I read and reviewed the illustrated edition separately (apparently illustrated editions aren't folded in with non-illustrated) so this is basically just for my own records. Cutting and pasting the relevant bits from the other review:

I don't want to say that this is derivative, entirely, although the influence of Dracula is both immense and immediately apparent. Granted, I struggle to think of a vampire novel in which this is not the case, but I still really enjoyed it. King is always compulsively readable, and the book is extremely creepy. The vampires scratching at second floor windows will never fail to make me shudder, and I freely admit that this was the point, in the middle of the night, when I stopped reading and decided to wait for daylight before I picked the book back up again.

Where King succeeds particularly well here, I think, is in his depiction of a small town that becomes ever more isolated, and in showing just how easy it is for that isolation to go unremarked. Monster stories in general are so dependent on geography, on hunting grounds and places of easy camouflage, and I liked how both the physical and moral settings of the book underpinned this. 'Salem's Lot may be a small and isolated community, but it's also one where everyday human evil is ever-present - domestic violence, child abuse, gossip and ignorance. It's so easy for true corruption to sneak in because corruption is already embedded there, albeit in miniature.

I do find it slightly unfortunate that the main character, Ben Mears, is so overshadowed by the supporting cast. Both Mark and Father Callahan seem much stronger characters to me. Mark, in particular, seems an early rendition of Bill Denbrough, and I'm far more interested in seeing what happened offscreen to Callahan than I am in anything that actually happened to Ben throughout the book.