from YouTube from you guys watching subscribing all that kind of stuff helps me so I you know it's I need to get the videos out too uh you know not only is this my huge outlet but uh it does help dig out from a lot of these uh repairs and stuff that we've had here lately every dollar helps I'm sure you guys understand that kind of thing but enough of all that uh I got
my mind off of everything and watched Salem's Lot now I'm a big fan of the original series here um it had some problems too because I am a massive fan of the book I've not only read the book several times I've listened to it on Audible multiple times like while doing cardio and stuff if you get a chance to listen to Stephen King books on Audible I highly highly highly recommend uh doing that um they all have really good performances and um this movie like I mean I had a lot of High Hopes but you
start to get worried because it gets pushed back uh the release keeps getting pushed back it goes from we're going to have this big theatrical release to uh well now we're just going to dump it on streaming the date for that keeps changing uh so you get a lot of worry you're like oh [ __ ] is it that bad that that's what they're doing well I enjoyed it um it had has some negatives and we'll talk about those uh but it has a lot of positives so for me this book in this movie the
original series of course done by Toby Hooper of the Stephen King book um back in the late 70s this has everything for me uh I you guys know that I love that creepy small town Vibe where you take like an idealic um old school small town and there's something creepy just under lying there's like a mystery in this atmosphere that overtakes you Salem's Lot has that uh and this new movie has that in Spades uh you know there was always something with the original miniseries it almost kind of goes on too long it almost is
too faithful to the book and the new uh adaptation there was another one in there too with Rob low we're not talking about that one right now this newest adaptation takes the other side of that and maybe leaves too much out and goes too fast it just feels a little bit rushed but we're going to start with the positives here that atmosphere that creepy small town atmosphere is their big time love it you know the story so you are if you know the story at all you're already kind of feeling it going in and uh
what it you know Ben MIRS he is from it the town is actually Jerusalem's lot the sign is like messed up rotten obscured and they end up calling it Salem's Lot and it's kind of like a derogatory nickname in the book it's referred to as the lot all the time like this place they just can't get out of it almost feels like it's stuck in another like a parallel Dimension which is brought up later in the Stephen King uh series of books The Dark Tower that it kind of is like at this spot this in
a thin spot between dimensions it starts out with writer Ben MIRS who's from uh Salem's Lot he's coming back to town to write a new book to get inspiration and everything else he gets there and um you know things are that that Eerie they seem great on the surface but then there's that that Eerie small town Vibe and the new uh antique store owner uh who ends up being the head vampire count Barlo I'm not breaking any new ground by saying this um they moveed into the obviously haunted house like the house in town that's
like if if a vampire and ghosts were going to live anywhere it's obviously this house um so they move into this house and he starts to infect the town with uh vampirism like U everybody starts to become vampires and it's still set they keep the new one still set in the late 70s and they do a pretty good job with that aesthetic because I I like it it feels like an old school 80s 7s horr movie I love setting movies then because you get rid of all the modern technology [ __ ] like the just
pick up your cell phone or just do this or just Google it or whatever it it just destroys stories because first of all yes people might do that but uh it's probably going to get them killed trying to to oh we're going to stop and Google it and here's all this information and this information and this information like it stops people from taking action and and setting it back in that time just makes way more sense and they do a great job with the look uh as far as all the cars the small town uh
the way they dress the haircuts all that stuff but it does not uh it still just has that I'll take a positive and then there's like a little bit of a negative on it to me it still has that overp polished over slick um modern look to it so it's almost like a slick modern look laid over this old school Vibe and that is kind of a issue you know and I I kind of wanted to look it up because I have an idea here let's see what was I'm trying to see what this was
shot on and uh let's see all right so Panavision cameras is all that it says that it was shot with it doesn't specify but there is like a digital image transferring uh guy on set and it talks about the digital uh the dit transfers so to me it it might have been shot digital that tells me it might have been shot digital it could have been shot with film it doesn't have the as big of a filmic look and the reason I think it matters in this is you're really going for that 70s aesthetic and
I think it misses just a little bit there because it looks so slick so clean so polished it has that um slick look this this is where like uh if you think of like Tai West where I believe he went back with like 16 millimeter and shot House of the devil I'm not saying they needed to shoot with 16 mm but it would have been cool it would have like gave just like gave you that aesthetic big time there and uh I think that would have been cool so to me it just looks like they
