Long before “True Blood” or “Twilight” brought vampires to small-town America, horror writer Stephen King imagined the creatures invading his backyard in rural Maine (technically, a fictional place called Jerusalem’s Lot). Until then, blood-sucking bat-men were something only Europeans had to worry about, as Dracula and his castle-dwelling kin preyed on hapless villagers half a world away. Then came “’Salem’s Lot,” King’s second novel in which the man who’d made witches a modern-day concern with “Carrie” asked American readers: What if an outbreak of vampirism struck your community?
A tepid new (technically, two years delayed) feature version returns to that question a half-century later, offering flashes of style and a more satisfying finale in an otherwise weak take on its dated source material. Whereas King seemed to be kicking another stuffy old…
