TNT has a pretty good track record when it comes to adapting Stephen King's work. Salem's Lot had already gotten an adaptation back in 1979, but TNT decided to adapt and modernize it as a television miniseries. As far as modernizing it, there wasn't really that much of a change. The book was kind of timeless in that regard so, outside of a few references to Afghanistan, it's pretty much the same.
Overall, it was good. It was eerie and suspenseful and, for the most part, it stayed true to the book. The score was effective and augmented the impact of the scenes that you were watching. The casting director did a really good job here. They managed to get a good cast together and put them in roles that suit them.
I found the casting of Andre Braugher amusing as here he plays one of the first characters to cry "vampire" where as in The Mist, he plays the hard nosed skeptic who refuses to believe that anything strange is going on. As he did in Darabont's film, he did a good job here as well.
Samantha Mathis as Susan wasn't really working for me. I felt like I connected with her character a lot more in the book than I did here and her relationship with Ben is downplayed. It almost came off as hollow here.
A lot of stuff was cut for time, the aforementioned relationship, Callahan's wavering faith, and I also felt like Strayker had a lot more page time than he did screen time. On the one hand, Sutherland was rather fun to watch for a lot of it, but he was really starting to ham it up near the end, so I'm torn as to whether this is a good or bad thing.
Father Callahan is played here by James Cromwell. I really like when Hollywood finds the perfect actor to play a character. Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela, Gary Oldman playing Jim Gordon, or Cromwell as Callahan are all inspired and perfect matching like that pleases me.
I don't really understand the point of the flashback aspect of the series. It confused me at the beginning and it didn't really add anything to the overall story. Actually, it just acts as padding, which is the last thing this series needs. The total run time comes out to about three hours and few movies can hold a viewer's attention for that long. You start to notice the drag as the film progresses. I think it would've been better if they had split it up into two parts.
The second part isn't as good as the first. It's where most of the story deviations take place. Most are insignificant, like how Matt Burke dies, but the biggest change is the fate of Callahan. It was...different to say the least. I don't know why they didn't just stick with his ending from the book. I think it would've worked better if he had just left.
Like some other films, there were a lot of nods to King's other works. One scene where the characters are searching for two young children has the camera focus on a crow silently watching and in a later scene, a character refers to a dog as "Cujo".
There were also a few nods to Sam Raimi. Fans of the Evil Dead series will notice a similarity in how the camera moves towards the characters. Some of the ways the characters end up being killed also came off as a bit Raimi-esque to me. It was surprising, but still a nice touch.
While the movie had a lot of strong elements, I felt like the parts were greater than the sum. Despite good direction and a strong cast, the movie just turned out OK. I won't call it a must watch, but there have been worse jobs done. I read that the '79 version is really good, and while I find it hard to believe that they can outdo Rutger Hauer, I'm pretty excited to see it.