have all this stuff right and I love it and then it's just it's got this slick contemporary polish over the top of it if that makes sense but I I love the vibe we're cooking with the vibe here and um I you know the characters are good you've got Ben MIRS uh in here who is played by I can't is it it might be Bill Pullman's son you know I've never really checked to see if that's Bill Pullman's son Lewis Pullman I think it is he looks a lot like him um and father Callahan is
played by uh John Benjamin hick hickey I think is his name and father Callahan is actually maybe my favorite character from the book from the movies and then uh the boy who is played by Jordan Preston Carter Mark Petri uh they kind of in the book you it really kind of boils down to Ben MIRS and uh father Callahan and Mark Petri is is like the maybe the biggest characters here and the movie does that too uh I like how the movie pulls in uh Mark Petri the boy he's kind of like he gets to
almost be the ring leader he's T he's a tough kid he loses a lot he become he gets into a [ __ ] it situation basically and kind of leads the charge uh but that kind of also goes hand inand with uh some things that I don't like in that um when it's so rushed here they kind of just like everybody's quick to accept oh it's vampires it's vampires and maybe if you had built up uh like the underlying creep factor of the town that they all kind of knew something was going on and ignoring
it uh if you had built that up with a little bit more runtime or even I mean thereare I say two parts uh to this you would have kind of maybe earned that a little a little bit more but it's just like all of a sudden like yep vampires let's go get them let's go fight them there's this scene where like uh father Callahan and mirrors and stuff they're sitting around in the room and it's like yep vampires uh let's go get them I feel like it would probably taken people a little bit longer to
come to the uh realization hey vampires but um for the sake of the movie I mean I guess it's okay it really does have an old school vampire feel to it and there is a lot of things to love here they do a lot of stuff practically a lot of stuff in camera I was a worri of course I have talked about many times on this channel that uh this scene is one of the the the scene in this movie where the little vampire boy floats up to the window and his eyes are glowing and
all that kind of stuff is something that gave me nightmares forever so of course I had my antenna up to see how they did that scene and holy hell they kick ass on this scene that is absolutely everything you want from this scene and more they're not using a bunch of CGI to float the boy in or anything else it's done practically you can tell it's probably wires and stuff they took out sure I don't care it is done in a more practical way and I love it uh and that gets me too to the
way the vampires look in this we're not we don't have a bunch of damn CGI overtaking everything we have a lot of practical stuff lots of old school pale skin glowing eyes fingernails all that kind of stuff I absolutely love the way the vampires look the way they kept that feel from the original it's [ __ ] old school man and I love it um and I I I love the fact that there I said this about the movie dead and buried this actually leans to me a little bit more towards dead and buried the
feel of it and the way the town is kind of like okay with and kind of accepting cuz it's almost like they all know vampire shit's going down and they just kind of accepted that vampire stuff is going down and uh you know it happens here in Salem's Lot that's kind of the way it is in dead and buried but uh except it's not vampires dead and buried I often say has more fog than the fog this movie has more fog than the fog the whole town is fil filled with fog it's nighttime you've got
this just like there's a lot of like old Gothic like framing like upshots Towards the Sky where it's fogged out and you have Moonlight and there are these like like tree branches and buildings and figures that are silhouetted against the sky man it it gives me those old Gothic like an old school horror Vibes absolutely love it and then you see like these eyes glow out of the darkness I mean there's so much there's like a scene where uh the little boy I can't remember the one boy's name early on in the movie but he
goes outside and they are like all these slow pushings on stuff uh and the boy is just like it's like he's standing he might as well be on the moon he's in another world all this fog is around him like little things are creaking like the uh seesaw going up and down and you're just waiting waiting waiting all this tension's building and then you know something happens and all this fog and atmosphere man there's a lot to dine out on right there like if you're a horror fan and you're like an old Gothic horror fan
you're old you're a fan of old like 70s 80s horror movies there is definitely ODed to a lot of that stuff that's in there they do a good job of like not just putting uh the head vampire in your face real quick into the movie they keep him mysterious they build him up you get little flashes you get little scene now they're going to pay it off you're going to see them a lot at the end you probably see them more than you do in the original uh but uh they kind of keep true to
that original design and I mean they're just from from like a old school vampire hunting Gothic Hammer vampire you know old school vampire stuff you got everything you want it's like the holy water and the stakes through the heart and the crosses where you have to have faith and that cross illuminates and it burns the vampire and all that kind of stuff very like old school vampire old school horror old school Hammer horror tons of atmosphere and then they do tweak some things they kind of break away from the book and the the way they
