King of the Mountain

I was 15 when I was dropped off for a Saturday matinee of Brian DePalma's brilliant adaptation of Stephen King's first novel, Carrie. I had read the novel the year before and was in the midst of reading "'Salem's Lot" when Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie gave two of the most amazing performances in the history of the genre. Since then there has been a really awful sequel; a musical (revived and revised for a recent Off Broadway production which is now being done by community theatre companies everywhere); a drag parody of the musical and a TV remake starring Angela Bettis and Patricia Clarkson. Yesterday a new version opened, starring Chloe Grace Moritz and Julianne Moore, two actresses I admire (along with Judy Greer - whom I adore - in the Betty Buckley role). The reviews have been tepid and I won't be rushing out to pay $11.50 to see it, any time soon. 

To mark the occasion, TribecaFilm.com has come up with their list of the Top 20 Stephen King movies. Their list is very different from mine. Of course, art is completely subjective and King is notoriously difficult to adapt for the screen. Your list will probably be different than mine. And that's good. Still, in response, here are my Top Ten plus my Five Worst Stephen King movie adaptations:

THE BEST:

10. Pet Sematary. Based on the book King claims to have had to put away for several years because it gave him nightmares, director Mary Lambert's TV star-filled film is very, very creepy. The last project for the late Fred Gwynn, this atmospheric movie works so well because they all seem like such ordinary people (the strength of all of King's characters). Of course, there is that screaming living corpse of a sister in the back bedroom...

9. The Dead Zone. David Cronenberg's 1983 crack at King is a true anomaly - a film that's actually better than the novel on which it's based. Of course, much of that is thanks to Christopher Walken's performance as a man who awakens from a coma with a gift he doesn't want and a dilemma to rival Hamlet's. Oh, and Martin Sheen's Greg Stillson is a far cry from Jed Bartlett.

8. The Mist. Underrated and misunderstood, Frank Darabont (who has two other amazing King movies to his credit) finally made the film version of one of King's most popular novella's with an amazing cast and an ending (which some claim is nihilistic) that's far superior to King's rather ambiguous original. Darabont should make every Stephen King movie for as long as he can.

7. Misery. Kathy Bates' Oscar-winning performance as James Caan's insane greatest fan is absolutely chilling. Rob Reiner's second King movie is a doozy!

6. Christine. John Carpenter's King movie surprisingly holds up quite well after 30 years, mostly thanks to the performance of Keith Gordon as a boy whose evil car turns him evil, as well.

5. Stand By Me. Rob Reiner's nostalgic adaptation of King's novella "The Body" (itself supposedly based on a true event from King's own childhood) is a classic for so many reasons, least of all it's young cast.

4. Carrie. Brian DePalma's 70's teen-angst horror movie is very nearly perfect, despite the very silly tuxedo scene and the deliberately dizzying prom dance. Spacek is the embodiment of King's character (despite him describing her as overweight) and Piper Laurie is just stunning as the religious zealot Margaret White (a name Uncle P uses to troll Westboro Baptist Church). And that shock ending has been copied countless times, since.

3. Apt Pupil. Bryan Singer's version of King's novella stars the late Brad Renfro as a young man who discovers that his kindly old neighbor (Ian McKellan) is a Nazi hiding in suburban America. McKellan is brilliant, as usual, but Refro's transformation is the real horror here.

2. Dolores Claiborne. Kathy Bates makes her second appearance as a King character in Taylor Hackford's absorbing and gorgeous adaptation of the story of a woman accused of killing her long-time employer and the strength she found to escape an abusive husband.

1. The Green Mile. Frank Darabont's version of King's serialized novel is very nearly perfect. The late Michael Clarke Duncan gives a performance to match every other amazing performance from Tom Hanks, Michael Jeter, Sam Rockwell, Bonnie Hunt and Patricia Clarkson. I weep like a baby every time I see it.

Honorable mentions: The Shawshank Redemption; Cujo; Creepshow; Needful Things; 1408; Hearts in Atlantis.

