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Sky-high marks are in order for the use of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” in the new trailer for Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot, a folksy tune that hails from the soft-focus, mid-1970s era the film is clearly aiming to capture, and offers lyrics that fit perfectly into the context of a vampire tale: “Sundown, you better take care, if I find you’ve been creeping ’round my back stairs…” The long-awaited Stephen King adaptation has a premiere date to do with this new trailer, too: October 3 on Max.
Here’s the appropriately eerie trailer:
While the official logline will be familiar to fans of the book as well as its two previous adaptations (both two-part miniseries)—”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”—you can also tell that Dauberman has taken some liberties to put his own stamp on the material. The drive-in theater is new, but it’s an addition that makes sense given the blend of nostalgia and dread at play here: drive-ins are only open at night, making them ideal turf for newly turned vampires on the prowl.
But everything you want to see is still there: a quaint small town with a terrible secret, a writer returning after some years and sparking with a local gal, a mysterious man hanging an “opening soon” sign for his antiques shop, and a hulking old mansion sitting alone on a hill. Oh, and those familiar Salem’s Lot frights are looking extra chilling, including the vampire lurking outside a window begging to be let in… and a corpse that has no business sitting up and talking doing exactly that. For that fine-tuned freakiness, you can thank Dauberman’s horror background, which includes writing or co-writing films in the Conjuring universe (including the Annabelle films) and both It movies.
The cast, all of whom you can spot in this trailer, includes Lewis Pullman as author Ben Mears, Alfre Woodard as Dr. Cody, Makenzie Leigh as Susan Norton, Bill Camp as teacher Matthew Burke, Spencer Treat Clark as gravedigger Mike Ryerson, Pilou Asbæk as close vampire associate Straker, Jordan Preston Carter as young horror fan Mark Petrie, and John Benjamin Hickey as Father Callahan. Dauberman wrote, directed, and executive produced; among the other producers is another guy who knows a thing or two about scaring the pants off audiences: James Wan.
Salem’s Lot arrives October 3 on Max.
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