“New Salem's Lot” shares a world with the IT films, says the director

Killer clowns, killer dolls, killer nuns – filmmaker Gary Dauberman is no stranger to horror beasts. But after writing and directing two IT films Annabelle comes homehe was ready for a change. Not a big one, though: he really wanted to turn Stephen King's famous vampire book “Salem’s property.” to a bloodsucking time in the cinema.

Published in 1975, “Salem’s property.” was King's second novel, and it's full of the elements that defined his work: a small-town setting in Maine, a huge cast of less-than-perfect townspeople, and a supernatural threat that inundates their normal lives with darkness. The story of writer Ben Mears, who returns to his hometown to investigate an old murder house and encounters an aspiring vampire ruler, was adapted into a legendary TV miniseries in 1979. For Dauberman, the book and film adaptation were crucial in shaping his love of horror, which only raised the stakes (Hm), if there is a chance of sinking his own fangs (Um um) in King's work was discussed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Dauberman assembled a killer cast for Salem's propertyincluding Pilou Asbæk, Bill Camp, Alfre Woodard and Lewis Pullman (soon to be seen in Marvels). lightning*), but the hard work of slimming down one of King's longer books was still a challenge. Ahead of the film's October 3 premiere on Max, Polygon spoke with the writer-director about tackling the material and going back to basics to make vampires cool again.

Polygon: Was the idea of ​​the adaptation 'Salem's property born directly from the success of It? Was the hope for a spiritual sequel?

Gary Dauberman: There had already been discussions about adapting King's material It. I'm a big fan and as a child it was always like this: That would be such a great film. That would be a great TV show. Of course with the success of Iteveryone suddenly wanted to adapt Stephen King, and rightly so. But now (this project) has been around for many years. Stand by Me is one of my absolute favorite films – misery — these are real classics — The shining one – that comes from Stephen’s head. And that's why I knew It that they had the right to do so “Salem’s property.”. I think it was supposed to be a TV series back then. And I started the conversation about making a film and it grew from there.

When I was a child, the miniseries “Georgie in the Sewers” ​​came out It miniseries), that was a big deal for me when I saw it as a kid. And Danny knocks on the window in the (Salem's property) miniseries from 1979, that had a big influence on me. So I thought, Man, I would love to see that again, watch it again. And it's had such a huge impact on so many things that have come since then that I don't think people realize how influential this book is.

What possibilities did you see in the adaptation? “Salem’s property.” at the moment to make it fresh or relevant?

I watched it: I hadn't seen a really great vampire movie in a long time, and I thought about how James Wan took it The incantation – There were a hundred haunted house movies before the first one incantation came out, but he took a classic genre and told it in a refreshing way, with really classic tropes. What we hadn't seen in a while because everyone's trying to think: How can we do it differently? I really wanted to approach the vampires (in a) classic style instead of saying: OK, how can I somehow subvert it? Because I feel like we've seen this and I haven't seen a classic vampire movie in a long time.

I started thinking about the vampire movies that I love that maybe don't really fit the bill “Salem’s property.”. The Lost Boys is one of my favorite horror films of all time. So there's a lot Lost Boys in here. Things like that started to seep into it, which I think is fine because of Stephen King Is Pop culture. So I just started pulling from different sources that I loved, and I felt like I had the license to do that because King has that reach and that influence on pop culture.

'Salem's property is a fairly extensive book. How did you transform the adaptation into a more ambitious feature film? What was the challenge?

It was the same challenge I have with a lot of material. If it's a book, there's so much good material that it's a matter of paring it down. There are so many stories I wish I could have just told. That's probably why it used to be a series. It could have been an eight hour thing. It would have been a damn cool eight hours, but…what you do is really break it down to the core elements, that core group. That's a challenge. They say, “Kill your favorites,” but these are my favorites because I love them, not because I wrote them. The biggest hurdles I had to overcome were: What can I lose and still stay true to the spirit of the book and the story?

Given all that you had to cut to move in this clip, what did you ultimately come up with to make the film still feel cohesive?

The biggest thing I had to invent – and I'm not saying it's better, I'm just saying I had to invent it for the movie – but there's a part of the book where (characters) go from house to house and kill vampires. And I wrote that first, but it got long and pretty episodic. So the biggest challenge was (…) having them fight in one place instead of going from house to house? And I thought about community and the place where people come together and created a set piece from that. But I also like the metaphor of what this piece is saying. I really love this sequence, but it's just different from the book.

When you're writing and directing, I imagine that the task of coming up with cool stuff is a kind of “chicken or egg” process where you either come up with your directing approach and write to it, or write in a vacuum and staged the script. Considering the film has some splashy, gory moments, were there any scenes where your director's brain pushed the script's brain?

One of the things I thought about a lot was the cross. Usually you raise a cross and then the vampire growls and backs away. I thought, Okay, we saw that. I wanted to do it differently and let us really feel the power of faith and the power of belief and what the vampire feels when confronted with that power. So I started thinking about it being a ViolenceSo it's like they can feel it. They're held back, they're blown back a little bit. The more you believe, the more powerful it is.

The glowing crucifixes, which essentially become vampire kryptonite, are a real eye-catcher in the film. That made me wonder: Is every vampire film in some way a faith-based film?

I think since the roots of vampires go back thousands of years, it's hard not to feel like everything comes from religion. But yeah, I mean, it's in the lore itself: stakes through the heart, crucifixes, garlic, these are the tools used to exterminate vampires. And the power of faith. And I think it's illustrated in a character, Father Callahan in the film, who has lost his faith, and confronting these undead things, these unholy things, really helps him regain it. Religion plays a big role in this, but it works in the background, so to speak.

What did you learn from? It that helped you Salem's property? And have you ever thought that this could be a real sequel? True to much of King's work, could this happen in the…? It cinematic universe?

I think that without question these exist in the same world, in the same universe. I mean, that's what they do in the book. That's one of the things I love about his work – he's a guy who created a universe without announcing that he was creating that universe. It's just these little Easter eggs for people who have read his other books. Do you understand? If so, that's cool. You have to smile a little. I have Christine, the actual (evil car from King's novel). Christine), in the workshop in town. I have a lot of things like that. I gave out Easter eggs all over town – the production designers had a lot of fun thinking about it. Everything is connected.

So does this mean the Dark Tower is out there somewhere too?