As I have said before, I never really watched a lot of horror movies before 2020. My husband, however, is a big fan. Especially of Stephen King books/movies/series. When he heard that a new ‘‘Salem’s Lot movie was coming out, he was very excited.

Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) returns to his childhood hometown, Jerusalem’s Lot, to do some research on both his past and the town itself. Shortly after his arrival, children begin to go missing. With the help of some locals - town heartthrob Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh), teacher Matthew Burke (Bill Camp), Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey, Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard) and 11-year old Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter) - Ben tries to rid ‘Salem’s Lot of the darkness that has arrived.

Since I am very unfamiliar with the book or either of the previous miniseries, I spent a lot of this movie asking my husband questions. While I found this version of ‘Salem’s Lot pretty enjoyable, there were some drawbacks. One character went unnamed until he appeared in a later bar scene. I even asked my husband “Oh, that’s this guy, right?” and he had to correct me. The movie is just under two hours long so some of the characters felt a little flat and some relationships felt rushed.

With that said, Mark Petrie is an absolutely kickass kid and I watched the entire movie just for him. I would watch a sequel that is just him going around fighting vampires. He would have to be a little older or get Ben to tag along but that’s OK. Sometimes kickass kids need dumb adults to help them get places.

‘Salem’s Lot wasn’t a super scary movie. Despite being a vampire movie, there wasn’t a lot of blood or scenes where I had to avert my eyes. If you are looking for something that isn’t going to give you nightmares or something on the tamer side of horror, this might be for you. Die-hard ‘Salem’s Lot fans may not like this movie very much but those of us that want to watch a King movie without losing sleep, this is the one you should go for.

Rating: B

Cell phones aren’t scary, right? Stephen King wants to prove you wrong with Mr. Harrigan’s Phone.

When Craig (Jaeden Martell) was a young boy, he was hired by the elderly billionaire Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland) to read to him twice a week. As Craig gets older, he continues to visit the old man, resulting in them becoming friendly. Well, as friendly as Mr. Harrigan can get. One Christmas, Craig wins $3,000 from the scratch off lottery ticket Mr. Harrigan gifted him. He saves most of the money but decides to use some of it to buy Mr. Harrigan an iPhone to match the one his father gave him. Craig teaches Mr. Harrigan how to use the phone, though the old man is reluctant. After Mr. Harrigan passes away and Craig places in the phone in Harrison’s coat pocket at this burial, Craig continues to call the phone to vent about the troubles in his life. Those people then start to die themselves. Is Mr. Harrigan avenging his young friend from beyond the grave?

This movie version of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is based on a novella Stephen King published in a 2020 collection called If It Bleeds. As this is a short story, it’s only about 88 pages long, there isn’t a lot that happens. The back story that we get for Craig is basically that his mom died, leaving both him and his dad (Joe Tippett) very sad. I don’t think his dad even gets a name in the movie. For Mr. Harrigan, we’re told that he’s hated by a lot of people…I think because he was a rich businessman that may have been an asshole? I’m not completely sure. And there’s a scene where Craig looks in Harrigan’s mysterious closet after the elder man dies. Somehow Craig figures out that Harrigan was like him, in that his mother also died when he was a boy. I know that King is trying to equate Craig with Harrigan but it comes off messy. There are scenes to insinuate that Harrigan was an uncaring rich man that maybe bullied the people that worked for him where Craig does nothing but care for the people around him and he is terribly bullied by Kenny Yankovich (Cyrus Arnold) at school. I think it would have been better if we just left it as the revenge being Harrigan’s way of showing Craig that he cared for him, even if he couldn’t show it when he was alive.

Does all of that mean this was a bad movie? Not at all. It’s just not very interesting. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is something that you watch when you want a movie that won’t make you think too hard. Or if you really like Stephen King, I suppose. It wasn’t a waste of 106 minutes but it wasn’t super enjoyable either. Very middle of the road.