Mike Flanagan’s $72M Underrated Horror From 5 Years Ago Subtly Follows Stephen King’s New Streaming Hit Movie

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Salem’s Room (2024)!Max has a new streaming horror hit on his hands with the 2024 adaptation of Salem’s placeWhich shares a subtle connection to Mike Flanagan’s 2019 adaptation of Stephen King’s book Doctor Sleep. Stephen King’s books are known for often containing Easter eggs, implicit links or direct connections to his other stories, with many of his fictional horror novels being related through references to characters and local events. One frequent source of connections for his stories is the location of Jerusalem’s Lot, which is known to house various evil entities and supernatural beings.

The Max original movie Salem’s placewhich became the streaming service’s top-trending movie after its premiereis the latest take on King’s 1975 book of the same name, which explores the titular town as it becomes overrun with vampires. some of Salem’s placeEventually appearing in other King stories, such as The Dark TowerBut other links to his universe are more subtle. For example, while 2024s Salem’s place Movie does not address this link due to its earlier timeline, the titular location becomes important to the villain True Knot Cult in King’s Doctor Sleep novel, which was adapted by Mike Flanagan in 2019.

Doctor Sleep’s vampire True Knot cult has a safe haven in Jerusalem’s court

The psychic vampires are one of the many evils that inhabit Salem’s space

Led by Rebecca Ferguson’s villain rose the hat in Doctor SleepThe True Knot is an evil cult from Stephen King’s 2013 novel that murderously siphons off the “steam” of children To make yourself strong and youthful. The wicked are considered beautiful Vampires, like their beauty-sucking powers and mode of killing work similar to a vampire sucking the blood of a human. The 2019 movie, which serves as a sequel to Stephen King’s The Shining The story follows an adult Dan “Donny” Torrance as he battles the true knot and tries to protect Abra, a strong young girl with a beautiful face.

Although the reference is not clear in the 2019 film, Stephen King Doctor Sleep The book reveals that the true knot has a safe haven in Salem’s lot. The 2024 Salem’s place The movie and King’s 1975 novel often discuss the evils that have been drawn to the small town in Maine, so it makes sense that Doctor SleepThe vampire-like True Knot group would feel comfortable in a place already overrun by bloodsucking vampires. Although it is unclear when the True Knot first came to Salem’s lot, it was apparently after the events of the vampire Kurt Barlow’s attack in 1975.

Doctor Sleep He doesn’t really go into Jerusalem’s lot throughout its history, but the references to the area are a reminder of the many other evil supernatural forces that lurk throughout Stephen King’s fictional universe. The 2019 movie largely takes place in New Hampshire before he returned to The Shinings Overlook Hotel in Colorado, so There is no known direct overlap between Danny, Rose the Hat, and the vampires of Salem’s place. Still, it’s likely that Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose the Hat and her fellow True Knot members were there after the time of Salem’s placeIt’s the end.

Doctor Sleep’s connection to Salem’s plot highlights a harsh reality about Mark and Ben’s cut end

Ben & Mark return to battle Salem’s lot of vampires a year later in this book

Considering Doctor Sleeps book picks up nearly 40 years after Salem’s placeWith the movie adding another six years on it, the True Knot’s choice of location for their safe haven highlights a sad fact about the city. After Ben Mears and Mark Petrie escaped Salem’s lot, the city remained infested by vampires and evil entities, despite the fact that they successfully killed Kurt Barlow. In addition, the lot of Jerusalem still inhabited by vampires and the true knot decades later is worse with the knowledge of the epilogue of the book that was cut from 2024s. Salem’s place Movie.

At the end of King’s 1975 novel, an epilogue reveals that Ben and Mark return to Salem’s lot a year later. The duo decides to fight the vampires yet again, devising a plan to start a brush fire in the woods outside town, draw the vampires out of their hiding places and kill as many of them as they can. Subsequent Stephen King stories Implies that Ben and Mark succeeded in killing many vampires, but that some would always remain.

Given the fact that Doctor SleepS True Knot later established a safe haven, this is more upsetting Ben and Mark’s plan didn’t work to truly keep evil out of Salem’s lot. Not only would blood-sucking vampires remain in the city, but new evils like the psychic vampires would move in to join them, leaving Jerusalem’s lot a cursed place.

Why Salem’s place attracts so many evil groups and species

Salem’s Lot has a dark history that predates the vampire attack

Even before Kurt Barlow arrives at Salem’s Lot in the 2024 movie, It is established that the city has always been home to evil events and evil forces. The town’s attraction to evil forces is greatly symbolized by the Marsten House in Salem’s place. The location was originally the home of former hitman Hubert “Hubie” Marsten, who killed his wife before taking his own life many years before the movie’s events. However, evil still finds solace in the walls, and it is where Kurt Barlow chooses to reside and begin his vampiric terrors in 1975.

From the time of its early colonization, Salem’s Lot has a history of cults, supernatural activities, occult interests and mysterious events. In the late 1700s, a preacher found a book about the occult in town, which was followed by him and his followers mysteriously disappearing from Salem’s lot. It seems that the dark history of Salem’s lot and its unexplained supernatural functions have simply attracted evil forces as a place where groups like vampires and the true knot can more freely engage in their evil practices. Perhaps, some forces on his land even make their evil more powerful.

Salem’s Lot 2024 mirrors the darkest moment of Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep movie

Ralphie Glick’s agonizing death is reminiscent of Bradley Trevor’s in a doctor’s sleep

In addition to the more direct connection of the true note with a safe haven in Jerusalem’s site, Mike Flanagan’s acclaimed. Doctor Sleep Movie and Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s place Both movies feature gruesome child death scenes. Arguably The most difficult-to-watch scene in Doctor Sleep Is the excruciating murder of Bradley Trevor (Jacob Tremblay)A young kid who is captured, tortured and killed by the True Knot for being “steamed” after his baseball game. Tremblay’s bloodcurdling screams make the scene incredibly disturbing and agonizing, emphasizing the truly vile and sick nature of Rose the Hat and the True Knot.

While Doctor SleepThe child death scene is more graphic and intense, Salem’s place Had a similar moment at the beginning of the 2024 movie. After Kurt Barlow is first brought to Salem’s lot, Richard Straker brings the vampire the young boy Ralph Glick as a human sacrifice to begin his reign of terror. Ralph is then brought before Kurt Barlow, with the young boy horrifyingly screaming as the vampires tear him apart. And blood is seen splattering on Straker’s face. Both Stephen King adaptation moments are extremely disturbing starts to the terrible takeovers of Jerusalem’s lot-rooted villains.