I'm gonna confess something that you may find hard to believe; prior to doing this, I had seen comparatively few Stephen King movies or TV series. I'd seen quite a few, but nowhere near all that was available, and even after this weekend I've got a lot to go. Why had I only watched a handful of them? I'm not sure. I think some of it had to do with preferring the books to the films, which is a little odd coming from a guy whose blog was once all about adapting King's works into films, but I also think that was part of my motivation.
So many of the existing King adaptations tended to catch the letter of King's works and miss the spirit entirely. They suffered from lazy translation from page to screen, bad casting, directors who didn't take the work very seriously, and of course, they tended very strongly to ramp up the cheese. The whole purpose of this blog was to go back and do it right this time. This seems to be happening anyway, though I would strongly have preferred my approach of connecting the films to each other. But cest la vie.
Anyway, I had seen the "big ones", so to speak, but in many cases it had been years since I'd seen them last. I saw Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining (multiple times now), Christine, Pet Sematary and others that were more recent like The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and of course the films that have been released since I started this blog (some of them, at any rate). But as my blog's focus has changed, I thought I'd better catch myself up on these films and talk about them as I go. I'm a lot behind now, considering just how many I've watched, but here goes nothing.
Carrie (1976)
Of course, I'd seen this before, but I'd forgotten almost everything except Sissy Spacek's performance in the title role and Piper Laurie's unhinged performance as her mother, Margaret. For instance, I'd forgotten how the opening sequence, set in the girls' locker room of a high school, is basically what feels like an hour's worth of slo-mo pans past naked teenage body after naked teenage body, finally focusing on Carrie herself, the camera lovingly panning up and down her nakedness as she runs her hands all over herself, including one shot that I'm sure is meant to evoke masturbation. The whole scene felt pervy to me, almost voyeuristic. I'm no prude, and yes, I'm certain all these girls were in their 20's, or maybe even 30's, but they were meant to be high school age, and the camera spends a lot of time showing us as much of their nudity (including full frontal) as it can before the story starts. Some may think this scene is meant to symbolize Carrie's sexual awakening, but she's not actually undergoing a sexual awakening, or at least, not in any way that has to do with sexual desire or expression. Anyway, that's all I'm going to harp on. (Another thing I forgot; Edie McClurg is in this movie. As one of the students. Edie McClurg, who played countless Karens throughout the 80's and 90's. And no, she doesn't look young or un-Karen-esque here.) Otherwise, the adaptation is pretty straight-up, with the only real difference being how obvious it is that Carrie is attractive. The weight issues and acne she had in the novel have never transferred to film, despite three (count 'em, three) adaptations. I experienced again, however, the feeling I had the last time I watched it, in which I was very much on Carrie's side when she finally snaps, being less afraid and more "you go girl" because nearly everyone in the movie except Sue, Tommy and Ms. Desjardins (Ms. Collins here) is just horrible to her. The novel sold the horror aspect of this scene much better, by letting us into Carrie's head a little, letting us know that she was literally ready to kill everyone, but the movie shows us some pretty bad people who mistreated a quiet, shy girl, getting just what they deserve.
Salem's Lot (1979)
Another I'd watched before, and I have some very mixed feelings about. I guess I don't mind all the composite characters, or changing the characters of Straker and Barlow to be all but unrecognizable from the novel, but I still wonder why it spent so much time for its first like hour and a half on the various subplots around town. I checked the time at the "look at me, teacher!" scene and realized the movie had less than an hour left in it, and Barlow hadn't even been seen yet! I get the idea that we're supposed to care about the town before it all goes to hell, but did we need all that with Cully Sawyer, his wife Bonnie and Mr. Crockett? That's like a third of the movie devoted to that subplot. Some didn't like how Barlow was made non-verbal and more like Max Schreck's Nosferatu rather that the erudite, terrifying mastermind of the book. I understand this was on purpose because at the time, the idea of vampires as being overtly charming old-world types was becoming cliche. Nowadays the cliche is that vampires are tortured lovers. Straker was re-written so that he could be played by James Mason, who is fine here but failed to give me the creeps, which book Straker did. Matt Burke (Jason Burke here, played by Lew Ayers) has his role cut down but that's nothing compared to Father Callahan, who's practically not even in the movie, barring a couple of scenes. But those scenes of Ralphie Glick floating outside windows...man, that shit will stay with you forever. Very well done there. Ultimately, I don't dislike this adaptation, but I feel like it could have been better, and from what I understand, the 2004 adaptation is actually much worse, which I can believe, but I'll see when I get there. I hear Gary Dauberman (who wrote the screenplay for It) is getting another adaptation of this going, and I hope this time it can finally capture the spirit of the book, which I feel this film falls well short of.
