Gary Dauberman’s Initial ‘Salem’s Lot’ Cut Was 3 Hours Long and Included Marsten House Opening

The long-awaited movie adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot from director Gary Dauberman (Annabelle Comes Home) is now available to stream on Max, unleashing a stylish vampire outbreak without much in the way of story. It turns out that there was a much longer cut of the film that Dauberman ultimately trimmed down for a leaner runtime.

The filmmaker revealed in a recent interview with Den of Geek, “My first cut was about three hours. There’s a lot left out. My first draft of the script is 180-odd pages or something because you’re trying to include everything. And a lot of it has to do with a lot of the secondary characters and stuff that I spoke about. So it was sad to see that stuff go, but it’s like a necessary evil.”

One of the key scenes trimmed? Ben Mears’ chilling encounter with Depression-era hitman Hubert Marsten in the eerie Marsten House, later purchased by Kurt Barlow (Alexander Ward) for his antique shop. “In the book, Ben sneaks into the Marsten House, and he sees the ghost of Hubert Marsten,