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When the town of Jerusalem's Lot is overrun by Vampire s, Father Callahan lends his support to local writer Ben Mears, his girlfriend Susan Norton, the young Mark Petrie, teacher Matt Burke and local doctor Jimmy Cody to put an end to the Nocturnal creatures. Callahan later learns that there are three types of vampires. The Type Ones are the most powerful ones and are almost Immortal . They can spread vampirism to others and create Type Two vampires. Type Twos are more common and can create other Type Twos or Type Threes. Lastly, the Type Threes cannot spread vampirism but can spread Diseases That Travel By Blood , such as AIDS . Callahan refers to them as ' Mosquitoes '. His faith falters in the presence of the leader of the vampires, Kurt Barlow, a Type One vampire. After saving Mark Petrie from the vampire, his faith fails and he is dependent on his Crucifix which soon loses its powers. Barlow tears open his own throat and forces the priest to drink his blood, taunting him by calling him 'shaman' and ultimately damning him. Defeated, Callahan returns to his church, but burns his hand on the door and is refused entrance. Callahan leaves the town on a bus, bemoaning how 'dirty' he has become. Now seeing vampires all around him, Callahan's alcoholism increases and he joins a homeless shelter where he manages to improve. He befriends several people, such as Rowan MacGruder and Lupe Delgado. Callahan later expresses a deep fondness for Lupe. He wonders if this indicates that he is Gay , but despite a brief kiss on the cheek nothing physical occurs. Lupe is later infected by a Type Three vampire and subsequently dies from AIDS. Callahan begins to kill vampires, which attracts the attention of the Crimson King and his soldiers, the Low Men in Yellow Coats. The Hitler Brothers, two hoodlums who murder Jews and homosexuals and carve Swastika s on their victim's foreheads, are hired to find Callahan. They torture Rowan MacGruder, who later dies of his wounds, in hopes of finding him. They later find and attack Callahan, and carve a Cross on his forehead, intending it to become a swastika. But before they can finish the swastika, Callahan is rescued by Calvin Tower and Aaron Deepneau, two men who figure prominently later in Roland's quest. The Hitler Brothers flee, and are later killed by the Low Men. Callahan is later lured into a building by Richard Sayre, a Low Man and several vampires. Rather than being infected, he escapes out a window and commits Suicide . He wakes up in the Way Station, where he encounters Walter O'Dim who gives him Black Thirteen , in hopes of it killing the gunslinger Roland Deschain later in his journey. This transports him to the Doorway Cave in the Callas, where he leads a new life and becomes a Pere. The Callas are often invaded by the mechanical Wolves, which steal the children and leaves them 'Roont'. When Roland and his ka-tet arrive, Callahan seeks their help. During their stay, he shares his life story with them. The Wolves are defeated with the help of the ka-tet, but Susannah becomes possessed by the demon succubus known as Mia and escapes via the Doorway Cave. Callahan discovers the book known as '''Salem's Lot'', prompting him to consider if he is in fact real or fictional. Roland and Eddie plan to go to the Dixie Pig in New York (the man who saved Callahan) while Jake and Pere Callahan plan to see Calvin Tower and Stephen King in Maine. But something wrong occurs, and Jake and Callahan end up in New York with Black 13. Pere Callahan and Jake leave Black Thirteen in a storage locker in the World Trade Center , where it is presumably destroyed during the events of September 11 . (Whether or not Black Thirteen had anything to do with the tragedy is left ambigious to the reader). They go to the Dixie Pig, where they are ambushed by an army of Low Men and vampires. Father Callahan sacrifices himself and lets Jake go while he handles the creatures himself. In one last act of redemption, he focuses his power on his faith alone and not the trinkets that come with it, taking down as many creatures as he can. As the vampires swarm around him, Callahan chooses death over becoming one of them and puts a gun under his chin. "May you find your Tower, Roland, and breach it, ''and may you climb to the top!''" He says right before he commits suicide and escapes their grasp for good. OTHER VERSIONS The original version of '''Salem's Lot'' had a different fate for Callahan. Rather than forced to drink Barlow's blood and leaving town damned, he marks the vampire with a knife before comitting suicide. Furious, the vampire desecrates the priest's body, decapitating it and hanging it upside down. In the '''Salem's Lot'' miniseries, the priest was portrayed by actor James Cromwell . The beginning of the film had protagonist Ben Mears enter a homeless shelter and see Father Callahan giving out food. Furious for some unknown reason, Mears confronts Callahan. He chases the priest up the stairs and the two have a confrontation which ends up with Mears pushing Callahan out the window and the two landing on a car. The rest of the film is told in flashback as Ben explains to a hospital orderly why he did what he did. Callahan is more or less portrayed the same way that he did in the original novel (although there is a scene with him browsing what could be a Satanic porn site) but with a jarring change halfway through the second part. In the pivotal scene where Barlow forces him to drink his blood, Callahan's lack of faith is ommitted. Rather, it has Callahan becoming Barlow's new disciple and effectively a villain. He later visits Matt Burke in the hospital and impales him with his cane. Back in present time, Callahan is suffocated with a pillow by Mark Petrie in the hospital. Although Cromwell's acting ability was well favored among both fans and critics, the drastic change in his character upset many fans. To make matters worse, the last three ''Dark Tower'' books that featured Callahan's redemption had come out during the time the miniseries aired, making his turn to evil all the more offensive to them. |
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