The Dollar Babies
Curiosity brought me to this; I have now watched four of the more "historically important" Dollar Babies, primarily to see what they were like but also because they have become cult favorites over the years. Specifically, I watched The Boogeyman, The Woman in the Room, Disciples of the Crow and The Lawnmower Man, and I was...almost impressed. I'd been told the Dollar Babies were all basically on the level of student films and were clearly made on budgets that barely deserved to be called "shoestring", but what I got were some pretty well-made, if definitely low-budget, short films. About the only one that made me think of some guy with a camcorder filming in his back yard with a few of his friends as actors was The Lawnmower Man, which appears to be more an adaptation of the 1981 comic than the original story, seeing as the LM is given the name Karras, and the dialogue comes almost word for word from the comic. The sound quality in the copy I saw was very poor, and the film quality was almost as bad, grainy and fuzzy. The one scene showing the LM's goat-like feet was embarrassingly awful (he's clearly wearing furry slippers). Andy Clark's performance as Karras is a little off, in that the LM is supposed to remain folksy and chummy, even as he's getting ready to sacrifice Harold. Clark's becomes malevolent at that point, laughing maniacally and everything. And honestly, he's not fat enough. The LM is supposed to be so morbidly obese that his weight alone is unsettling. Clark is just...kinda stocky. I did enjoy Disciples of the Crow, and it didn't even seem that low budget. Eleese Lester and Gabriel Folse are much more in tune with the tone of the original story than Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton were, and more believably redneck as well. I feel like it also copped out on the ending, but I need to go back and re-read the story to see if the ending I remember is the real one. My recollection is that Burt and Vicky don't make it out alive, but I could be wrong. But I deeply enjoyed The Boogeyman and The Woman in the Room. The latter, of course, was directed by Frank Darabont, who would go on to direct The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile to Oscar nominations for Best Picture, as well as just make a name for himself in Hollywood in general. This early short shows his skill, and his ongoing working relationship with actor Brian Libby, who appears in a majority of his films, including Shawshank and The Mist. I'm not sure what to say about it other than that it was well-made, well-acted on all fronts (though special mention must go to Dee Croxton) and deservedly a cult classic. The Boogeyman, I've read, is the first Dollar Baby of them all, and it's out-and-out horror. I've talked about the short story on this blog before, and again, I think it could make a good feature, but I did enjoy the film, which was appropriately moody, with a nice score, and a terrific performance from its leading man, Michael Read. Because I don't think much of Lester Billings, the character, having him played by a bald, rat-faced man was the correct approach. We're not supposed to like him, and we don't. Read is pretty good at playing scumbags. I wonder why his acting career went nowhere after this? Bert Linder is okay as Dr. Harper. I enjoyed the way the film kept you guessing right up until the end whether or not Lester was crazy, and killing his kids himself, or if the Boogeyman was real. The kids playing Lester's doomed children were pretty convincing as well. I do recommend this double-feature, which can be watched on YouTube for free.
Cujo (1983)
Yes, this is one I had not seen before. For whatever reason, I was sure I wouldn't enjoy it, even after reading the book. I was wrong; it's very good, even if not entirely flawless. Danny Pintauro wrings out my heart as poor young Tad, who thankfully does not meet the same fate here that he does in the book, though it's a close call. Dee Wallace is a powerhouse of an actress, giving a performance I didn't know she was capable of, and making me wonder why her acting career seemed to fizzle along with the 80's. Apparently King himself thinks her performance is the greatest in any adaptation of his work, including Kathy Bates in Misery. I can see why, even if I don't want to go that far myself. Bates was just on another level, but Wallace is great here. The way they make up Cujo as he goes rabid is...simply gross, but in a good way. A rabid dog is scary, but Cujo is nightmarish. If there's one thing I wished, it's that we had more scenes of him before the rabies hits. One of the heartbreakers of the book was that Cujo was a big lovable old pooch that was adored by all, and then he turns into a monster. Also, there's no mention of Frank Dodd, for obvious reasons, and Sheriff Bannerman is kind of a walk-on here.
