Pretty much anyone would agree that Stephen King is one of the most prolific horror writers to ever walk the earth and write scary shit about things that bother everyone. For example, killer clowns, obsessed fans, rabid dogs, cosmic beasts from other planets, abusive parenting, alcoholics, hippies, quitting smoking...wait, what?? Well anyways.
When the average joe thinks "horror fiction," King's name and/or face is the first thing that comes to mind. So naturally, in America, when we see one specific writer that has certainly generated millions of clams from his books and stories, we got some movies to make. For some time, Stephen King was the go-to guy for a scary film in Hollywood. And for a time, it was good.
But unfortunately this did not last long. Coming out of the 1970's, it seemed that no good Stephen King movies were in sight. They became dreadfully silly, under-produced and completely shat on the works in which they were based. Decades later, there were two films in particular that were based on King's works that were critically acclaimed AND did well monetarily:
These films are wonderful, but as you can probably tell from the posters: they're not horror films. It seems so ironic that the films based on Stephen King's stories that are most revered are not from the genre he is simultaneously more famous for.
Today, I'm giving tribute to the best Stephen King adaptations, and that are also decidedly horror, based on 3 criteria: quality of the film, closeness to the source material, and overall terror-factor.
10. Silver Bullet (1985)
original title: Cycle of the Werewolf
First entry on our list is Silver Bullet, from 1985. Adapted from a novella, this concerns (not surprisingly) a werewolf. And, yeah. It's about just a werewolf.
Okay, a little more than that. Marty (Corey Haim) is a boy in a wheelchair living in a small town in, you guessed it, Maine. (I know what you're thinking King fans, we're off to a great start.) Anywho, young Marty begins to suspect, justifiably so, that his town is plagued by a werewolf after a series of mysterious but gruesome deaths occur over a period of a year. And he also begins to conclude that the werewolf is actually one of the town residents...naturally, few - uh, let's just say practically NO-ONE believes his theory, and why not? All rebuff him except for his wacky alcoholic Uncle Red (Gary Busey, who else right?).
What seems somewhat silly and contrived actually manages to be a good story. The strength of the narrative is because it's fairly simple. There isn't any grand conspiracy or mythos, no real epicness that requires 50+ plotlines like in most Stephen King tales: most of it is just Marty and his uncle vs. a werewolf. That's it. And for the most part it works.
You really get a feel for this town and its inhabitants as the seasons change and the body count rises. Marty is a sympathetic and relatable character, although the whole boy-is-the-only-witness-to-danger-and-no-one-believes-him-cuz-he's-a-kid thing seems a little overdone by now, but it still makes for a compelling story, especially since not only is he young, but he's crippled. I really enjoy thrillers with handicapped protagonists, Wait Until Dark, Rear Window, etc. It's an easy way to build tension. Gary Busey is okay as the uncle, the other unreliable character that assists Marty. He is just typically crazy-Busey, and I can't complain with tried-and-true.
I think the best element of the film is the arc of the villainous werewolf, or rather who it turns out to be. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it. The film actually doesn't take too long to reveal who the werewolf really is, you could probably guess who it is about a third to half of the way in. Most werewolf characters in fiction evoke alot more sympathy than say vampires, since werewolves are typically held captive by their nature while most vampires are fully aware of their monstrosity and relish in it. But this version has a bit of both: you feel bad for the person, as they kind of regret their actions but have to learn to live with it, partly because they're too selfish to end it all by suicide, and partly because they think their murderous actions serve a "higher purpose." I thought it was handled nicely in this as in the original story, making you simultaneously hate but somewhat pity the villain, effectively conveyed by the actor.
The only downside to Silver Bullet is two-fold:
1. It's a little dated, especially in the special effects department, but if you're one of those who can easily look past that sort of thing, it's not much of a hiccup, once you realize it's actually fairly good for the time it was released.
2. Less forgivable than that though, the movie has a hard time deciding on what tone it wants, I think. Depending on how it's handled, I think mixing comedy and horror can be refreshing and entertaining. IF. HANDLED. CORRECTLY. It certainly has its frightening moments, which are then unexpectedly marred by something goofy. A good example for comparison would be An American Werewolf in London (ironically another lycanthrope flick.) But really, that movie had an ample balance of the comedy/horror, key word being [balance]. Silver Bullet is obviously styled more as horror, but then spontaneously shifts to pretty comical moments that seem out of place and undermine the horrific tone. I guess you'd have to watch it to see what I mean.
