Straker being knocked unconscious by Mark, then violently killed and sucked dry by Barlow is a well-deserved death after everything he'd done.
Reggie Sawyer, a domestic abuser and rapist who threatened to murder someone, ends up being murdered by that very same guy due to his cruelty.
Barlow being staked to death by a very pissed off Ben while screaming in agony is a great relief to the reader after he spent the entire book stealing and ruining the lives of everyone in town.
Kurt Barlow is an ancient, insidious vampire. His ultimate goal is to turn Jerusalem's Lot into a nest for vampires by playing on the townspeople's desires and insecurities and offering them a chance to achieve what they want, which always ends in him turning them. After losing control of his thirst and killing a wounded Straker, blaming Mark for the incident, he turns Susan, driving Ben to seek her out and kill her, murders Mark's parents in front of him, and, after a standoff of faith with Father Callahan—which the priest lost—he forces him to drink some of his blood, barring him from holy ground for the rest of his life. One of his final acts in a last-ditch effort to stop Ben from staking him is to hypnotize Mark to kill him, all the while threatening to castrate Mark before turning him. And, even after his final demise, he still succeeded in his goal, sealing the fate of anyone who walks into the town of 'Salem's Lot.
Richard Throckett Straker is an antique salesman as well as Kurt Barlow's human servant who brings him into the small town of Jerusalem's Lot. During the first half of the novel, he murders a young boy, Ralphie Glick, as a sacrifice to Satan, and abducts his brother, Danny, giving him to Barlow to be turned, an act which results in Danny infecting many people over the course of the novel. Within this time frame, Straker kills Win Purinton's dog, Doc, and hangs him on a fence, then buys every rose in town, all to protect himself from his master, while everyone else in town is left vulnerable. Later, when Mark Petrie goes to investigate Straker's place of residence, the Marsten House, he finds a scrapbook bound in human flesh that has a picture of a naked man—likely Straker himself—holding the corpse of a child, implying that Ralphie was far from the first child he killed. Shortly afterwards, Straker catches Mark and ties him up and leaves him to be turned by Barlow.
Creepy Awesome: Goes with the territory for Barlow, being a Dracula expy.
How did Barlow enter Mark's family's home without an invitation first? We eventually learn in the The Dark Tower that Barlow really is far older than Christianity itself, so it's probably safe to assume that being so powerful he was able to ignore this rule.
This is similar to how Barlow isn't repelled by a crucifix that isn't held by a true believer, and can affect mortals even when he's dormant in his coffin.
Who the hell names their child "Dud?" Somebody who was really disappointed that their baby was a hunchback...in their view, a dud.
Harsher in Hindsight: On their way to the funeral home where Marjorie Glick has been taken, Ben Mears and Jimmy Cody discuss how disastrous it would be if Jerusalem's Lot were taken over by vampires. Ben mentions that an out-of-towner could drive through without realizing anything was wrong. In the follow-up short story "One for the Road" (from Night Shift), this is exactly what happens; a family of three drive into town during a fierce blizzard and their car gets stuck in the snow. It doesn't end well for them.
King is a big Boston Red Sox fan, and at one point he has Ben and the Nortons discussing the team's "fading pennant chances" during a visit. As it happened, the very week the novel was published the Red Sox had won the pennant and were playing in one of the most memorable World Series of all time.
A man named John Snow is briefly mentioned as one of Barlow's victims. And for those who support R+L=J, there's another Snow called Royal. A line of prose also says "Winter is Coming" word for word.
One of Burke's former students is named Gary Coleman.
Near the climax the text describes Ben being taken over by "whatever moved the greatest wheels of the universe", which is explicitly called a Force.
It Was His Sled: The thing that turns Jerusalem's Lot into a ghost town is a vampire infestation.
That this wasn't immediately apparent when the novel was first published was actually a result of Executive Meddling. King's original draft had Barlow's vampiric nature revealed much earlier in the story, but his editor at Doubleday suggested he rewrite Part I to keep the nature of the threat more ambiguous until The Reveal.
Sandy McDougall. She abuses her baby, but she is only seventeen, lonely and isolated, stuck in a loveless shotgun marriage and living in a rundown trailer, having had to give up her education, her friends and her dreams of becoming a model. She also feels sick with guilt about her abuse of her child (and breaks down completely when she finds him dead).
Bonnie Sawyer lies about having an affair with Corey that she personally initiated and instead claims that he raped her after her husband Reggie finds out, and in the miniseries even backs this up when Reggie threatens to kill him if it's true, but while her actions may not be agreeable it is because she's horribly scared of said husband due to him being a violently abusive prick.
Whatever sympathy one may have for Sandy McDougall dissolves due to the fact that she beats her infant son.
Reggie Sawyer, a domestic abuser, crosses it by assaulting and nearly killing Bonnie's lover, and then raping Bonnie herself, flushing her birth control pills down the toilet in a horrific variant of The Baby Trap.
Dooming a whole town to be turned into a vampire nest is plenty evil by itself, but the worst thing Straker does that really places him far beyond redemption is offer Danny Glick to Barlow, and sacrifice his brother, Ralphie.
