’Salem’s Lot is an example of Gothic horror in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, and Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. It contains most of the elements of the traditional Gothic: a gloomy castle or haunted house, a sense of enclosure and entrapment, a desolate or haunted landscape, a damsel in distress, a ghost or monster, a hero with a dark secret, and a confrontation with evil in supernatural form.

The European Gothic is the literary reflection of Gothic architecture that appeared in the medieval era. It is often associated with dark, spooky buildings, such as castles and cathedrals full of secret passages and hidden chambers. American writers adopting the genre suffered a dearth of ancient castles and abbeys, so substituted wilderness to create a sense of isolation and menace. In his languorous and dreamy description of the town of ’salem’s Lot, King creates loneliness and isolation that turns a pretty little town into a sinister place. The reader has the impression the town is set apart from the real world, an effect that King reinforces when Ben reflects that the name of the town ought to be “Time” to reflect this air of being lost in the past while time passes it by.