From his blatant disregard for the laws of fashion in Starsky And Hutch to his warbling of easy-listeners in the ’70s, David Soul has been responsible for numerous horrors over the years. But nothing – no, not even ‘Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby’ – beats his fondly-remembered 1979 offering Salem’s Lot in the genuinely chilling stakes. Presented here in its original two-part, three-hour US TV miniseries format, Salem’s Lot sees the Soul man on top form as Ben Mears, a novelist forced to save the titular town from a growing army of undead bloodsuckers. While Ben’s transformation from author to wooden-stake-wielding vampire slayer is Zimmer Frame-slow by modern standards, the miniseries still emerges as a reasonably potent treat, thanks largely to Tobe Hooper’s creepy, atmospheric direction. It’s a tribute to the Texas Chain Saw Massacre maestro that he can deliver such trouser-browning moments within the tight confines of ’70s US TV – and do so despite the fact that his chief vampire, apparently the scariest of them all, seems to have wandered straight out of an audition for The Smurfs.

BEST BIT A flying vampire-boy pays a night-time visit to the bedroom window of terrified pal Lance Kerwin. Peter Pan, it ain’t.

DVD Extras:

So, what DVD extras will you find in this two-disc set? Astonishingly, there’s nothing – no Making Of, no featurette on the cut-down ‘movie’ version that was released in UK cinemas, not even a Stephen King chat-track complaining about the many detours from his novel. It’s a bloody disgrace/fangs for nothing etc.