Michael Moriarty stars as Joe Webber, a man who left his family behind but returns when he hears his son has become a bit of a problem. Deciding to put things on hold and concentrate on what really matters, Webber and his kid Jeremy move back to Salem’s Lot. A lot has changed over the years, and while much remains the same in Salem’s Lot, things are different, and those differences don’t take long to knock on their door. When that happens, the world is turned upside down when Webber learns the town’s startling truth: it is inhabited by vampires and has been for decades. Webber and his son make a devil’s bargain, and they accept, for the only other option is death. Love, fascination, horror and blood all come to be in this once idyllic town, and Webber has soon had enough, but leaving is going to be a lot harder than originally thought, and soon there is nothing left to do but fight.

While A Return to Salem’s Lot is obviously a horror film, it is not very scary, if at all. It would be hard for anyone to find anything frightening in this movie other than the situation that Webber finds himself in. Being held a prisoner is scary. Fearing for one’s son is a nightmare. Those things are relatable, which is partly why this picture works. Director Larry Cohen, despite many years of experience behind him, was unable to inject any of the hallmarks that most horror movies of the day would sport. Suffice it to say, films in this genre do not necessarily have to rely on the visceral to make for an interesting feature, and many movies before this have proved that. One could say Cohen was trying to be too clever in this vampire picture, aiming for satire over horror, with vampires mirroring the average American consumer instead of being the monsters they are. That is not to say the vampires in this film were not monstrous; they were, but the movie could have been much more, and downright scarier, if it had leaned one way instead of the other.

Moriarty is dependable as the lead. He knows how to make a scene work, despite anything that might try to hamper him, be it dialogue, direction or what have one. The same cannot be said of his co-star Ricky Addison Reed, who was completely intolerable as his son. On the one hand, he did his job effectively because Reed played a problem child, and he was just that in the film, yet there were moments when you could see he was a little out of his depth. Nice to see Samuel Fuller, who added much-needed colour to the film, along with a touch of comic relief. Also interesting was Evelyn Keyes’s appearance as the matriarch of Salem’s Lot, while Andrew Duggan played Judge Axel, the man in charge and the head vampire. If there is one thing to be said about this cast, it is the fact that they were far too talented to star in something like this, yet did so anyway. There were some poor choices made in this film; there is no denying it, but one cannot fault the cast for trying to make the best of the situation they were in.

When Cohen’s effort finally hits its final act, you have a bit of hope that things will pick up, since the first two-thirds of the film were a little slow-going. It was not boring, but it was measured in its pacing, and at the very least, there was enough to grab onto. So, it does pick up as Moriarty and Fuller go on the offensive, and as it goes on, one hopes that it will lead to some solid horror along the way. The action and pacing are fine throughout, but the horror never really materializes, despite a few vampire deaths. The special effects are not as good as they could have been, and that is forgivable, as the film, which was direct-to-video, probably did not have as big a budget as Cohen might have liked.

A Return to Salem’s Lot is a take-it-or-leave-it kind of film, with most on the side of the latter. There is some to love and stuff that will take a little patience and if a fan of the first movie, will most likely find this effort a little unneeded, but at the end of the day, it is a decent way to kill a couple of hours.

2.5 out of 5