SALEM's LOT & RETURN to...(vhs) Stephen and similar items

Both Cassettes have a store branded security label on the endcap assuring you of first generation quality. Pre-viewed for quality and both tapes played great and both boxes are in great shape. The first movie, SALEM's LOT, is the shorter European theatrical feature cut which contains some mild differances. Most notably it omits some subplots and adds a few fleeting seconds of extra violence as in one character who gets impaled on a wall of antlers near the end. This one has no closed captioning. Starring David Soul of 'Starsky Hutch' TV series and proper British actor James Mason. A writer, Ben Mears (David Soul) returns to his hometown to face his childhood fear of a local haunted mansion, the Marsten House. The new owners turn out to be quite sinister indeed. Business man Claude Straker (James Mason) who has come to the sleepy town of SALEM's LOT to open a rare antique shop and Straker's business partner is the unseen European Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder) who, Straker repeatedly informs the curious townspeople, is on a "buying trip" and will be arriving shortly. While delivering a huge antique "headboard" to the Marsten house, the movers are terrified by the large wooden box's tendency to move and emit cooler temperatures than the surrounding air. The frightened movers ignore Straker's implicit instructions to lock the celler door after delivery. Shortly afterward, the townspeople begin to suffer from horrifying nightmares where they are lured to open their windows to the recently dead and wake up weak, anemic and fearful of sunlight. Ben Mears teams up with teacher Matt Burke (Lew Ayres), Doctor Bill Norton (Ed Flanders), girlfriend Susan Norton (Bonnie Bedelia) and teenage movie-monster expert Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) to stop the town from becoming overrun by vampires, and as the group is whittled down, Mears is forced into a climatic confrontation with Straker and Barlow at the nexus of his terrors, the Marsten house. Square full frame format and is the same aspect ratio on the dvd, nothing to gain there. The second movie, A RETURN to SALEM's LOT is closed captioned and not a sequel but rather an entirely differant adaptation: An anthroplogist (Michael Moriarty) and his son (Addison Reed) are lured to the town of Jeruselum's Lot by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan). Reed sums up the subtle evil with his initial comment on the sleepy place, "This town sucks!" which is a predominately vampire community. They have human 'drones' that guard them in daylight hours. At night the town comes alive like any other with ceremonies including a secular wedding in which the bride and groom appear to be ten-year-olds, a recital of the Oath of Allegiance, even a school from dusk till dawn for the little vampire children. A classroom of ageless children recite a history of flight from persecution on the Mayflower's supposedly lost sister ship, the Speedwell. The man and his son are held captive until he can write a 'Bible' for the damned commisioned by Judge Axel. The impeccably folksy patriarch, whose charm evaporates when he's angered enough to turn into a Nosferatu-faced goblin, prefers to drink from cattle because humans mainline drugs and transmit AIDS, but his wife (Evelyn Keyes) persists in the old ways, confessing to a "drinking problem". This one has a rare on-screen performance by filmmaker Samuel Fuller as a Nazi hunter turned vampire killer. The depiction of a vampire lifestyle is effective and interesting. Out Of Print and only available as a cheapjack Made-On-Demand (MOD) dvd-r from Warner Archives. These won't play in recordable devices, have no special features, are not afforded a remastering and often use the same sourceprint as this vhs, and are kind of pricey.