SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains light spoilers for the new Salem’s Lot adaptation, Stephen King’s novel, and the Dark Tower series. If you haven’t watched/read one or all of them and don’t wish to know anything about them, proceed at your own risk!
The arrival of a new Stephen King movie is always a thrill for the author’s legion of fans – and it’s been an exciting fall. It was just a few weeks ago that Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and now, after literal years of waiting, Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot is finally available to stream for Max subscribers. In last Thursday’s edition of The King Beat, I reported on how the new movie connects to Dauberman’s history with King, as he previously wrote the scripts for IT and IT: Chapter Two, but this week, I have something different: how Salem’s Lot doesn’t connect to the larger King universe but almost did through a super cool idea.
Along with information about the other big new Stephen King-related release in the last few days (a fresh audiobook recording of Danse Macabre) and a new Recommendation Of The Week, this fresh column is bursting with awesome, so let’s dig in!
Salem’s Lot Director Heavily Considered A Connection Between Salem’s Lot And Stephen King’s The Dark Tower
While Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot is the third adaptation of the Stephen King novel, it’s the first that has been made with the opportunity to link the beloved vampire story into the larger universe of King’s fiction – by which I mean the saga of The Dark Tower. As fans of the epic western/sci-fi/fantasy series know, one the Salem’s Lot’s key characters, Father Donald Frank Callahan, makes a notable return in The Dark Tower V: Wolves Of The Calla, but neither of the miniseries based on the 1975 book (respectively released in 1979 and 2004) could adapt that link because they went into production before the tome existed.
So does 2024’s Salem’s Lot actually link to The Dark Tower and establish that never-before-possible link? The short, spoiler-free answer is no… but not for a lack of trying, as I learned last month during an interview with Gary Dauberman.
Broaching the subject in our conversation, I first asked about his familiarity with the Dark Tower series, and he immediately knew what I was setting up as my next question. With awareness that the film doesn’t create the link between Salem’s Lot and the mixed-genre masterpiece, I asked if there was a draft of the script that did make the connection, and he explained why it didn’t work:
I wrestled with that, but not being able to tell the story, it felt weird. This is getting into the weeds. If Callahan just goes away, I don’t know how that feels to an audience. I didn’t know how to complete that story without knowing about the Dark Tower and all that stuff. Like, it works in the book, but in a movie, I was like ‘Fuck, man.’
In the novel Salem’s Lot, Father Callahan – an alcoholic grappling with a crisis of faith – sees his role in the story come to an end when he has a one-on-one confrontation with the vampire Kurt Barlow. His lack of conviction in his religion sees the cross he wields become useless, and in a moment of pure weakness, Barlow forces him to drink his blood. Having been damned, he can no longer enter his own church, and he ultimately departs Salem’s Lot on a bus to New York. (With the new movie having just been released today, I won’t give away how the adaptation changes the end of his story).
The Dark Tower V: Wolves Of The Calla reveals what happens to Callahan after he leaves The Lot, and Gary Dauberman is not ignorant of how great the story is. In fact, he told me that he even pitched a Callahan-centric TV series that didn’t end up gaining traction. Said the filmmaker,
I had pitched the Callahan TV show and they weren’t interested. So that kind of shot that [down]. I was like, ‘This could be a really cool show.’
Lightly discussing his vision, Dauberman explained that the prospective show would have picked up after the events of his Salem’s Lot adaptation and hewed close to the material in the fifth chapter of the Dark Tower series:
He arrives to New York. It’s, you know, the AIDS crisis happening in New York, he’s working in the soup kitchen, like all that stuff. I was like, ‘That’s a fucking great show.’
This probably goes without saying, but I wholly agree. Callahan is a fascinating character worthy of further exploration, and the setting Gary Dauberman describes would be a rich backdrop for the tale of a damned priest looking for redemption. And, of course, let’s not ignore that following further trauma, the character ends up becoming a vampire hunter and targeted by agents of the sinister Sombra Corporation. It’s a sad thing that the series’ potential wasn’t recognized (especially during a time when Warner Bros. is expanding on feature properties with spinoff shows, like the upcoming IT prequel Welcome To Derry).
The silver lining here is that there remains hope of someday seeing Callahan’s expanded story on screen – specifically with the Dark Tower series adaptation that Mike Flanagan is presently developing. The filmmaker has expressed the hope of making a show that faithfully brings King’s vision to life, and one imagines that includes the tale of the priest from Salem’s Lot. It’s not something fans would get to see until late in the prospective series’ run (the material is featured in the fifth of seven books), but we can keep fingers tightly crossed that Flanagan will get there someday.
Known from his roles in The Big C, Jessica Jones, The Good Fight and Gossip Girl, John Benjamin Hickey plays Father Callahan in Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot – which is now streaming on Max and co-stars Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, William Sadler, Bill Camp, Spencer Treat Clark, and Pilou Asbæk. Be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend in the coming days for more from my interviews with the writer/director and the film’s stars.
New Danse Macabre Audiobook Released
As regular King Beat readers know, I am a big fan of physical media (ever trying to build the ultimate Stephen King collection), but I also love audiobooks. I listen to them pretty much daily when I exercise, and there are many phenomenal listens for Stephen King fans – with personal favorites including Steven Weber performance of IT, David Morse’s read of Revival, and King’s own recording of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Book.
There are many titles that I would recommend in the format, and a new one just became available in just the last few days: Danse Macabre read by Holter Graham.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, Danse Macabre was Stephen King’s first non-fiction book – originally published in 1983 but later republished and expanded in 2010. It’s an exploration that dives into the history of horror in a wide variety of mediums and reflects on its influences, purpose and impact. Coming from one of the greatest writers to ever tackle the medium, it’s obviously incredibly insightful and fascinating.
This isn’t the first time that a Danse Macabre audiobook has been produced, as another version exists read by William Dufris, but Holter Graham delivers what I feel is a superior and engaging performance. It furthers an already solid relationship between Graham and the works of Stephen King, as he previously narrated the audiobook for Christine and contributed to the read of the omnibus Just After Sunset.
The Danse Macabre audiobook is now available from digital retailers including Audible, Barnes & Noble and Google Play.
Recommendation Of The Week: “One For The Road”
Have you already watched Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot and now want to read more about the doomed titular town? I’ve previously used this section of The King Beat to recommend “Jerusalem’s Lot,” which is the prequel story included in the 1978 Stephen King collection Night Shift, but now that the new film is out, I figure now is a great time to highlight “One For The Road” – a sequel tale featured in the same book.
Rather than focusing on the continuing adventures of Ben Mears and Mark Petrie, “One For The Road” is set two years after the events of Salem’s Lot and finds that the burned town has gained a reputation as a place of terror that people should stay away from. Unfortunately, protagonist Booth and his friend Herb “Tookey” Tooklander don’t have the luxury of staying away when they learn of a woman and child who have been stranded in the vampire-infested hamlet, left in a broken down car during a blizzard.
That wraps up this week’s edition of The King Beat, but I’ll be back next Thursday with a brand new column examining all of the biggest new developments in the world of Stephen King. In the meantime, you can discover all of the King projects in the works with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV feature, and learn about the full history of King on screen with my Adapting Stephen King series.