I have a certain fondness for the original Salem's Lot miniseries; there's something about its combination of intensely eerie atmosphere and (inadvertant) silliness that just grabs me. James Mason is great, appearing to play the bad Mr. Straker with sly humor. David Soul is pretty good, too (though I was no fan of Starsky & Hutch by a long shot); believably intense, fairly likeable character. Lew Ayres, Ed Flanders, and Geoffrey Lewis are all good, too. And hoo-boy.... Bonny Bedelia. I'll say it again -- hoo boy!
But that Lance whatsit, the omnipresent 70s kid, is just vomitous. Seeing his face used to make me want to go kick an inanimate object several times.
The Nosferatu-style vampire didn't strike me particularly negatively, and the scene of him coming through the kitchen window of the kid's house, ending up a black lump on the floor and slowly transforming into the Big Ugly was great. But it would be cool to see Mr. Barlow rendered more closely to the book--which I started reading many years ago but for one reason or another didn't get to finish; will have to pick it up again one of these days.
That TV miniseries of The Shining was pretty good, yet it didn't really stick with me, not like the original movie. Way back when, I liked the Kubrick movie as a movie; not necessarily as an adaptation of King's book. However, the last couple of times I saw it, despite my appreciation for Jack Nicholson as Torrance, I found it quite boring. The kid in it is another one I wouldn't mind bouncing off a couple of walls.