It’s officially October, which means it’s time to embrace all things supernatural and scary. To help you kick off the season, Max will release a feature adaptation of Salem’s Lot on October 3.

The film adapts Stephen King’s classic vampire novel. The story follows Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman), an author who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next novel. There, he starts to fall for Susan Norton (Mackenzie Leigh) while a bloodthirsty vampire begins preying upon the town’s residents.

One of the hallmarks of King’s vampire story is how quickly the town is overwhelmed by creatures of the night. This means plenty of vampire attacks crop up in Salem’s Lot. We spoke to Pullman and Leigh about which moments of supernatural action were most challenging to film.

“Well, we were just reminiscing about the morgue scene…” Pullman started.

(“Which I just found out was a real morgue!” Leigh added.)

“But despite it being like, what five minutes of screen time? It took us a long, long time [to film] and it was strangely one of the most difficult scenes because it’s all practical,” recalled Pullman.

The scene occurs when Ben, Susan, and Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard) stake out the morgue, waiting to see if a recently deceased woman re-animates into a bloodthirsty creature of the night. 

“So there’s people on pulleys being yanked every which way… in a scene like that you’re really trying to lock in on how a person would be processing the reality of something like this,” explained Pullman. “It’s hard to do that a thousand times from every angle possible over and over and over again, and continually try and maintain and protect that air of surprise and of wonder and of terror. So it was a good exercise.”

The newly risen morgue vampire in 'Salem's Lot'

Leigh expanded on Pullman’s recollection of filming, pointing out the prop work happening as well. While the newly awakened vampire starts coming after the humans, they start assembling a cross out of tongue depressors to ward the creature off. When the cross comes together, it starts to glow with a bright light.

“Then there’s a technical element of like, oh, you’ve got to put your cross up and make sure that the battery is charged. And if you don’t and you just did your best [acting] work, it’s gonna end up on the cutting room floor still,” Leigh said.

You can see Pullman and Leigh go head-to-head with the morgue vampire soon. Salem’s Lot begins streaming on Max October 3.

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Salem’s Lot – Vampires Are Terriyfing Again In This Biting Stephen King Adaptation [Fright-A-Thon Review]