THE WORST:

5. The Shining. Kubrick made a terrific horror movie, but an absolutely atrocious version of what well may be King's best novel. Even King hates it. Of course, the TV version isn't much better. Give me $80M and I'll make a version of "The Shining" that will make you poop your pants.

4. Graveyard Shift. Bad acting, bad script and bad special effects make this story about killer rats silly, rather than scary.

3. Maximum Overdrive. Even King himself couldn't make a scary movie out his very silly short story "Trucks." Emilio Estevez doesn't help.

2. The Mangler. Poltergeist director Tobe Hooper's ridiculous movie about a demonic ironing machine isn't helped by the presence of genre favs Robert Englund and Ted Levine. 

1. The Lawnmower Man. Even the then gorgeous Jeff Fahey can't help this POS, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with King's story about pagan gods. King successfully sued to have his name removed from this CGI cyber-nonsense.

Dishonorable mentions: The Night Flyer; The Secret Window; Silver Bullet; Children of the Corn

I have a copy of King's latest novel, "Doctor Sleep" sitting on my coffee table. It's the sequel to "The Shining" and I can't wait to dig in. I suppose I'll be taking it to Florida with me when I visit my sister for Christmas.

More, anon.
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Golden Obsessions

The Latest Poster for 'Carrie'

That's Golden Globe winner Julianne Moore as Margaret White on the latest poster for the third film version of Stephen King's debut novel, Carrie. The novel, published in 1973, was set in 1979 - the year I graduated high school.* Director Brian De Palma adapted the book into his classic 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie. It was unlike any horror movie that had come before and featured a shocking ending sequence which had audiences reeling (it was also the Feature Film debut of Scientologist John Travolta). In 2002, the movie was remade for television, starring Angela Bettis (May; The Woman) and Patricia Clarkson ("Six Feet Under;" The Green Mile). The best that can be said about it is that it was 'less-than-successful.'

Director Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don't Cry; Stop-Loss) has revisited the story for a new generation with Chloe  Grace Moritz (Let Me In) in the title role and Moore as her religiously fanatic mother. Both Spacek and Laurie were Oscar nominees for their extraordinary performances in DePalma's version. And while I know Moritz has her detractors (I'm talking to you, JA), if anyone can best them, it's Moritz and Moore. I've been a fan of Ms Moore since 1992's The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and Moritz has been on my radar since 2010's Kick-Ass. I think I have to add Carrie to the small list of remakes (along with Evil Dead) to which I am actually looking forward to seeing.

And linking the Golden Globes to my many obsessions, here's a clip of one of my biggest obsessions, presenting an award to another of my obessions:

Seriously, it should be illegal to be as hot as Statham is. And yes, Adele totally deserved to win over Taylor Swift, and not just because Swift is a fickle slut (I didn't just type that, did I?).

And while we're (well, I'm) on the subject of obsessions, Cirque du Soleil has added a new act to their "adult" show in Las Vegas, Zumanity. "Scottish Fantasy" features a very hot hula-hooping act in a tiny kilt designed by Thierry Mugler:

And just in case you haven't seen it before, here's one of the reasons I love Zumanity:



Let's see how well I sleep after after that, tonight...

*Damn, I'm old!

More, anon.
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Heeeere's Disappointment!

Not Nearly as Creepy as They Should Have Been

Prolific Horror author Stephen King's third (and one of his best) novel "The Shining" is an epic masterpiece about ghosts, madness, ancient evil and familial terror. When I first read it, it was the most terrifying and fascinating novel I'd ever read. And I ate it up like manna. 

You can't begin to imagine how excited I was to hear that one of the greatest filmmakers of all time was going to adapt one of the best ghost novels of all time into a feature film. I remember sitting in the theater before The Shining started, nearly peeing my pants in anticipation of what I thought was going to be the scariest movie ever made. The film started out so promising... Wendy Carlos' (The Exorcist) and Rachel Elkind's booming score was amazing. Jack Nicholson and Scatman Crothers seemed perfectly cast. I could live with Shelley Duvall as Wendy and Danny Lloyd seemed just right as Danny. 

