I only found out this movie even existed yesterday when I ran into it on the shelves of my local library, which has a quite good DVD section where one can borrow DVD's for free. Thank goodness for that, free, I mean, because I'd really be embarrassed to admit I paid actual money to watch this abomination of a movie. It is bad, really really bad. So bad in fact, I'm thinking of writing to the production company and requesting they pay me for watching it!

This film bears no resemblance to the classic television mini series from 1979, nor is the film in the same league. The publicity and the marketing for "Return to Salems Lot" clearly used the image of the Nosferatu vampire from the mini series because it was apparent that no one would see the 1987 movie. The ploy didn't work as the film went straight to video release. "Return to Salems Lot" has none of the intelligence, imagination or atmosphere of "Salems Lot." The aim of this film, is to include as much graphic detail as possible. The script is largely absurd and the story ridiculous. The location that was used for the film is totally different to before but it's a good locale all the same. The grassy hills, the church, they give you cause to think that vampires stalk those hills in search of food. There is at least some good action scenes which offer some compensation. The town of Salems Lot is now over-run with vampires. They are gradually running low on food supply after all the remaining human beings are either dead or slaves to the undead. Michael Moriarty is pretty good in the lead and director Samuel Fuller is OK as a vampire Hunter. Watch this and enjoy something that requires less brain power.

This film is notorious among a couple of my friends after we rented it years ago and had many laughs. Still, it's a shame, because the original Salem's Lot was so strong and the framework story for this one could have put it in the same category----if it had been handled well, but it wasn't.The dad (Michael Morarity) was a bit of a hard headed putz that couldn't see his hand in front of his face. His uninteresting, overly foul-mouthed brat son wasn't very endearing either, yet we are supposed to believe he can wrestle with an ancient Master Vampire and actually offer resistance!! A 120-lb kid should not offer ANY physical resistance whatsoever to a creature with superhuman strength!! Aggravating to put it mildly. The overall impression is that vampires are just weaklings waiting to be killed by your local dog catcher, ice cream man, schoolteacher, anybody in fact.....far from the case of the deadly Mr. Butler in the original, who was not someone you would try to fight when he was awake!!The cheeseball "Nazi Hunter" was the source of the most laughs, but not for the reasons intended. To this day, I can still do a spot-on impression of some of his dumbest lines lol....I was initially excited to watch this movie for the first time and dug the cool small town atmosphere and obvious potential for creepiness, but it wasn't realized. I still enjoyed it somewhat (I enjoy many "bad" movies), but I hope one day someone will come along and do this the right way. That will probably never happen until it is sparked by a highly successful remake of the original first.EDIT: I revised my rating from 3 to 5 after thinking about how I feel about watching this, rather than what a movie critic that has to answer to his bosses would say. Truth be told, it would merit a 2 or 3 in those terms, but my ratings here are heavily biased by how much I am entertained by the film, good or bad.

A Return to Salem's Lot starts as anthropologist Joe Webber (Michael Moriarty) is left with his son Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed) after his ex-wife takes off with her latest husband. Joe decides to take Jeremy to the small Maine town of Jurusalem's Lot where his aunt has left him a house, once there Joe & Jeremy discover that Jurusalem's Lot is inhabited by Vampires & Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan) leads them. Judge Axel explains that his Vampire society try to live in peace feeding of Cattle & that he wants Joe to write their history in a bible so the outside world can understand them. Jeremy is lured by other Vampires & quickly wants to become one while Joe is forced to stay & do as he is told but soon realises that he has to fight back & destroy the Vampire menace once & for all...Executive produced, co-written & directed by Larry Cohen this was intended as a direct to video sequel to the successful made for telly Stephen King adaptation Salem's Lot (1979) but did actually get a limited theatrical run apparently, A Return to Salem's Lot is only a sequel in name really & it's rather off-beat & odd at times full of ideas but little in the way of a cohesive story to hang them on. Like a lot of Cohen's films he likes to throw topical ideas around & satirise contemporary society, in A Return to Salem's Lot he manages to satirise & spoof subjects such as parenting, growing up, finance, democracy, drugs, racism, ritualism & the ethics of survival which is all well & good but it does get a little tiresome while waiting for some sort of story to kick in. The character's are larger than life & memorable, from Joe the anthropologist to an elderly Nazi killer to the righteous Judge Axel to the kid Jeremy who Cohen has deliberately turned into a bit of a thug as he smokes, swears & drives underage in an obvious anti Hollywood cute kid stance. However the film does go on for too long & while the basic premise of Vampires living a normal decent existence in their own town not wanting to take over the world or anything is a neat spin on traditional concepts it doesn't make for the most exciting films & there are parts which just don't make sense like the writing of the bible or how a town full of Vampires can stay unchanged for three hundred years.Besides some good ideas in the script on a conceptual level there's some good visuals as well, the Vampires feeding off Cattle, the Vampire wedding between two immortal Vampire children (to be honest this seemed inappropriate in the current climate & the underage relationship between Jeremy & Amanda just seemed wrong) & an amusing scene when Judge Axel & his wife both go to sleep in coffins placed next to each other like a double bed & he says 'good day dear' rather than than good night. However the special effects are tatty, there's a real lack of gore here besides a few badly edited unconvincing melting Vampires, a ripped out heart & some blood sucking there's no real gore here. The make-up on the angry Vampire at the end is also very poor & what was that monster Vampire thing that appeared in a few scenes but get completely forgotten about? The Vampire attacks are very poor, they are badly staged & edited & feel unfinished. The locations are nice & the film has a good atmosphere to it.Shot back to back with It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) with the same basic crew A Return to Salem's Lot seems to suffer from a rushed production & maybe that's why the effects & editing are so bad at times. The IMDb says A Return to Salem's Lot had a budget of about $12,000,000 but it looks a lot lower budgeted than that to my eyes, filmed mainly in Vermont. The acting varies, Moriarty is always watchable, the kid who plays his son is awful, Jill Gatsby is director Cohen's daughter & he kills her off here while this was Tara Reid's acting debut.A Return to Salem's Lot is an oddball horror film social satire spoof sequel in name only, it's a unique film but overall it is lacking in a few crucial areas like story & actual horror.