horrorfan198129 Michael Moriarty stars as a man returning to Jerusalem,s (Salem's) lot with his son after inheriting a house from his aunt with the intentions of rekindling their father/son relationship, but its not long before they realise something is not right. I saw this and the original 1979 on VHS 20 years ago, this film had me in stitches with the bad acting and what looked like bad tomato sauce fake blood, did the film makers decided to make a vampire movie and cash in on a sequel to Salem's Lot and ruin it.if you want a movie to watch if you are bored try this, you might just end up falling asleep to it.

Paul Andrews 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.

vip_ebriega My Take: One of the worst movies I have ever seen in a life. Definitely the worst horror movie I have ever seen. I bought this movie because I'm a horror movie buff, and it had a good cover art, but that's just a perfect example of the phrase "never judge the book by its cover.", and "Return to Salem's Lot" was, not just truly horrible, but also a is a real joke of a horror movie. The acting is weak, the script is pale, the make-up lacks realism and the scares aren't even scary. Doesn't that sound like a joke? Michael Moriarty is like the father figure in the movie who takes his son back to his hometown, the vampire-infested Salem's Lot. His acting was way too over-the-top... and just plain ridiculous. Andrew Duggan as a lead vampire is weak, and poor Samuel Fuller, reduced to a silly role of a Nazi hunter. And much worse, as if the bad acting wasn't enough, the script never fared better.Silly horror move, I wouldn't even recommend it to a camp buffs. That's how awful it is. Rating: 0 out of 5.

AngryChair Father and son take a trip to Salem's Lot, Maine where they discover that the locals are all vampires - who want the two travelers to write a bible for them.This disappointing theatrical sequel to the excellent 1979 mini-series Salem's Lot has pretty much nothing to do with the original or the novel that it was based on. This film is shamefully flat on scares and the vampires aren't even remotely frightening. For the most part we just get old people running around with plastic fangs in their mouths. Story-wise we get little suspense to sustain the audience.Yet despite these obvious flaws our leading stars do OK performances and there's a fine music score.Even still, this doesn't save this sequel from being poor.* 1/2 out of ****