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Vampires are my personal bogeyman



I remember seeing "Salem's Lot" the movie, with David Soul as Ben Mears, when I was fifteen years old, and I truly believed in the existence of vampires for at least a week after watching that movie. (...and maybe, I never stopped believing...)

Sometime in my early twenties, I picked up a copy of Salem's Lot and read it for the first time. So it's been a while, close to thirty years between reads.

Some people may say that this book begins as a slow burn, but I didn't find it that way. From the moment that a clearly haunted Ben Mears comes to the Lot and tells of his childhood encounter with a ghost, it was on for me.

Stephen King's vampires are truly horrific, easily characterised as demonically possessed, blood drinking ghosts with the power to mesmerise their victims - never, ever, look into their eyes.

Like some other stories by Stephen King that I have read, hell is other people, and the people of Salem's Lot provide a full panorama view of themselves falling prey to their own natures as much as they fall prey to the curse of vampires sweeping their town.

On a technical note, I was completely surprised by the authors use of a deus ex machina about half way through the novel. One of his main characters is in a right pickle, and Stephen King provides him with a genius level ability to solve the problem, without any foreshadowing that I could see. It blew me right out of immersion in the narrative.

If the overall narrative was not so damn good, this would drop the rating by a star, however, I can't bring myself to not give this book, which has impacted me on multiple levels anything less than five stars.

A recommended read for anyone who would enjoy a genuinely scary, spooky, creep you out and possibly give you nightmares story.