Forget Stephen King's book. A Return to Salem's Lot has very little in common with it.

Joe Webber (Michael Moriarty), an anthropologist, is called home to take custody of his delinquent son, Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed). He accepts a job offer in a small town in Maine where he inherited a house, a place called Jerusalem's Lot.

He arrives and learns that the town is full of vampires and they want him to write a bible for their people. To make sure he does not run or try to kill them, they abduct Jeremy. The head vampire plans to school Joe to replace him as the leader of the clan. Joe must find a way to escape with his son before the vampires transform both of them.

A Return to Salem's Lot is a below-average vampire movie. There are lots of interesting complications in the story and rather unique or unusual scenes. The wedding was interesting and the pregnancy did step outside the norm for vampire films. The makeup job on the head vampire was extraordinary. He was hideous, but somehow he had an alien air. He was not so much scary as grotesque.

The vampire attack scenes lacked credibility and were fairly cheesy. They should have been much better. Moriarty runs hot and cold with his lines; at times they are delivered realistically, but at other times they sound like they are being read for the first time and the emotion is not reflected in his voice, facial expressions or body language. This is the worst performance I have seen from this actor.

The only strong point to this movie was the appearance of Samuel Fuller as Van Meer, the Nazi hunter. He stole the show and his presence seemed to energize Moriarty. They had strong screen chemistry, but it was simply a case of too little too late.

The bottom line is that A Return to Salem's Lot is not a total waste of time. It has a few redeeming qualities, but the overall rating of the film will not live up the average of the genre.