Salem’s Lot Trailer: Lewis Pullman Faces Vampires In Stephen King Horror Adaptation

When it comes to Stephen King adaptations, it really can go one of two ways. Sometimes you get a Stand By Me, The Shining, or The Shawshank Redemption; and other times you get a Pet Sematary (1989), a Dark Tower, or, well, another Pet Sematary (2019). And after numerous delays and scrapped theatrical release plans stateside, you could be forgiven for thinking that Gary Dauberman's upcoming take on King's vampire classic Salem's Lot — already well adapted before as a miniseries back in 1979 — is bound to be one of those other times. But if the atmospheric new trailer for the IT Chapter One and Two writer's sophomore directorial effort is anything to go by, then we may actually have another King-worthy banger on our hands. Check it out below:

"I've always written stories about things that are so terrible you'll run away until your brain won't remember." So says Lewis Pullman's horror writer Ben Mears over shots of a young boy running through a dark forest to escape a glowing-eyed creature. And as the needle drops on Gordon Lightfoot's 70s folk banger 'Sundown' and Mears starts asking about "anything out of the ordinary" occurring in the sleepy town of Jerusalem's Lot, a succession of increasingly creepy shots — of sheet-draped bodies rising, bones being broken, and *whispers* actual vampires — suggests there is very little ordinary afoot here, and running away may be a good shout for our man Ben.

Here's the official synopsis for the movie, whose strong ensemble also boasts among its ranks Alfre Woodard, William Sadler, and Pilou Asbæk: "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 (Sadler) and his familiar (Asbæk).”

Whilst Dauberman's directorial debut, Annabelle Comes Home, showed more promise than it delivered satisfyingly scary end-product, the filmmaker's work on Andy Muschietti's IT duology — not to mention Stephen King's own seal of approval being stamped on this one already — give us every reason to suspect this will be a horror show in all the right ways. We'll find out for ourselves whether this one's _fang_tastic or, er, beyond the pale when Salem's Lot releases in the UK on 11 October.