While Barlow is horrible from the get-go, he's arguably at his most despicable when murdering Mark's parents in front of him.
Barlow yelling "LET ME GOOOOOOO!" at Ben as the latter is staking him is a bit giggle-worthy.
Barlow killing Mark's parents is supposed to be terrifying, but the manner in which he kills them, by clanging their heads together, feels like it wouldn't be out of place in The Three Stooges.
Whenever a resident of Salem's Lot is attacked by a vampire, it's usually scary, but the phrase Stephen King frequently uses to describe the situation sounds more like someone falling over. "They fell on him."
Once Original, Now Common: While Salem's Lot is still considered to be one of King's best books, after almost fifty years of Stephen King novels, the way he brings a whole community to life and weaves them into his horror plot can feel less novel and unique.
One-Scene Wonder: Father Callahan's housekeeper, Rhoda Curless, only has one notable scene in the book. Still, she makes it a pretty memorable one by picking up on the presence of the vampires and getting a rather moving speech about her boss before deciding to flee town while there's still time.
Signature Scene: The book's major contribution to vampire pop culture is the image of child vampires floating outside your window asking to be let in.
Slow-Paced Beginning: The first half is mostly about the day-to-day lives of the townsfolk. It picks up once the vampire shenanigans start happening.
While not exactly expressed in the right manner, many of Ann Norton's qualms about Susan and Ben's relationship aren't that unreasonable, at least at first. Susan barely knows Ben, yet immediately takes to him and dumps Floyd Tibbits without a second thought and gets pissed that her mother doesn't immediately approve of him. Any parent worth their salt would be suspicious, or at least cautious, towards Ben until he's more of a known quantity with both them and the town. Of course, Ann takes it way too far, assuming the worst of Ben, deciding he's a sissy merely because he's a writer, unquestionably accepting that alcohol had to be involved in his motorcycle crash ("They don't give you a breathalizer unless you've been drinking!"), in fact, seeming to accept any information she gets about him, even from the town gossip, as long as it's negative.
She also worries that Ben is a fly-by-nighter who isn't planning to stay in the Lot once his novel is done, leaving Susan with a broken heart. She's partially right, Ben does indeed plan to leave and even he isn't sure he loves Susan enough to take her with him. Susan, however, plans to leave with Ben no matter what so it's kind of a moot point.
Tear Jerker: Danny Glick's funeral, with his father jumping into his grave onto his coffin, trying to get him to 'come out' and stop 'playing tricks' on him and his mother; ending with his despair that he "can't be dead. He's only twelve fucking years old".
The Woobie: Randy McDougall is a baby despised and neglected by both of his parents, and his mother Sandy beats him repeatedly. Becoming a vampire seems like an improvement for him.
The 1979 miniseries contains examples of:
Complete Monster: Richard Straker, given more screentime and importance in the miniseries, is the wicked familiar of "The Master", Kurt Barlow. A murderer who relishes in evil, Straker smuggles Barlow into the town of Jerusalem's Lot, kidnapping the child Ralphie Glick to give to Barlow before providing more victims to the vampire master to spread the plague further. Under Straker, most of the Lot are killed or turned into vampires, with Straker even leading an attempt to eliminate a boy named Mark, challenging the priest Father Callahan to face Barlow himself, "faith against faith", smugly watching as Barlow murders the priest when he is unable to put down his cross.
Signature Scene: The confrontation between Mike Ryerson and Jason Burke after Mike succumbs to the vampire infection. Lew Ayres and especially Geoffrey Lewis play the scene to the hilt. With the added glowing eyes on Lewis, it remains one of the most terrifying scenes in the miniseries. Mention also needs to be made to the sequence where vampire Danny Glick attempts to get Mark Petrie to open his window and let him in.
Special Effects Failure: The Jeep the Ben character drives has an extreme problem with the driver's side door, to the point that in some shots when he's driving away, David Soul has to slam it repeatedly to get it to close.
The 2004 miniseries contains examples of:
Complete Monster: Kurt Barlow is the same vampire hiding a brutal sadist beneath a well-spoken veneer as in the novel. A being that has lived for centuries and consumed countless lives, Barlow opens the series having reached out and used his dark powers to make Hubie Marsten become a child killer before killing the man for failing him. Barlow then arrives in 'Salem's Lot and dispatches his servant Richard Straker to find victims for Barlow to feast upon, turning children and adults alike into his vampiric slaves then letting them loose onto the town to devour or turn more innocents. Barlow's evil results in swathes of men, women, and children being reduced to raw meat or creatures of the night, after which Barlow horribly breaks and enslaves Father Callahan in a "battle of faiths", forcing the man to murder those who stand against Barlow while Barlow personally targets the loved ones of his enemies.
Dud Rodgers, who despite having a hunched back and living in a landfill, was happy and good-natured. Then Ruth dumps him and her dad has his best friend fire him. Then Barlow makes him an offer....
Ruth clearly hates having to dump Dud and is forced to by her father, who is also sexually abusing her.
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