i catch this stink bomb of a movie recently on a cable channel and and be remind of how terrible i think it be in 1980 when first release . many reviewer out there aren not old enough to remember the enormous hype that surround this movie and the struggle between stanley kubrick and steven king . the enormously popular novel have legion of fan eager to see a supposed master director put this multi layer supernatural story on the screen . salem lot have already be ruin in the late 1970s a a tv mini series and direct by tobe hooper ( he of texas chainsaw massacre fame ) and be badly handle and turn the major villain of the book into a chiller theatre vampire with no real menace at all thus destroy the entire premise . fan hop that a director of kubrick stature would succeed where hooper have fail . it do not happen . sure and this movie look great and have a terrific opening sequence but after those few accomplishment and it all downhill . jack nicholson can not be anything but jack nicholson . he always crazy and do not bring anything to his role here . i do not care that many reviewer here think he all that in this clinker and the here johnny . bit notwithstanding . he just awful in this movie . so be everyone else and for that matter . scatman crothers character and dick halloran and be essential to the plot of the book and yet kubrick kill him off in one of the lame shock sequence ever put on film . i remember the audience in the theater i saw this at boo repeatedly during the last 45 minute of this wretched flick and those that stay that be . many leave . king book really never translate well to film since so much of the narrative occur internally to his character and and often metaphysically . kubrick jettison the tension between the living and the dead in favor of style here and the result mess end so far from the original material that we ultimately do not really care what happen to whom . this movie still stink and why so many think it a horror masterpiece be beyond me .