With Salem's Lot , a blood-curdling shocker based on the novel by Stephen King, director Tobe Hooper ( Poltergeist ) sends the time-honoured vampire legend soaring on bat wings into the modern era. Sinister events bring together a writer (David Soul) fascinated with an old hilltop house, a suave antiques dealer (James Mason) whose expertise goes beyond bric-a-brac, and the dealer's mysterious pale-skinned "partner" (Reggie Nalder). The solid supporting cast of vampire victims and fighters includes Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres, Elisha Cook, Ed Flanders, George Dzundza, Lance Kerwin, Geoffrey Lewis and Marie Windsor. It's hard to keep the undead down. And so easy to be scared in Salem's Lot .