Why Stephen King's Salem's Lot Sequel Has Never Gotten a ...

WARNING: Spoilers follow for Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot novel as well as his short story “One for the Road.”

“I've always found the story quite chilling,” –Salem's Lot (2024) writer/director Gary Dauberman on Stephen King's “One for the Road”

Stephen King's second-ever published novel 'Salem's Lot, originally titled Second Coming, was inspired by a brainstorm the author had wondering what would happen if Dracula came to contemporary small-town America. First published in 1975, the sprawling saga of the vampire Barlow, his familiar Straker, and an author named Ben Mears who means to destroy them became a bestseller. It was adapted into a successful two-part CBS TV mini-series by director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) in 1979, then again for TV in 2004 by Mikael Salomon (Hard Rain). (Confusingly, some of the filmed versions of the tale drop the apostrophe from the front of 'Salem's.) A new feature film version arrives on Max this week directed by Gary Dauberman of Annabelle Comes Home fame. Even though this is the third filmed version of 'Salem's Lot, there is a sequel story written by King himself that has surprisingly never been given an official adaptation. 

The Lot Went Bad

“One for the Road” is narrated by an elderly widower named Booth and concerns an incident from years earlier that happened at a bar owned/operated by his friend Tookey in Falmouth, Maine. In true "a guy walks into a bar" tradition, one snowy night a yuppie from New Jersey named Lumley stumbles into Tookey's Bar half-frozen, claiming his car – along with his wife and young daughter – is stuck in a snowbank at nearby town Jerusalem's Lot. Terrified, Booth and Tookey explain to Lumley that "the Lot went bad" without spelling out the plague of vampirism which swept through it during the events of 'Salem's Lot. The two old gentlemen agree to help Lumley rescue his family despite the danger of bloodsuckers who still inhabit the burned-out town. Clearly Mark and Ben's fire was not as effective as hoped. 

In 'One for the Road,' two old gentlemen agree to help a man rescue his family despite the danger of bloodsuckers who still inhabit the burned-out town.

This spooky, muscular piece of short fiction by King made its debut in the March/April 1977 issue of Maine Magazine, only two years after 'Salem's Lot was published, illustrated with an image of a creepy little girl's face sporting wild black hair/red eyes. “One for the Road” was later collected in King's Night Shift as well as another short story anthology called Strange Maine, with a terrifically atmospheric audiobook version read by Colin Fox appearing in 1985. Night Shift also contained the story “Jerusalem's Lot,” a prequel to 'Salem's Lot taking place in 1850 which was itself eventually adapted into Epix' one-season wonder Chapelwaite starring Adrien Brody, airing in 2021. Both the prequel and sequel stories were included in an illustrated edition of 'Salem's Lot from 2005, and the minor character of Father Donald Callahan figures in King's Dark Tower books, something acknowledged in 2017's The Dark Tower movie with the inclusion of Barlow & Straker's Antiques shop.

So why has “One for the Road” never been filmed as a feature, TV movie, or even an anthology segment for a series like Shudder's Creepshow? Yes, it's a Stephen King B-side, but it's the B-side to 'Salem's Lot, an all-timer if there ever was one. You might instantly go to the explanation that it's too short to adapt, but that didn't stop “Jerusalem's Lot” from getting 10 hours of episodic chills. This goes double for many other King short story adaptations like Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption, or more recently The Boogeyman. Heck, the Silver Bullet movie was based on a calendar he wrote. 

Is the story too simple to be expanded into a feature? Yes and no. As it exists on the page, “One for the Road” is a fairly straightforward story of two old-timers helping a guy out during a blizzard with very sinister overtones, but there are many points to be expanded on. One example is a brief flashback about a truck driver in Tookey's Bar named Richie Messina who drunkenly dared himself to spend the night at The Marsten House in 'Salem's Lot. The anecdote ends with Booth explaining that Messina was never seen again and his family moved away, but what happened to Messina could be made integral to the plot of the A-story with a little reverse-engineering on the screenwriter's part. 

One integral aspect of “One for the Road” that almost certainly has made it less commercially viable is the fact that the two main characters – Booth and Tookey – are old. Ageism in Hollywood is a well-known fact of life, with studios much more likely to greenlight a project that can be littered with hot young stars. It's surely a reason King's great Florida novel Duma Key has never been made either. Yet it is the age of the characters that is arguably the strongest trait of “One for the Road.” "It seems like when you pass 70, people start forgetting that you are a man, or that you ever were," says Booth at one point. When he and Tookey make the decision to venture into the Lot, they are also reclaiming their manhood in "one last hurrah" fashion. There certainly is no shortage of aging movie stars you could cast, i.e. David Strathairn as everyman Booth, or Nick Nolte as the crusty Tookey.

