Hi there 'tehck',
My memory is that he responds very oddly to anyone who approaches him, usually turning his head slightly to one side and rarely looking them in the eye. He also seemed to have a number of "twitchy" mannerisms -- and this is before any vampire action has even gotten started. I don't remember him having any traumatic backstory, but he acts like someone with PTSD.
I think that the above is very well said indeed. My reading of the situation is that the Ben Mears character DID have a traumatic backstory. He had a disturbing childhood experience in the Marsten House when he was young that had stayed with him over a long period of time.
The result was that he had returned to the town to write a book and so to 'exorcise' his own demons, and resolve his lingering childhood terrors.
The point being that the Ben Mears character DID have PTSD, and it shows in David Soul's performance.
I think you have done a good job of spotting something quintessential at the heart of the movie, and you have said it well indeed.
It's not possible for me to put things better than Stephen King (that's because he wrote the book in the first place) however I thought I could reprint a detailed section from the book where Ben has a discussion about it with Susan, and as a result you could make up your own mind.
Please post with any thoughts you might have.
Cheers for now.
From 'Salem's Lot' (1975 novel) by Stephen King:
‘I think that house might be Hubert Marsten’s monument to evil, a kind of psychic sounding board. A supernatural beacon, if you like. Sitting there all these years, maybe holding the essence of Hubie’s evil in its old, moldering bones.
‘And now it’s occupied again.
‘And there’s been another disappearance.’ He turned to her and cradled her upturned face in his hands. ‘You see, that’s something I never counted on when I came back here. I thought the house might have been torn down, but never in my wildest dreams that it had been bought. I saw myself renting it and . . . oh, I don’t know. Confronting my own terrors and evils, maybe. Playing ghost-breaker, maybe – be gone in the name of all the saints, Hubie. Or maybe just tapping into the atmosphere of the place to write a book scary enough to make me a million dollars. But no matter what, I felt that I was in control of the situation, and that would make all the difference. I wasn’t any nine-year-old kid anymore, ready to run screaming from a magic-lantern show that maybe came out of my own mind and no place else. But now . . .’
‘Now what, Ben?’
‘Now it’s occupied!’ he burst out, and beat a fist into his palm. ‘I’m not in control of the situation. A little boy has disappeared and I don’t know what to make of it. It could have nothing to do with that house, but . . . I don’t believe it.’ The last four words came out in measured lengths.
‘Ghosts? Spirits?’
‘Not necessarily. Maybe just some harmless guy who admired the house when he was a kid and bought it and became . . . possessed.’
‘Do you know something about—’ she began, alarmed.
‘The new tenant? No. I’m just guessing. But if it is the house, I’d almost rather it was possession than something else.’
‘What?’
He said simply, ‘Perhaps it’s called another evil man.’
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