Salem’s Lot, 2024.

Written and Directed by Gary Dauberman.
Starring Lewis Pullman, Alfre Woodard, Makenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, Spencer Treat Clark, Pilou Asbæk, John Benjamin Hickey, William Sadler, Jordan Preston Carter, Nicholas Crovetti, Cade Woodward, Kellan Rhude, Debra Christofferson, Rebecca Gibel, Mike Bash, Fedna Jacquet, Avery Bederman, Liam Anderson, Marilyn Busch, Sage Rudnick, Alyana Hill, Gavin Maddox Bergman, and Alexander Ward.

SYNOPSIS:

Author Ben Mears returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire.

Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot has an abundance of characters, with writer/director Gary Dauberman seemingly uninterested in positioning one group front and center in this adaptation. Instead, the film jumps between them, ranging from adults to children, often forgetting to develop any of these characters or explain who they are and what they care about. Whether this is a casualty of trying to adapt the entire novel into a 113-minute movie or just incompetent filmmaking is up for debate (I don’t think I’ve ever read the novel, and I don’t remember anything about previous adaptations), but one thing is for sure; this story is empty and lacks scares. The only portion it comes close to working is during some third-act vampire-battling that comes with clever kills, thrills, and urgency.

Taking place in Salem’s Lot (a rural Maine town as in most Stephen King works), there is a vested interest in bringing it to life, showing off as many establishments and locations as possible. In some ways, this takes away from time that could go to actual characterization, but the effort is admirable nonetheless. Among those stores is a new furniture place opened up by Barlow and his business partner Straker (Alexander Ward and Pilou Asbæk), with the former secretly being a vampire and having the other do his bidding to prepare for a takeover. Their headquarters is also an abandoned house thought to be haunted.

Meanwhile, author Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) has returned to town for the first time since childhood, having not felt right there from a young age and looking to reclaim some of that uneasiness while getting in touch with his roots. He befriends the local school teacher Matt Burke (Bill Camp, frequently and amusingly seen rocking a Boston Red Sox jacket) while learning about the town from a potential love interest in Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh.) Their first day is taking in drive-in movie experiences that intriguingly work as an effective way for her to point out other noteworthy people in town and their personalities.

Elsewhere, a group of kids playing around occasionally get bullied. The most significant of the bunch is Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter), who is fearless and unafraid to lay a good punch on those bullies. It’s an impressive performance that makes the character’s inevitable and similar bravery in fending for survival against vampires more natural. In a town where good people are apparently a dying breed, Mark is someone to look up to and aspire to be, making the adults here look like cowards in comparison. It’s a talented and defiant performance that made one wish more of the film had centered on the kids in general, which would have lent more stakes to them getting snatched up and turned into vampires (one of the film’s only genuinely striking scenes observes such an abduction with silhouette lighting.)

Instead, the film doubles down on trying to make its human drama work, which also comes to involve Susan’s mother becoming increasingly irritated that she is considering dating an outsider rather than any of the men she suggests. The point eventually trying to be made here comes across as more unintentionally comical than sharply satirical about society. During this, there is also a search for the missing children, except the narrative here is trying to put so much in motion that the passage of time is hardly felt.

Eventually, everyone joins forces, including a doctor played by Alfre Woodard, reckoning whether or not they believe something supernatural is occurring. Soon after, they find themselves fighting vampires and trying to avoid getting turned, just like some of the children have. It all leads to a somewhat exciting sundown showdown at that drive-in theater, but that’s mostly due to the staging of the action and has nothing to do with caring about any of these characters or the story and themes, which feels like an insult to a Stephen King adaptation. None of this is helped by special effects that look straight out of early 2000s TV, not something that initially had a chance of going to theaters. 

Salem’s Lot is bypassing a theatrical release to go straight to Max, which begs the question, why not flesh this out into an actual series to develop the characters? As is, it feels like a string of scenes that continuously forget about essential characters, relegating much of their progression offscreen. Whatever reason there is to get engaged in any of this is sucked out dry.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

1/5 stars

Nick Cheung Ka-fai plays a former soldier on a quest to take down a Golden Triangle drug cartel in Go for Broke, a ludicrous action thriller from actor-turned-director Marc Ma Yuhe.