The ‘Dollar Baby’ Salem’s Lot Sequels

However, a group of fan films have attempted to answer for all these potential roadblocks and prove that the story is, indeed, adaptable. Through King's "Dollar Baby" program, where aspiring or student filmmakers can get the rights to make a movie from his short fiction for the price of $1 and a copy of the film, there have been quite a few unofficial adaptations of “One for the Road.” In 2011, Irish actor Paul Ward – who recently portrayed the Pope on two episodes of Vikings: Valhalla – created a 22-minute short from the story, complete with goblin-like vampires.

"I wanted to do ‘One for the Road’ because I adore Salem's Lot [ever] since seeing it over two nights on TV in 1979 here in Ireland," says Ward. "I remember talking to everyone about it in school the day after part one aired, with the Glick brother coming to the window. It was then I started to read everything King wrote."

Although he had to change the snow setting to fog after the crew arrived on location to find the expected white powder melted, Ward's “One for the Road” is very true to the story. This short notably features a few names familiar to genre fans like Phantasm legend Reggie Bannister as Tookie, alongside Adam Robitel as Booth. The latter went on to have his own stellar career directing movies like Escape Room and Insidious: The Last Key. He is, however, far younger than the Booth described in King's story. 

"The reason I cast Adam Robitel as Booth was I really bonded with him on a project in LA, and he was a huge King fan," explains Ward. "I thought it would be nice to have a younger and older pairing of the friends. Booth looks up to Tookie a lot. I was introduced to Reggie Bannister and his wife Gigi by our producer Tim Sullivan. We shot in their town of Crestline, California. Gigi got us all the locations and most of the crew. I always loved Reggie since seeing Phantasm – also around 1979 – and knew he was perfect for it."

Longtime movie lover William Rush, an 18-year trial attorney, made his feature filmmaking debut in 2023 with the horror flick “Group” and recently completed several more shorts including a 45-minute adaptation of “One for the Road.”

"The first time I read ‘One for the Road’ and realized it was a sequel to 'Salem's Lot, it blew me away," says Rush. "I fell in love with the story. It was always the adaptation I wanted to make."

Through King's 'Dollar Baby' program, where aspiring filmmakers can get the rights to make a movie from his short fiction, there have been quite a few unofficial adaptations of 'One for the Road.'

In order to spin a more diverse and representative tale, Rush sex-swapped Tookey to middle-aged "Harriet Tooklander" (Eva Emmer) – still played with a surly edge – and added a young female barback named Sue (Tricia Buerke) to the situation. The main events of the story all play as flashback in black and white, with an older Booth (Daniel Martin Berkey) narrating a color wraparound about his younger self (Michael Lake). Rush then decided to tie the story further into 'Salem's Lot.

Rush explains, "I concluded there had to be a community of vampires. They let Lumley go back to town to get Booth and Tookey… bring back more food. I figured the town of the undead would have a hierarchy. They'd use women and children as lures to suck people in. Re-reading 'Salem's Lot for the dozenth time, I realized Susan doesn't die the way every other vampire does. Maybe Ben Mears looked away and didn't kill her right… Susan lived and she runs this village of the undead."

Known for his documentary work in the state of Maine, cinematographer David Jester decided to do his recent short version of “One for the Road” right in King's backyard of Ellsworth, which is only 40 minutes south of Bangor. He chose to cast younger actors for both Booth (Julian Findlay) and Tookey (Ethan Rodgers) to make them more "relatable," and – like Rush – also expanded on the mythology of 'Salem's Lot. 

Known for his documentary work in the state of Maine, cinematographer David Jester made a short version of “One for the Road.”

"I wanted to turn the character Richie Messina into a foe, a nemesis, who blamed Tookey and Booth for being turned into a vampire, even though it was Richie's own hotheadedness that led to his damnation," explains Jester. "Another character change was giving Marla, Richie's partner, a larger role in the film. You don't really know what happens to Booth; he becomes a question at the end for the audience to ponder. Instead of being narrated as the original story was, my version is set in the 1980s, happening as the audience watches it unfold… I wanted the film to be more about living on the edge of the Lot, and what life is like when you have to worry about vampires in everyday life. I wasn’t able to incorporate as much into the film as I wanted, due to length and also practical effects."

