My expectations for the, as far as I could tell, unnecessary remake of Steven King’s Salem’s Lot were fairly low because there were not only already two prior miniseries based on the same novel but both were pretty good.

I prefer the 2004 version but there’s nothing at all wrong with the 1979 one.

As a result I didn’t see the point of a remake unless perhaps the filmmakers had something more to say or maybe if the technology when the two original series were made was so different that to do it again today would result in a vastly different series.

Though having seen if, neither of those things were the case and simply appears to be Hollywood essentially eating its own tail because this version is either a capitalization on known IP or just laziness because this version of Salem’s Lot does nothing the prior two versions didn’t do in a more entertaining fashion.

Though what’s interesting is that apparently this was meant to be a theatrical release and sat on the self for awhile so Warner Bros. changed course and released it as on Max, their streaming channel.

And while I think it was a good decision to not release this in theaters, I don’t think that it was a good idea to not revisit it and add some of the extra footage – supposedly Dauberman shot 3 extra hours – and turn this into something akin to the two prior miniseries in terms of length because this version comes in at 1 hour and 54 minutes, but does so at the cost of virtually any character development or logic particularly when people have relationships and knowledge of things that that the story never establishes prior, making it a really frustrating to watch at times.

Though what I didn’t understand is that it’s worth seeing as a cautionary tale of what happens when filmmakers engage in remaking something that never needed it in the first place.