I was lucky enough to be the child of parents that didn’t really police what I watched (within reason… ish). Some of my warmest memories are of my mother and I going to our local video store (The Video Station) and spending an hour or more picking a bunch of movies to take home (and also renting a giant VCR as we didn’t own one). I still remember the distinct smell of that place, which I naturally associated with happiness. I spent all of my time in the Horror section, which was surprisingly large for a small town family-owned video shop, and offered films from all over the world.

At some point I discovered that they sold a large catalog of the films their distributor offered. Each film included a synopsis, year, rating, genres, director, and occasionally a one-sentence review. The catalog was $12, a pretty steep fee considering we were actually quite poor. My mother noticed that I always returned to it to look up movies and surprised me one day with my very own copy.

I read it like a book and circled every film I wanted to see, then would dog-ear the pages with circled films. On our trips to The Video Station I would bring the catalog with me and use it as a reference to pick my movies for the day. Salem’s Lot was one of those films, yet they never had the video in stock. It was always rented out.

I know I had already seen it on television, but I was much younger and could remember just one scene: the kitchen scene. I would have been just six-years-old when it originally aired in 1979 and probably hadn’t yet developed a taste for Horror, but that one scene undoubtedly played an integral role in my love of the genre.

I didn’t choose to feature that scene because so many people have suggested the scene that I did feature (I’ll bet you can guess which scene it is). I’d love to hear what you think! Drop a comment below or comment on YouTube if you’d like.