Probably the closest “One for the Road” came to touching Hollywood in recent years was when an actual studio movie technician named Walter Perez (a grip on Doctor Sleep) made his own Dollar Baby version in 2019, changing the title to “Into the Night.” Shot in sunny Big Bear, California, over six months, yet somehow maintaining the snowy atmosphere, “Into the Night” went on to be nominated for festival awards and was reportedly screened for studio staff on an altogether different Lot… the Warner Bros. lot.  

What’s Hollywood’s Issue?

While Hollywood appears to be disinterested in this particular Stephen King sequel, the "King of Horror" himself has also begun to shy away from these types of stories in general. At one point King was happy to expand on the worlds of his larger novels in short fiction ala the story “Night Surf,” a tie-in to The Stand, but during my appearance on The Kingcast last year, co-host Eric Vespe said that King doesn't go in for those types of sequel shenanigans anymore. 

"King wrote all that very early on in his career," Vespe stated of “One for the Road.” "I get this feeling that he was very excited to be like, 'Yeah, sure, I have an idea. I'll expand on this stuff.' But he very rarely does sequels or sequel stories now. I guess Doctor Sleep is a big counter-example, or he'll come out with Dark Tower-adjacent stories, but for the most part he doesn't do that stuff anymore. He'll fold in references to other books, but he won't do these, like, 'Here's a short story about what happened to Sheriff Bannerman's family after he got eaten by Cujo.'"

Earlier this year “One for the Road” was the subject of another Kingcast, with noted comics writer Scott Snyder (who co-penned DC's American Vampire with King) discussing why the story is a special one in the author's expansive bibliography. 

Snyder said, "To write – when you're young – a character who's old that well… there's a sense of sadness, a sense of loneliness, a sense of acceptance of things that are dark and that almost shouldn't be accepted in Booth. That makes it so much more powerful… Ben Mears in 'Salem's Lot or Booth in ‘One for the Road,’ you relate to them entirely. Having the horror come into their lives in ways that you don't expect is very particular to [King's] writing… That's where he's from, that thing of writing about people that you would know. A town you could recognize. Things that you feel – 'horror wouldn't happen here,' and then all of a sudden…"

As for the new Salem's Lot, Gary Dauberman does a man's job of attempting to condense and simplify King's expansive tale of interlocking small-town intrigue into a neat, under-two-hour package. He is often successful, though at times it feels like a speed-run through what was originally a very slow burn in both the novel and Tobe Hooper's TV version. King's extended passages revealing a dark underbelly which existed in Jerusalem's Lot long before Barlow and Straker moved in are traded for heaping helpings of wild vampire carnage which make the new movie resemble a lost Evil Dead installment. Still there is lots of fun to be had, including a reinvented climax which takes place at a drive-in that – had the movie been released to theaters – certainly could have brought the house down. (IGN’s critic gave Max’s Salem’s Lot a 5 out of 10.)

Can Max greenlight “One for the Road” as a short-form streaming follow-up if the new Salem's Lot gets plenty of prized eyeball time? Certainly. Would Dauberman's pace and tone work if applied to “One for the Road”? Not really, since that story – like 'Salem's Lot itself – is meant to play as more eerie/tragic and less gory/grindhouse. 

While an in-name-only sequel to Tobe Hooper's TV movie titled A Return to Salem's Lot was released by Warner Bros. in 1987, that film by schlockmeister Larry Cohen had a more satirical bent, getting roundly dismissed by critics and audiences. There isn't a trace of King's writing in it, and there are no books or podcasts attempting to reclaim A Return to Salem's Lot as anything beyond a transparent cash-grab. It will likely remain a footnote among King adaptations ala the myriad Children of the Corn cheapies. Will we ever get to see the actual Salem's Lot sequel “One for the Road” on the big or small screen, made on a substantial budget with older stars, a snowy backdrop, and the expansive scope that Dauberman brought to the Jerusalem's Lot of his new movie? 

"I don’t think ‘One for the Road’ has ever had an official adaptation because I don’t think people know how to adapt it," concludes Jester. "So many people want big films with big effects and lots of actors. This is simple, and simple is good. … There are so many ways a filmmaker could tackle this story."