Whilst clearing out my old bedroom at my dad’s house this weekend, I found something that might be of use to anyone wanting to digitally re-create the theatrical version of Salem’s Lot. Namely, an off-air DVD recording of it from UK channel Five USA in 2007 or so, recorded at maximum bitrate and split between two discs. As far as I’m aware, the theatrical version hasn’t been played on UK TV since.

There are some caveats, obviously: the station bug on the corner of the picture is fairly large and intrusive; the picture has been cropped to 14:9 (still the standard TV widescreen ratio at the time); and at the moment, it looks like Disc 2 is corrupt and won’t play or copy over, so I only have the first hour (up to Ralphie biting Mike in the grave).

Still, the recording is nice and clear, so it still might be useful for a preservation. I’ll see if I can save Disc 2 with the rest of the film in the meantime though.