April 5: Moriarty! — Happy birthday Michael Moriarty. Watch one of his movies.

Michael Moriarty and Larry Cohen worked together on Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff, It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive and in the Masters of Horror episode “Pick Me Up.” Cohen told The Flashback Files, “He’s very difficult, but not with me. I always get along great with the actors who have bad reputations: Moriarty, Rip Torn, Michael Parks, Broderick Crawford. People who have trouble with everybody else usually have a wonderful time working with me. And I have a wonderful  time working with them. I’m not an authoritarian director. I don’t go in trying to boss everyone around and play Otto Preminger.”

Moriarty was born in Detroit and was the son of Eleanor and George Moriarty, a surgeon, and the grandson of George Moriarty, a major league third baseman, umpire and manager. In addition to his work on the stage, he earned Emmy awards (Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for The Glass Menagerie, Holocaust and James Dean, as well as a Tony for Find Your Way Home. Most folks know him best from Law and Order, playing the role of Ben Stone. He left the show in 1994, claiming that his departure was a result of threatening a lawsuit against Attorney General Janet Reno, who was attempting to censor the show. On The Howard Stern Show, he offered to return if Wolf was fired and he placed a full-page advertisement in Variety asking for other actors to stand with him against censorship. NBC and Wolf claimed he was fired for erratic behavior.

Shortly after leaving Law & Order, he moved to Canada, declaring himself a political exile. He was granted Canadian citizenship and now lives in Vancouver. He’s also a political writer and a jazz musician when he’s not acting.

As for this movie, Larry Cohen had written a draft  for the 1979 miniseries Salem’s Lot. It was rejected by Warner Brothers, but years later, when they wanted a low budget movie from him, they agreed to a sequel that was loosely based on King’s story. He also was influenced by the play Our Town and told Michael Doyle in the book Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters, “The intention was always to bring a sense of humor to the picture in playing with the established elements of vampire movies. Audiences recognize aspects of the mythology and know what they mean, but I don’t like vampire movies particularly. In fact, I find them very tedious. With A Return to Salem’s Lot, I tried to revamp the vampire legend by making vampires the most persecuted race in Europe.”

Joe Weber (Moriarty) is an anthropologist who comes back to America to take care of his son Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed), who is causing trouble for his ex-wife Sally (Ronee Blakley) who wants to commit him to a mental home. They move to Salem’s Lot, taking over an old house from Joe’s Aunt Clara and soon learn that the entire town is filled with vampires, led by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan). As Jeremy meets young female bloodsucker Amanda Fenton (Tara Reid), while Joe meets Aunt Clara (June Havoc), who has never died. The town has gotten past the issues of drinking human blood, like AIDS, but feeding on cows. They reach out to Joe, an anthropologist, by asking him to write the Bible of vampires. He also reconnects with a girl he slept with when they were teenagers, Cathy (Katja Crosby) and discovers that the vampires came from Europe at the same time as the Mayflower, which is an interesting idea.

This is a movie that has its hero be filled with violent outbursts, like beating a human drone to death with a rock or stabbing the final vampire with the America flag after setting all of the coffins on fire. Joe is helped by Nazi hunter Van Meer (Samuel Fuller), who is the best part of the movie. And oh yeah — the town has already started to take over his son.

If this was called anything other than Return to Salem’s Lot, I think people would love it. It has Daniel Pearl as its cinematographer and there’s plenty of grisly gore at the end. Shot around the same time as It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive, it’s not Cohen’s best work, but even his lowest ebb is better than many’s greatest effort.