But as the movie unfolded, it soon became clear that Kubrick's vision had very little to do with King's. Nicholson, rather than a contrite alcoholic who wanted to make things right, seemed mad from the start and Duvall was hardly the strong-willed Wendy from the book. All of the hotel's backstory was made irrelevant and the roque court and wasp's nest were dismissed out of hand, while the topiary garden was replaced with a hedge maze. WTF!?!? In King's novel, everything has meaning and all of the events are tied together. In Kubrick's movie, nothing has true relevance and events that are explained in the book remain completely random in the film. 

It's not as if I don't get what Kubrick was going for. He obviously wanted to create a disorienting atmosphere for his audience. Okay. But why would he deviate so far from King's very effective novel? Why abandon so many of King's ideas? Why present glimpses of scenarios so important to the book's narrative without any context to the plot? When Jack killed Dick Halloran with an ax to his chest, I gave up. This was by no means the movie I had hoped it would be.

Now, before you all go nuts on me and start complaining about how brilliant this movie is, I must ask: Have you read the book? Because just about everyone I know who read the novel, hated the movie. Conversely, those who saw the movie without reading the book, loved it. And I totally get both points of views, though I will go to my grave saying that Kubrick completely failed in adapting King's novel.

Radc

Mick Garris' 1997 TV miniseries version is a little more faithful to the novel (and Rebecca DeMornay makes a much more convincing Wendy), but still disappoints on so many other levels.

The Shining remains on my list of 10 Fantasy/Horror/Sci-Fi Movies that Should Be Remade.

Meanwhile... King's son, writing under the pseudonym Joe Hill, had a brilliant debut novel with his own modern ghost story "Heart-Shaped Box," though his second (and inferior) novel "Horns" is being adapted for the screen, starring Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. The film adaptation of "Heart-Shaped Box" remains in 'turn-around.'

More, anon.
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Another Remake I Don't Mind

Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie

I was not quite a High School Freshman when I first read Stephen King's debut novel "Carrie" in 1974 (yes, we've established that I'm old). It was set in 1979, the year I was going to graduate. In my class was a young lady who very much reminded me of Carrie: shy, odd, withdrawn... in the callous way that young teens can be cruel, my friends and I occasionally referred to her as 'Carrie' (I very much regret that, by the way).

When Brian DePalma's amazing film adaptation came out in 1976, I was stunned by not only Sissy Spacek's and Piper Laurie's performances, but also DePalma's direction. I'd never seen a movie like it and I was in awe. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen Carrie since then. Certainly more than a few dozen. And it never fails to move and entertain me. Those split-screen shots are just incredible.

Flash forward 36 years later and director Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don't Cry) is currently shooting a theatrical remake (I don't want to talk about David Carson's 2002 TV remake, which despite a script by Bryan Fuller and good performances by Angela Bettis and Patricia Clarkson, failed on almost every level), starring Chloe Grace Moretz (Let Me In); Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right) and the always amazing and underrated Judy Greer. And despite what one of my fellow horror bloggers has to say about her, I think Moretz is one of the finest young actresses working in film today and I can't wait to see what she does with the role. As for for Moore - she's been robbed of awards before (her performance in Far From Heaven is just heartbreaking) and I imagine her take on religious zealot Margaret White will be nothing less than amazing.

DePalma's film, as good as it is, is a little dated and a bit corny (the tuxedo scene always seemed out of place, even way back then) and the TV version is bound by the conventions of the medium. If anyone can pull off a decent remake, it's Pierce, who demonstrated an intense insight into the psyche of an outsider in her first film (which garnered Hillary Swank her first Oscar).

Spacek and Laurie both earned Oscar nominations for their performances in the original, but AMPAS' aversion to Horror as a serious genre kept them from winning. Let's hope that Pierce can work her magic and earn her leads the awards their predecessors deserved.