The Dead Zone (1983)
No, I don't know how it's possible I didn't see this movie until this week. Hell, I even own a copy. Actually, that might be why. I'm notorious for buying movies I then never watch because I know I own a copy and can watch it at any time. It's kinda nuts that a movie that Stephen King wrote the novel of, that David Cronenberg directed and that Christopher Walken stars in, is not even kind of a horror movie and instead is a heartfelt drama. I've discussed the book at length before, and the movie doesn't change much (substituting a hockey game for a celebratory dinner, creating the now famous scene where Walken cries urgently "The ICE is gonna BREAK!" Walken is excellent here, earning rave reviews and apparently Oscar talk, though he ultimately was not nominated. None of the quirks we like to make fun of about his acting style are really on display here. The one issue I had was also present in the book, and that concerns the villain, Greg Stillson, (Martin Sheen), as a politician who's about to win election to the state legislature in a landslide, and has his sites on the Oval Office. I still think it would have been more effective to portray him as a man that everyone instantly likes and trusts, even Johnny, until he shakes his hand and gets a vision that a future plan, executed with the best of intentions, goes horrifically awry. As it is, Stillson is just a sneering villain who only sorta dials it down when in the presence of voters. But he is more understated than in the novel.
Christine
So John Carpenter didn't end up directing Children of the Corn, as was the plan, and took this one instead. It's the only time one of the masters of horror filmmaking worked with the master of horror writing, and the result is...not bad. Not great, either, but that's mainly because Christine is probably a 7 out of 10 even as a book. I liked Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham, though it was plainly obvious that he is an attractive young man they tried to make look dorky. I could not understand why they hired an actress as beautiful as Alexandra Paul, and put her in the role of the girl all the guys at school want, but then put her in these frumpy mom outfits that do nothing to flatter her. I was also more on Arnie's side when he started standing up to his parents, even if that was supposed to be a sign that he was going bad. It's not that cut and dry; his mother really is a controlling bitch, but later in the film when Arnie basically tells both his parents to go to hell, we're supposed to be worried about him but instead it's more like he finally grew some balls. Now let's talk about Christine herself; there's a question among CR's if Christine is just an evil car or if somehow she's possessed by the spirit of her owner, Roland LeBay. It could go either way, but the book always made me think that LeBay and Christine were kindred spirits who fed each other's evil, not that Roland made her what she was. This movie has her start off murdering people while still on the assembly line, but to me, even her origins should be mysterious. I'd like to think of her as one of the Low Men's cars, gone rogue.
Children of the Corn
God, this movie is fucking dumb. Based on a short story, the expansion mostly happens thanks to fleshing out the villainous Isaac, who in the book gets like one page, and a mostly passive role. Here, played by actor John Franklin, whose growth was stunted and who was actually 25 while filming this, even if he looked about 10, Isaac is an evil minister right out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne story, and he's truly something to behold. His henchman, Malachi, played by Courtney Gaines, is also an interesting character to watch, as long as he keeps his mouth shut. Malachi, who has this odd, gargoyle-like face, is a very frightening character when used as a silent killer, but when he starts talking you realize that Gains isn't much of an actor. Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton are our leads here, and they've been turned into yuppies we're supposed to sympathize with. The movie is fairly boring, has some awful pacing, and ends on a very lame note.
Firestarter
I've heard King really doesn't like this one, and I don't know why because there's nothing really wrong with it. As an adaptation, it's very faithful, and Drew Barrymore gives a powerhouse performance in the lead role of Charlie. George C. Scott is very good, as is Martin Sheen (again!), though ultimately the experience of watching it was...meh. It was a bunch of nice pieces that added up to a rather forgettable whole. I understand there's a plan to remake this with (gulp) Zac Efron as Andy. I try to be fair when judging actors. I know that being a heartthrob doesn't automatically mean you can't act, and honestly a lot of recent heartthrobs are trying to shake off that status and turning in some great performances (hello, Robert Pattinson). But Efron, while I think he probably is a better actor that I'm giving him credit for, doesn't excite me about this new effort. Also I doubt anyone will top Drew Barrymore.
There's lots more movies to talk about, but I'm getting kinda tired, so I'll go over the rest in a Part II post.
No comments:
Post a Comment