Despite its Maine setting, Salem’s Lot was shot entirely in southern California, which really wasn’t unusual for the time. In fact, it cost over twice as much as Carrie ($1.8 million), which was released theatrically!Ħ. Because of this, it was decided that Salem’s Lot would do better as a TV miniseries.ĥ.Its budget was $4 million ($14.2 million in today’s money), which was unusually high for a TV movie at the time. By the time it started preproduction, two other vampire films were already crowding the market in 1979 ( Nosferatu: The Vampire and the Frank Langella Dracula film). And for four years (1975-1979), the project languished in development hell.Ĥ.

Studios were interested in adapting the novel pretty much as soon as it was published. And while it’s compelling and iconic, it is rather dated.ģ. And thus, the genesis of this classic story was born! UP until that point, this was the most famous vampire everyone knew. He wondered what it would be like if a vampire emerged in modern (well 1970’s) New England rather than 1800’s London. Stephen King originally got the idea for “Salem’s Lot” while teaching “Dracula” to a high school English class. These include the main character being a writer, another prominent character being a teacher, and a small town with a dark secret.Ģ. As mentioned earlier, “Salem’s Lot” was King’s second novel (following “Carrie”) and it helped to establish many of the tropes he would later be known for. So in honor of its 40 th anniversary, we thought it would be fun to take a look at 40 fun facts about Salem’s Lot!ġ. And now, 40 years later, it’s still fondly remembered and considered by many to be a horror classic. This entire tradition began back in 1979 with the adaptation of King’s second novel “Salem’s Lot”. While many of his classic horror novels have been given the cinematic treatment, some proved far too long for the silver screen, and instead were brought to life on the small screen, where they could be broken up into parts. The Stephen King miniseries/TV movie has become something of a long-standing tradition over the last four decades.

Salem lot movie where was it filmed