The original also featured Scream Queen PJ Soles (Halloween); Broadway superstar Betty Buckley; TV superhero William Katt; Steven Spielberg's first wife Amy Irving; DePalma's ex-wife Nancy Allen; brilliant comedienne Edie McClurg and the second film appearance by alleged masseur-groper and avowed Scientologist, John Travolta (he was in a terrible, though iconic little horror movie called The Devil's Rain, previously). What a cast! 

And while I have every confidence that Pierce will deliver a competent and frightening version of King's novel, I doubt she'll be able to top this:

And the less said about the two productions of the stage musical, the better.

More, anon.
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Give Me $30M and I'll Scare the Crap Out of You

Sorry about the delay. I started this post very late and then decided I needed to think about it some more.

Anyway... An actor friend and I have been trying to plan a Man Date for some time now. We both love horror films and decided that we must see see Dario Argento's Dracula 3D together. The movie is currently showing at Cannes, where it has received wildly mixed reviews. I sent Jimmy a link to a viciously bad one and he sent me a link to a glowing one. He also mentioned a documentary about the making of Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining, a film Uncle P really doesn't like very much at all (and I've said so here, before). And I'll tell you why.

Stephen King's third published novel caught me completely off guard when I first read it back in 1977. The story of an alcoholic playwright who takes a job as the winter caretaker of a Colorado hotel and is consequently driven mad by the many ghosts who inhabit it, The Shining was the first novel I ever read that actually gave me goosebumps. Jack, Wendy and Danny Torrence were a family about whom King made you care about and then fear for. When it was announced that none other than the great Stanley Kubrick was making the film version, I was practically ecstatic. And then Kubrick blew it. 

Woefully miscast (with the exception of Scatman Crothers as the cook, Dick Halloran) and with so many changes to and deviations from the source material as to be practically unrecognizable, Kubrick's film actually angered me when I first saw it. In the novel, a sober Jack Torrence is a reasonable and likeable fellow, who slowly descends into madness thanks to the machinations of the malevolent forces that haunt the hotel. In the hands of Jack Nicholson (who by then had already established a film persona), Jack starts out pretty crazy and his escalation into full madness is hardly shocking or surprising. Jack's wife Wendy, a strong self-aware woman in the book, comes off as a wimpy nerd in Shelly Duvall's performance. And the less said about the very annoying Danny Lloyd, the better.  As for Kubrick and Diane Johnson's screenplay, don't get me started. I understand that the technology for rendering a believable living  topiary garden wasn't available in 1979, but the hedge maze isn't really a very good substitute. And what about the roque mallets; the wasps' nest; the pornographic clock; the faulty boiler and all the back-stories of the hotel's former guests? Gone, gone, gone. Instead, we are given unexplained glimpses of things that happened (the dog-masked fellator; the woman in the bathtub; the twins). In the book, all of these characters are given credence for their inclusion in the story. In Kubrick's film, they are merely weird things to look at, which have no bearing on the plot. Kubrick even went so far as to completely change the ending; SPOILER ALERT killing Halloran and leaving Jack to freeze to death in the maze. In the book, Jack (an unrecognizable monster after repeated bashing his own face with a roque mallet) dies as the hotel explodes from the long-ignored boiler in the basement.

I know plenty of people who love this movie. Not one of them has ever read the book. Everyone I know who has read the book, doesn't really like the movie, either. Even King doesn't like the movie and has said that Kubrick drove him crazy while filming, often phoning in the middle of the night to discuss odd details or strange ideas he wanted to include. Objectively, as a movie on it's own, I won't deny that Kubrick's film is brilliant. It has several iconic moments and images. But it's just not very true to King's terrifying novel in any number of ways.

In 1997, director (and friend of King's) Mick Garris made a two-part TV movie of The Shining starring Stephen Weber, Rebecca De Mornay and Melvin Van Peebles. While Garris' version is holds closer to the novel than Kubrick's, the limits of television kept him from making a truly frightening version of the novel. 