do it though I kind of they kind of Sucker me in with it because it involves uh like movie theater or in this case a drivein so you have like this movie aesthetic that they didn't have before so they pull that in so like I said this movie checks a [ __ ] ton of boxes for me I mean I don't I don't find a lot to complain about yes it's rushed uh yes they could build the story a little bit more and they could build the tension even more and and you could discover things
in a better way to where I mean it would probably take it from like a a 7 and a half to a 9.5 like um I right now I give it like a seven and a half or an eight if you're going out of 10 I don't know um but it's it's like that close to taking the next level because it has a it has jump scares you want it has atmosphere that you want um it's just I mean it really has it it is it is I think it's got a lot of rewatchability to
it it's something that I would have loved to experience in the theater because I think all of that atmosphere that fog that darkness that gothic look the silhouetted the night shots especially you add that killer soundtrack with awesome old school 70s Gordon Lightfoot song uh sundown sundown you better take care I mean like it is so fitting for the movie like if you could have experienced that surrounded in a theater in the darkness and had that feeling of it all the way surrounding you I think it would have been badass but uh I think if
we could get this on on like a 4K physical media where you get better quality than streaming I know it says it's available in 4k it does not look anywhere near as good sorry end of story it does not look as good but uh my biggest knock is I wish it was in the theater I wish that it was um not quite as rushed there's maybe a couple things that I wish they hadn't changed or that they just changed uh for the sake of you know contemporary audiences to to get those safety guard rails and
check boxes wish they haven't you know just stay focused on the story uh I love the uh acting the kid the kids in this movie are very good um but uh and father Callahan is good in this um he's my favorite character if you don't know father Callahan pops up in the dark knight I mean The Dark Knight The Dark Tower series of books so uh what you see in Salem's Lot may not be all of Father Callahan's story and I like that they drop in this movie he mentions that something happened to him Supernatural
when he was younger so it's easier for him to believe this stuff so that kind of helps how fast they except vampires it's also a reference to The Dark Tower series where you get a flashback uh to Father Callahan when he's young and he gets his first taste of Supernatural stuff so uh super cool drop in there for any of you who are fans of the books if you catch that that's a nice little Easter egg that they throw in there and it does kind of help explain why why they are so quick to adapt
vampires Supernatural stuff um but there is some jump scares I mean it's got a lot there I think maybe my biggest thing is it's a little rush I wish there was a little more time to develop stuff out we need somewhere between the original that maybe goes a little too slow puts too much and this that goes a little too fast we need somewhere right in the middle um and that slick over poolish contemporary Sheen over the over the 70s aesthetic because then it it feels like Hey we're telling y'all this is 70s but you
can tell it's made today I wish they' have took that extra step there and and gone all in on making it feel 70s but this thing is totally worth your ride your time it is a hell of a ride I'm going to watch it again when I am not so stressed out with computer stuff and just uh just enjoy it again hopefully we get a physical media release on it but if you guys have checked it out let me know uh in the comments let me know what you think I I had fun with it
uh to me it's definitely got old school 7s 80s horror Vibes Gothic Hammer horror Vibes old school filming of horror Vibes with the fog and stuff silhouetted at night against a uh uh moonlit sky and things like that lots lots of fun tasty stuff there uh the vampire designs are awesome uh there's not a whole lot whole lot to complain about here good soundtrack to it uh mixes in some movie uh Vibe stuff I mean it got the small town creepy I I enjoyed it uh I look forward to watching it again you guys let
me know your thoughts down below uh I hope you've enjoyed this I don't normally do like quick reviews of movies like this but I wanted to get this out because I did enjoy it and uh wanted to talk about it and get out here and talk to to you guys also wanted to let you know we are now over 4500 subscribers so coming up here soon we're going to do a when we get to 5,000 subscribers we're going to do a 5,000 subscriber huge live stream where we talk where we do all kinds of stuff
uh I'm going to have some giveaway some stuff I've been holding on to for a long time uh didn't think I would get to 5,000 this quickly so we're going to have some free giveaways awesome stuff some movies shirts all kinds of things um some of you have asked me uh where you can send me stuff like mailwise I always keep my uh the address where you can mail stuff is in my description down below uh it's down there with my targets list everything you guys know that I keep running uh it's all down there
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pop culture and I'll see you real soon byebye I know [Music]