Set in a fictional Southeast Asian country where the entire population is either corrupt or the victim of corruption, Ma’s film bristles with flippant xenophobia, alarmist anti-drug rhetoric and a dizzying stream of ridiculous twists and turns.

Only in its action beats does Go for Broke find clarity, but these pyrotechnics are just superficial distractions from what is otherwise disposable nonsense.

Zhang Yao (Cheung) returns home to discover that he has lost his wife (Zhang Li) and young daughter to a drug epidemic that has ravaged “Man City”.

It is an open secret that all production and supply is overseen by local crime lord Mukun (Vithaya Pansringarm), in cahoots with Anpei (Jack Kao Jie), head of the local police force’s Drug Enforcement Division.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is now available on Digital HD.

It’s safe to say that most Hellboy fans probably had their expectations firmly in check with Hellboy: The Crooked Man. Between the fact that it carries a far lower budget than its predecessors and that it’s skipping a theatrical release and going direct to video-on-demand, it’s easy to assume the worst from the fourth live-action Hellboy movie. That’s what makes this reboot/prequel such a welcome surprise. Despite its undeniably cheap trappings, it’s a surprisingly enjoyable take on a classic comic book storyline.

Directed by Brian Taylor (of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance fame), The Crooked Man has the distinction of being the most faithful Hellboy movie to date (the two animated films from the mid-’00s aside). It’s a direct adaptation of Mike Mignola and Richard Corben’s 2008 miniseries of the same name, in which Hellboy (Jack Kesy) is drawn into the Appalachian backcountry in search of the titular demonic foe (Martin Bassindale) in 1959 – in fact, Mignola scripted the film alongside his frequent writing partner Christopher Golden and the director. The result is a fairly close translation of the comic, albeit one that embellishes the source material a bit in order to pad out the 99-minute running time and give Hellboy himself a more clearly defined character arc.

For the most part, these changes work to the film’s benefit. The Crooked Man comic is a bit too spartan a tale to make a proper feature, so the added allusions to Hellboy’s origins and dark nature help put some meat on its bones. The same goes for the addition of Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph), a new creation of Mignola, Golden, and Taylor’s screenplay. Jo’s tense dynamic with her fellow Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense agent Hellboy is a lot of fun, even if in some ways Rudolph’s appearance and performance feel a bit anachronistic. From the way her hair is styled to her distinctly modern-sounding dialogue, Jo looks and sounds like the product of a more contemporary era. As the saying goes, hers is a face that has definitely seen an iPhone.

Kesy, for his part, delivers exactly what you’d want out of a comics-accurate Hellboy. He’s stoic and brooding, with just enough of a tender side to remind us of the character’s tragic nature. It’s a film that gives Kesy plenty of room to brood, smoke cigarettes, and crack wise, which are all necessary ingredients in a proper Hellboy adaptation. It’s also clear that the majority of the meager budget was spent on his makeup, allowing this Hellboy to hold his own visually alongside the ones played by Ron Perlman and David Harbour.

Leah McNamara’s villainous witch Effie Kolb is another highlight among the cast, with McNamara never wasting an opportunity to chew all the scenery she can get her teeth around. Unfortunately, The Crooked Man himself proves to be a rather bland villain, lacking the creepy, unsettling vibe the comic establishes so well. He mostly looks like a bad imitation of Warwick Davis’ character from the Leprechaun movies.

That speaks to a larger problem:- the budget, or lack thereof. There’s no getting around the fact that Hellboy: The Crooked Man was made on the cheap. The CGI is rudimentary. The cinematography is bland. Its worst sin is in failing to take advantage of the Appalachian setting. There’s both a beauty and an oppressiveness to this area in real life that fails to come across on screen. That could be because The Crooked Man was filmed in Bulgaria, but considering what a film like The Blair Witch Project can achieve with indistinctive forest locations and a shoestring budget, it’s disappointing that The Crooked Man doesn’t mine more horror out of its isolated, dimly lit environments.

Still, it manages to provide a lean, mean supernatural adventure in the vein of the Evil Dead movies. The plot moves briskly along and wraps up before it manages to wear out its welcome. All three lead characters are given small but satisfying arcs. What Hellboy: The Crooked Man lacks in fear factor it mostly makes up for in fun. Frankly, it could have been much, much worse.