The budget for Kubrick's version (according to IMDb) was around $22M. Adjusted for inflation, that's probably somewhere near $100M today. Garris' 1997 budget was $25M. I know and love this novel. I've read it probably five or six times. It's probably my third favorite novel of all time. So here's my challenge - give me $30M, a cast of unknowns and final edit, and I promise you I could make a version of The Shining that is truer to the source and scarier than any piece of crap that a hack like Oren Pelli could ever hope to make. 

I'm not bragging. I'm just saying.

More, anon.
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They're All Gonna Laugh at You!

Sissy Spacek in Brian DePalma's 1976 version of "Carrie"

Uncle P is old. I was in high school when Brian DePalma adapted Stephen King's first novel into an incredibly well-acted movie, starring Sissy Spacek; Amy Irving; William Katt; John Travolta; Nancy Allen; PJ Soles; Betty Buckley and the incomparable Piper Laurie as Carrie's religious nut-job mother. I wasn't old enough to drive and none of my friends wanted to see it, so I somehow convinced my mother to drop me off at the Eric Twin in Fairless Hills on a Saturday afternoon, where the bored girl in the box-office almost sold me a ticket to the soft-core porn version of Tarzan, which was also playing there. But I was a die-hard horror fan (and a relatively naive kid), so I opted to see my first choice. I had read and loved King's novel (structured in the form of diary entries, newspaper articles and court transcripts, much like Stoker's Dracula) and really wanted to see the film version.

I had no idea how much I was going to love this movie. But love it, I did. Like so many movies, the details of the first time I saw Carrie are firmly entrenched in my memory as one of a few 'perfect' films of my youth. Sure, it had some silly moments (the tuxedo scene; Edie McClurg being at least 10 years too old to be a high-schooler; that damned spinning dance scene), but Spacek was absolutely brilliant. Laurie even more so (they both garnered Oscar nominations). And DePalma's use of split-screen during the prom had me losing my mind. Carrie's eerie candlelit arrival at home; the washing off of the pig's blood; the crucifixion of Paul re-enacted on Carrie's mother. All of it amazing and new and terrifying. I had never seen a movie quite like it. And then there was that ending! As Sue Snell (Irving) knelt to lay flowers on the decimated ground where Carrie's house once stood and that hand popped up through the rocks... I practically leapt from my seat in surprise. I waited outside the theater to picked up, breathless and so excited by what I had just seen -- only to be further unnerved by a fellow who, also waiting for a ride, wanted to tell me all about how the government was testing people just like Carrie to use as weapons in the cold war (the Berlin Wall still stood strong at the time). I nodded and tried not to be freaked out and was exceedingly relieved to see Mom pull up in the family's VW station wagon to pick me up.

I was so very disappointed by Bryan ("Pushing Daisies") Fuller's 2002 TV adaptation, which starred Angela Bettis (May; The Woman) and Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile; Shutter Island). Bettis and Clarkson were fine, but Fuller's teleplay tried too hard to include everything in King's novel and the result was too long and too... messy. And the limits of television censorship crippled the film in the same way it did Mick Farris' versions of The Stand and The Shining.

MGM recently announced yet another remake, this time starring Chloe Grace Moritz (Kick Ass; Let Me In) in the title role and Julianne Moore (The Kids Are Alright) as Margaret White. This, of course, on the heels of an updated Off-Broadway revival of the infamously disastrous Broadway musical version. As much as I love both Moritz and Moore, I'm not sure that Boys Don't Cry and Stop-Loss director Kimberly Pierce is right for this project (though I think "Glee" and "Big Love" writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is as good a choice as any to write it). 

Regular readers know how I generally feel about remakes, but remakes have been around almost as long as movies themselves. While DePalma's original version of Carrie may have been perfect for audiences of the mid-seventies, who is to say that audiences 35 years later don't deserve their own version? With bullying so malignantly prevalent among today's youth, they just night need to be scared into stopping it. I just hope the makers of the new version don't give us reason to laugh at it.