All in all, pretty good, but we still have some ways to go...
9. Christine (1983)
In John Carpenter's hands, you know this is gonna be good.
A truly bizarre story (you'll notice a lot of the entries on the list aren't the "typical" King stories), Christine concerns two high school students: Dennis, the Jock with a Heart of Gold (seriously how often do you see that in a movie?); and Arnie, the geeky, introverted loner, complete with hornrim glasses with tape over the bridge. This unlikely pair are actually close childhood friends, coming to a unique understanding despite Dennis constantly having to defend his best friend from local bullies, teen or adult. One day Arnie discovers the titular car, a rundown, beat-up 1958 Plymouth Fury on it's way to a scrap heap. Despite everyone's observations that, well, it's a piece of shit not worth fixing up, Arnie shells out $250 bucks for it regardless and drives it home anyway. His show of independence is hindered by his parents who won't let him keep the car at the house, so he has to keep it at a local garage run by a dastardly mechanic while trying to fix it up. Arnie spends some time fixing up the old junker to it's former glory...but perhaps not enough time. In no time at all it seems, Christine is good as new. But the car, which seems to play nothing but 50's doowop tunes on its radio, is not the only thing that changes. Arnie begins to change as well, dropping his nerdy shy demeanor and replacing it with arrogance, swagger and jerkassness. He even wears his hair different, loses the specs and dons black clothing straight out of a James Dean flick.
People in his life, especially Dennis, start to fear for Arnie's well-being and state of mind, and suspect that his much-adored automobile might be the cause of it...
Christine certainly has an interesting concept, dealing with teenage feelings of love, obsession and jealousy, and mixing it with nostalgia and high-octane horror. This is basically like Fatal Attraction for car aficionados. Anyone who has ever known or been a gearhead or greasemonkey will relate to the straight-up affection we can feel for our cars, especially the classic ones, and how that can turn into obsessiveness. The film skewers that perfectly under Carpenter's clever direction.
2 great aspects include:
1. THE EFFECTS. Whereas a lot of films made around this time certainly haven't aged well since then, this is a rare diamond in the rough. For a film that requires a rare and beautiful car to get completely smashed and thrashed one minute, then totally repair itself the next, this is pulled off excellently, helped by clever camera trickery - also having like 20 cars on hand for production sure helps.
2. The cast is great, particularly Keith Gordon as Arnie, balance the menace and sympathy for what is a somewhat difficult character to pull off. Also good turns by John Stockwell as Dennis, and a small role by veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton (Ridley Scott's Alien).
The bad: not a whole lot really. Like Silver Bullet, it has some jumpy slightly-comedic moments that detract from the drama, but it is more welcome here in small quantity, mostly due to John Carpenter's wry humor that is inherent in even his most horrific of horror. Also, the story contains the prototypical bullies like in most Stephen King yarns, and not nearly as memorable as other examples on this list. But bullying is also a central theme here, like in Carrie: these are only less believable. But that doesn't make them less effective here. The teen bullies in this are particularly nasty, even if only because the script demands it, but also plenty of adult characters too, showing that this behavior can be present at any age. Ham-handed and cartoonish at times, yes, but effective, and especially for when those bastards get their just desserts.
A creepy and fairly original concept given a great treatment by Carpenter, Chrisitine is definitely worth checking out.
8. The Dark Half (1993)
Okay, a little more than that. Marty (Corey Haim) is a boy in a wheelchair living in a small town in, you guessed it, Maine. (I know what you're thinking King fans, we're off to a great start.) Anywho, young Marty begins to suspect, justifiably so, that his town is plagued by a werewolf after a series of mysterious but gruesome deaths occur over a period of a year. And he also begins to conclude that the werewolf is actually one of the town residents...naturally, few - uh, let's just say practically NO-ONE believes his theory, and why not? All rebuff him except for his wacky alcoholic Uncle Red (Gary Busey, who else right?).
What seems somewhat silly and contrived actually manages to be a good story. The strength of the narrative is because it's fairly simple. There isn't any grand conspiracy or mythos, no real epicness that requires 50+ plotlines like in most Stephen King tales: most of it is just Marty and his uncle vs. a werewolf. That's it. And for the most part it works.
