Diksha Sundriyal
Max’s supernatural horror film, ‘Salem’s Lot’ transports the audience to the 1970s, when an author named Ben Mears returns to his eponymous hometown to research for his new novel. His arrival coincides with the buying of the infamous Marsten House on the top of the hill by a mysterious man who also owns an antiques shop in the town. At the same time, strange disappearances start to happen. The mystery deepens with the revelation of an evil presence seeping out of the Marsten House and infecting the whole town. It is chilling to see the next series of events unfold, and naturally, it makes one wonder what they would do if they were in the shoes of the townsfolk of Jerusalem’s Lot under the dark shadow of the Marsten House. SPOILERS AHEAD
Jerusalem’s Lot Comes from Stephen King’s Fictional Universe
The 2024 film adapts Stephen King’s 1975 novel of the same name and borrows its setting for the same. Jerusalem’s Lot, which becomes Salem’s Lot, is an entirely fictional town King created specifically for the book. He situated it in Maine, which is also where he hails from. In fact, King’s love for his home state is reflected in the fact that he has used it as a setting for most of his fictional works, creating fictional towns like Derry and Castle Rock for some of his most notable works. He created Salem’s Lot with the same mindset and used it as a setting for several other stories he wrote over the years, like his 2019 novel, ‘The Institute,’ and his 1978 short story, ‘Jerusalem’s Lot.’
While King didn’t base the fictional town on any particular real-life town, he did mention Durham, Maine, as a reference for Salem’s Lot. He had spent several years of his childhood there and drew upon his memories of the place to create a picture of Salem’s Lot. This is further reflected in the character of Ben Mears who also goes back to the town he’d once spent his childhood in to find inspiration for his new story. While Salem’s Lot is supposed to be in Maine, the movie was shot in Massachusetts. The towns of Ipswich, Sterling, and Clinton were used to piece together different parts of the King-verse town, along with Boston. With the setting being in the 1970s, the production transformed the streets of the towns to give them a more period-accurate look, adding to the scary vibe of the place.
The Marsten House is Loosely Inspired by a Real Place
The Marsten House that appears in ‘Salem’s Lot’ is not a real place. Like the rest of the movie, the location for the house was scouted in Massachusetts, with a place in the town of Clinton being restructured to give it the facade of the infamous house, which also serves as a rather prominent location in the story. The interior scenes were filmed in a separate location. Much like the rest of the town, the inspiration for Marsten House came from King’s time in Durham. When he was a kid, he used to live in an area called Methodist Corners. There was a vacant house on the street that King and his friends used to explore when they were little.
Years later, when King started writing ‘Salem’s Lot’ and had to construct the Marsten House, he looked back at his memories as a child and drew upon the fear and excitement he and his friends had felt while exploring that empty house down the street. He channeled the scary vibes of the real place into the fictional Marsten House, concocting an entire history of the place to give more grounds to its status as an inherently evil place and make it more believable for the audience.
Read More: Salem’s Lot (2024) Ending, Explained: Do Ben and Mark Die?
