Mike Flanagan’s Underrated $72M Horror From 5 Years Ago Subtly Follows Up Stephen King’s New Streaming Hit Movie (2025)

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Doctor Sleep's Vampiric True Knot Cult Has A Safe Haven In Jerusalem's Lot The Psychic Vampires Are One Of The Many Evils That Inhabit Salem's Lot Doctor Sleep's Connection To Salem's Lot Highlights A Harsh Reality About Mark & Ben's Cut Ending Ben & Mark Returned To Battle Salem's Lot's Vampires A Year Later In The Book Why Salem's Lot Attracts So Many Evil Groups & Species Salem's Lot Has A Dark History That Predates The Vampire Attack 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 Doctor Sleep Your Rating Your Rating References

WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Salem's Lot (2024)!Max has a new streaming horror hit on its hands with the 2024 adaptation of Salem’s Lot, which 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 holding Easter eggs, implicit links, or direct connections to his other stories, with many of his Maine-set 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 Lot, which became the streaming service’s top-trending movie after its premiere, is the latest take on King’s 1975 same-named book, which explores the titular town as it becomes overrun with vampires. Some of Salem’s Lot’s characters eventually appeared in other King stories, such as The Dark Tower, but other links to his universe are more subtle. For instance, while 2024’s Salem’s Lot movie doesn’t address this link due to its earlier timeline, the titular location becomes important to the villainous True Knot cult in King’s Doctor Sleep novel, which was adapted by Mike Flanagan in 2019.

Doctor Sleep's Vampiric True Knot Cult Has A Safe Haven In Jerusalem's Lot

The Psychic Vampires Are One Of The Many Evils That Inhabit Salem's Lot

Led by Rebecca Ferguson’s villainous Rose the Hat in Doctor Sleep, the True Knot is a sinister cult from Stephen King’s 2013 novel that murderously siphons the “steam” of children to make themselves powerful and youthful. The villains are considered Shine vampires, as their Shine-sucking powers and mode of killing operate similarly to a vampire sucking the blood from a human. The 2019 movie, which serves as a sequel to Stephen King’s The Shining story, follows a grown-up Dan “Danny” Torrance as he battles the True Knot and tries to protect Abra, a powerful young girl with the Shine.

Though this reference isn’t made clear in the 2019 film, Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep book reveals that the True Knot has a safe haven in Salem’s Lot. The 2024 Salem’s Lot movie as well as King’s 1975 novel frequently discuss the evils that have been attracted to the small town in Maine, so it makes sense that Doctor Sleep’s vampire-like True Knot group would feel comfortable in a location already overrun by bloodsucking vampires. While it’s unclear when the True Knot first came to Salem’s Lot, it was seemingly after the events of the vampire Kurt Barlow’s attack in 1975.

While it's hard to know exactly what the vampires will be in the new Salem's Lot adaptation, Stephen King's book and previous miniseries offer clues.

Doctor Sleep doesn’t actually venture into Jerusalem’s Lot throughout its story, 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 moving back to The Shining’s Overlook Hotel in Colorado, so there isn’t any known direct overlap between Danny, Rose the Hat, and the vampires of Salem’s Lot. Still, it’s likely that Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose the Hat and her fellow True Knot members went there after the time of Salem’s Lot’s ending.

Doctor Sleep's Connection To Salem's Lot Highlights A Harsh Reality About Mark & Ben's Cut Ending

Ben & Mark Returned To Battle Salem's Lot's Vampires A Year Later In The Book

Mike Flanagan’s Underrated $72M Horror From 5 Years Ago Subtly Follows Up Stephen King’s New Streaming Hit Movie (2)

Considering Doctor Sleep’s book picks up nearly 40 years after Salem’s Lot, with the movie adding another six years onto that, the True Knot’s choice of location for their safe haven highlights a sad reality about the town. After Ben Mears and Mark Petrie escaped Salem’s Lot, the town remained infested by vampires and evil entities, despite the fact that they successfully killed Kurt Barlow. Additionally, Jerusalem’s Lot still being inhabited by vampires and the True Knot decades later is worse with the knowledge of the book’s epilogue that was cut from 2024’s Salem’s Lot movie.

The duo decide to battle the vampires yet again, devising a plan to start a brush fire in the woods outside town, draw the vampires outside their hiding places, and kill as many of them remaining as they can.

Why Salem's Lot Attracts So Many Evil Groups & Species

Salem's Lot Has A Dark History That Predates The Vampire Attack

Mike Flanagan’s Underrated $72M Horror From 5 Years Ago Subtly Follows Up Stephen King’s New Streaming Hit Movie (3)

Even before Kurt Barlow arrives at Salem’s Lot in the 2024 movie, it’s established that the town has always been home to sinister events and evil forces. The town’s attraction to evil forces is greatly symbolized by the Marsten House in Salem’s Lot. 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 comfort within those walls, and it’s where Kurt Barlow chooses to reside and begin his vampiric terrors in 1975.

Only three Stephen King stories are either fully or partially set in Salem's Lot: Salem's Lot (1975), One for the Road (1977), and Jerusalem's Lot (1978). However, the town is referenced by several other stories, such as Doctor Sleep and The Dark Tower series.

From the time of its early colonization, Salem’s Lot has had 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 vanishing from Salem’s Lot. It seems that the dark history of Salem’s Lot and its unexplained supernatural occurrences have simply attracted evil forces as a location where groups like vampires and the True Knot can more freely engage with their sinister practices. Perhaps, some forces on its 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 Doctor Sleep

In addition to the more direct connection of the True Knot having a safe haven in Jerusalem’s Lot, Mike Flanagan’s acclaimed Doctor Sleep movie and Gary Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot movie both 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 was captured, tortured, and killed by the True Knot for his “steam” after his baseball game. The blood-curdling screams of Tremblay make the scene incredibly disturbing and agonizing, emphasizing the truly vile and sickening nature of Rose the Hat and the True Knot.

Key Statistics
Title	Box Office	Budget	Rotten Tomatoes Score
Doctor Sleep (2019)	$72.4 million	$45 million	79%
Salem's Lot (2024)	N/A (Streaming Release)	TBC	46%

While Doctor Sleep’s child death scene is more graphic and intense, Salem’s Lot has a similar moment toward the beginning of the 2024 movie. After Kurt Barlow is first brought to Salem’s Lot, Richard Straker brings the vampire the young boy Ralphie Glick as a human sacrifice to begin his reign of terror. Ralphie is then brought before Kurt Barlow, with the young boy horrifyingly screaming as the vampire tears him apart and blood is seen spattering on Straker’s face. Both Stephen King adaptation moments are extremely disturbing starts to the Jerusalem’s Lot-rooted villains’ horrific takeovers.