You really get a feel for this town and its inhabitants as the seasons change and the body count rises. Marty is a sympathetic and relatable character, although the whole boy-is-the-only-witness-to-danger-and-no-one-believes-him-cuz-he's-a-kid thing seems a little overdone by now, but it still makes for a compelling story, especially since not only is he young, but he's crippled. I really enjoy thrillers with handicapped protagonists, Wait Until Dark, Rear Window, etc. It's an easy way to build tension. Gary Busey is okay as the uncle, the other unreliable character that assists Marty. He is just typically crazy-Busey, and I can't complain with tried-and-true.
I think the best element of the film is the arc of the villainous werewolf, or rather who it turns out to be. I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it. The film actually doesn't take too long to reveal who the werewolf really is, you could probably guess who it is about a third to half of the way in. Most werewolf characters in fiction evoke alot more sympathy than say vampires, since werewolves are typically held captive by their nature while most vampires are fully aware of their monstrosity and relish in it. But this version has a bit of both: you feel bad for the person, as they kind of regret their actions but have to learn to live with it, partly because they're too selfish to end it all by suicide, and partly because they think their murderous actions serve a "higher purpose." I thought it was handled nicely in this as in the original story, making you simultaneously hate but somewhat pity the villain, effectively conveyed by the actor.
The only downside to Silver Bullet is two-fold:
1. It's a little dated, especially in the special effects department, but if you're one of those who can easily look past that sort of thing, it's not much of a hiccup, once you realize it's actually fairly good for the time it was released.
2. Less forgivable than that though, the movie has a hard time deciding on what tone it wants, I think. Depending on how it's handled, I think mixing comedy and horror can be refreshing and entertaining. IF. HANDLED. CORRECTLY. It certainly has its frightening moments, which are then unexpectedly marred by something goofy. A good example for comparison would be An American Werewolf in London (ironically another lycanthrope flick.) But really, that movie had an ample balance of the comedy/horror, key word being [balance]. Silver Bullet is obviously styled more as horror, but then spontaneously shifts to pretty comical moments that seem out of place and undermine the horrific tone. I guess you'd have to watch it to see what I mean.
All in all, pretty good, but we still have some ways to go...
9. Christine (1983)
In John Carpenter's hands, you know this is gonna be good.
A truly bizarre story (you'll notice a lot of the entries on the list aren't the "typical" King stories), Christine concerns two high school students: Dennis, the Jock with a Heart of Gold (seriously how often do you see that in a movie?); and Arnie, the geeky, introverted loner, complete with hornrim glasses with tape over the bridge. This unlikely pair are actually close childhood friends, coming to a unique understanding despite Dennis constantly having to defend his best friend from local bullies, teen or adult. One day Arnie discovers the titular car, a rundown, beat-up 1958 Plymouth Fury on it's way to a scrap heap. Despite everyone's observations that, well, it's a piece of shit not worth fixing up, Arnie shells out $250 bucks for it regardless and drives it home anyway. His show of independence is hindered by his parents who won't let him keep the car at the house, so he has to keep it at a local garage run by a dastardly mechanic while trying to fix it up. Arnie spends some time fixing up the old junker to it's former glory...but perhaps not enough time. In no time at all it seems, Christine is good as new. But the car, which seems to play nothing but 50's doowop tunes on its radio, is not the only thing that changes. Arnie begins to change as well, dropping his nerdy shy demeanor and replacing it with arrogance, swagger and jerkassness. He even wears his hair different, loses the specs and dons black clothing straight out of a James Dean flick.
People in his life, especially Dennis, start to fear for Arnie's well-being and state of mind, and suspect that his much-adored automobile might be the cause of it...
Christine certainly has an interesting concept, dealing with teenage feelings of love, obsession and jealousy, and mixing it with nostalgia and high-octane horror. This is basically like Fatal Attraction for car aficionados. Anyone who has ever known or been a gearhead or greasemonkey will relate to the straight-up affection we can feel for our cars, especially the classic ones, and how that can turn into obsessiveness. The film skewers that perfectly under Carpenter's clever direction.