More, anon.
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Adapting Stephen King

Writer/Director Mick Garris is a friend of Stephen King's. He directed the mostly excellent TV version of The Stand; the more-faithful-to-the-novel TV version of The Shining; the direct-to-video version of Riding the Bullet and the TV version of Desperation (which makes no sense without its companion piece The Regulators, which was written under King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman). Most of Garris' versions of King's works are just okay. They certainly can't compare with Frank Darabont's astoundingly good film adaptations of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption; The Green Mile or The Mist.

Garris is back with a two-part mini-series version of King's ghost story Bag of Bones airing tonight and tomorrow on the A&E network. Since I rarely watch TV in real time (I love my DVR), I won't be reviewing Bag of Bones until Tuesday. But I thought I'd share my thoughts on Garris' (and other directors') takes on King's works.

King is difficult to adapt to film. His novels often rely on emotional reactions to what is happening on the page, and that's not always easy to convey on film. And while King's plots and premises are often silly, he is quite skilled at developing characters about whom the reader grows to care. When awful things happen to those characters, it's easy for a reader to get caught up in those characters' emotional responses to whatever outrageous things are going on around them. Few film directors have been able to capture that. Brian DePalma (Carrie); Lewis Teague (Cujo); David Cronenberg (The Dead Zone); Rob Reiner (Stand by Me) and - to a lesser degree - Mikael Hafstrom (1408); John Carpenter (Christine); Mary Lambert (Pet Semetary) and George Romero (Creepshow; Monkey Shines; The Dark Half) have all had some degree of success with adapting King's works. And while there are plenty of folks who adore Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining, I have never been anything less than disappointed with that brilliant film which completely ignores a full third of the novel and makes so many changes to the story that renders it almost unrecognizable from it's source material. None of these movies can compare to Darabont's films in capturing King's intent, though a few come close. And don't even get me started on the many dreadful adaptions of King's novels and short stories, one of which was directed by King, himself.

Garris is limited by what American TV standards will allow. His version of The Shining, while closer to the novel, because of standards imposed by the FCC, omits all of the truly twisted sexual passages King wrote. And while Garris' version of The Stand is quite good (though often miscast), I imagine the proposed theatrical version might be better. Garris is a decent director, and his adaptations of King's novels are workmanlike and serviceable. Still, they don't always succeed in capturing the essence of what King manages to convey on the page. Not to be a naysayer, but I hope he is not involved with the upcoming TV version of The Talisman*, King's brilliant novel co-authored with Peter Straub (another amazing author whose work has been abused by Hollywood).

I'll let you know what I think of Bag of Bones once I've seen the whole thing. In the meantime, here's the trailer:

And here's a teaser trailer (which I've posted before) for a movie version of The Talisman (one of my favorite modern novels, ever) which never got made:

*Which partially takes place in the same universe as King's "The Dark Tower."

More, anon.
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Watch It While You Can

I have not fallen victim to Stieg Larson's "Girl" trilogy (which was apparently planned to be a 10 book series before Larson died). I know lots of my coworkers at the Day Job have been passing them around or reading them on their Kindles.

Lately, I've had little time to read, though I did read while in Florida, and it was glorious to do so. I polished off "Horns," by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) and "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith. Both were immensely entertaining, though neither was actually scary. The latter is scheduled for a 2012 film adaptation by Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. I really loved how much research went in Grahame-Smith's novel and thought he found some clever ways to incorporate actual history into his alt-history tale of vampires and how they inspired Lincoln to free the slaves. Of course, Grahame-Smith's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is also on track for a movie version.

And last Tuesday, while waiting in the Outpatient Family Waiting Room as Mom had a minor procedure performed, I finally started King's 1084-page opus, "Under the Dome." I got through the first 60 pages or so. I certainly enjoyed what I read, but haven't had the time or opportunity to read more, since. Maybe when I go to Chicago on business at the end of July.

Every one I know who has read Larson's books says they are "...terrific, but you have to stick with it, at first." These days, I mostly just wait for the movie. And that's kind of sad. Anyway, my point is, the Red Band trailer for the U.S. remake starring Daniel Craig has been leaked onto YouTube. I don't know how long it will be there, so catch it while you can:

Umm... that was helpful in explaining what it was about...

More, anon.
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