Salem's Lot (2004)

Stephen King's thriller Salem's Lot is a bit hoary for a vampire invasion tale but Rob Lowe and the denizens of Salem's Lot provide a steady dose of contemporary suspense, tragedy, and gore as well as courage and humanity. The script is literate and quite poetic, Lowe is an effective narrator and a keen protagonist, and baddies played by Donald Sutherland and Rutger Hauer heighten the creepiness even as malevolence in the town assumes epidemic proportions. Look for inside references to Stand By Me and Cujo as Lowe plays a former Maine small-town boy, now a successful (if controversial) author, who returns to his hometown to address a traumatic childhood experience (his discovery of a triple murder) through investigation, reflection, and writing a book about it. He discovers a hell of a lot more than that in a conspiracy that picks up where Nosferatu and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers left off. James Cromwell plays a chummy Irish priest who is spiritually (vampirically) adulterated in the end. I had to rent this title from a competing service -- by just walking into a store and picking up a copy -- since it has been in Save status here for a number of years. 4 stars.