2 great aspects include:
1. THE EFFECTS. Whereas a lot of films made around this time certainly haven't aged well since then, this is a rare diamond in the rough. For a film that requires a rare and beautiful car to get completely smashed and thrashed one minute, then totally repair itself the next, this is pulled off excellently, helped by clever camera trickery - also having like 20 cars on hand for production sure helps.
2. The cast is great, particularly Keith Gordon as Arnie, balance the menace and sympathy for what is a somewhat difficult character to pull off. Also good turns by John Stockwell as Dennis, and a small role by veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton (Ridley Scott's Alien).
The bad: not a whole lot really. Like Silver Bullet, it has some jumpy slightly-comedic moments that detract from the drama, but it is more welcome here in small quantity, mostly due to John Carpenter's wry humor that is inherent in even his most horrific of horror. Also, the story contains the prototypical bullies like in most Stephen King yarns, and not nearly as memorable as other examples on this list. But bullying is also a central theme here, like in Carrie: these are only less believable. But that doesn't make them less effective here. The teen bullies in this are particularly nasty, even if only because the script demands it, but also plenty of adult characters too, showing that this behavior can be present at any age. Ham-handed and cartoonish at times, yes, but effective, and especially for when those bastards get their just desserts.
A creepy and fairly original concept given a great treatment by Carpenter, Chrisitine is definitely worth checking out.
8. The Dark Half (1993)
One of my favorite King books, it employs one of the author's most common elements: a writer, more specifically, a writer-protagonist. But I think the concept is at one of its best uses here in The Dark Half, and anyone who is a writer themselves can certainly relate to some of its elements.
Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) is a semi-successful novelist nearing the twilight of his career: his latest string of books are refined and well-received by critics, but not big-sellers. He teaches on the side, and also has a supportive wife (Amy Madigan), plenty of friends and supporters, and twin babies as well. But is it enough? Thad publishes a few books under a pseudonym in a radically different style, pulpy crime-yarns that upp the sex and violence, which of course sell like hotcakes. When his ruse becomes in danger of being exposed, he decides to "kill off" his alter-ego as a preemptive strike, staging a mock funeral, obituary and the works, in an effort to avoid controversy and return to his writing. But then people around him start to get brutally murdered, and Thad himself seems like the only likely culprit, although he begins to think the true killer is his "dead" alter ego...
As you can probably tell, duality, twins, and just doubles in general are the prevailing themes, and King puts them to good use in this tale about writers and their personas. This is mostly based on King's personal experience, as he wrote under a pseudonym for many years during his heyday, just as a change of pace before eventually being discovered. The personal aspect of the story is pretty apparent, and helps to enhance the authenticity...minus the whole murderous doppelganger thing.
The film is directed by George A. Romero, that revolutionary that brought us the iconic Night of the Living Dead, and this film is a change of pace for him as well it seems. It is handled with a great amount of approaching dread and mystery, and not much gore, which is certainly what you would expect. Although there are certainly graphic and disturbing elements, most of these are hinted at or only referred to later, for instance, one character is brutally killed off, but not before being force-fed his own genitals. Thankfully, we aren't actually shown that charming moment, but informed by the police after the fact.
Easily the best element in the film is Timothy Hutton playing the dual role of Thad/Stark. His boyish good looks and likability are never too prominent, and even before bad things start, Hutton gives Thad a pervading element of menace under the skin. While we want the character to be innocent and/or redeemed, we are also keenly aware that there is something very off about Thad from the very beginning, that may even stretch back to his childhood. It isn't clear through most of the film whether George Stark really is a physical person or just figment of Thad's murderous nature. I'm not even entirely sure if by the end of the movie that this is truly established, which makes for a great conflict, both internal and external. I suppose we're mostly used to Timothy as more of a nice, morally grounded guy (TAPS comes to mind), but he shows that he plays crazy pretty well, too. His scenes as the diabolical "Stark" are truly compelling and frightening as well. You're left not sure what would be more terrifying: that such a monster actually exists, or that he's just another aspect of Thad's personality.
He is backed up by a good supporting cast including Madigan as his wife Liz, and Michael Rooker as Sheriff Alan Pangborn, one of King's legacy characters.
The Dark Half is a great chiller, based on a good story as well, both worth checking out.
No comments:
Post a Comment