Stephen King movies are making a Comeback!

Remember all those cheesy Stephen King movies? Yah, me too (not all of them were cheesy, but let's start with the cheesy ones).

There was IT [1990], about the scary monster Pennywise that had a penchant for dressing up as a clown and eating children (and it was quite scary)! There was Secret Window [2004] which starred Johnny Depp and was just awful. Oh my goodness... remember Christine [1983] the killer car? What about Dreamcatcher [2003]? Firestarter [1984]? 

Of course there have also been gems, but they have been few and far between. The Green Mile [1999], Carrie [1976], The Shawshank Redemption [1994] and of course The Shining [1980] to name but a few.

...but guess what. I'm not joking. They're making a comeback. So much so in fact that...

Tod Williams the director of Paranormal Activity 2 has been pulled on board to direct CELL by Stephen King, and, and and, it's starting filming this Autumn...

... and that's not all!

Pet Sematary is also being pushed forward. The screen play is being rewritten by the same guy who wrote the screen play for Stephen King's 1408. I'm terrified! Anybody watched Pet Sematary? Holy moly, that freaky zombie child and the scary woman in the attic... I can't contain my goosebumps! I'm waiting with bated breath...

...and that's not all!

So the biggest piece of Stephen King movie news is... IT is coming back, but not as a made for TV movie. 

Oh no. It's coming back as a HARDCORE big screen, gonna make you cry yourself to sleep theatre spectacular. I say this because they have pushed for AND been given approval for what we'd call in the UK an 18 rating. That means it's gonna be gory. It's gonna be fowl. It's gonna be scary, and hopefully, it's going to terrify future generations as much as the original IT movie scared us. 

Get ready to be scared my friends. Very, very scared!

Joyland, the novel, which is gonna be released on June 4th has ALREADY had film rights bought up. The book hasn't even come out yet!!!! In fact, the guy who's producing and directing it is the very same guy who adapted and directed The Help (random)!

Also Stephen King's 'Good Marriage' has just started filming in Sleepy Hollow. There's enough King movies coming soon to get me reading!

Oh, and here's some quick news about CBS's Under the Dome. They just released a commercial for it! And because I'm so so wonderful I've got it for you right here!


I spoil you guys huh, haha!

On a side note
Sadly, and once again, any talks on making the EPIC Dark Tower series by Stephen King in to movies has flopped. It's so sad. We have the movie technology to turn his wild-west fantastical sci-fi awesomeness in to feature length films. I'm waiting though. Waiting as patiently as I can muster.

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The Shining - Stephen King

“...he looked to her like an absurd twentieth-century Hamlet, an indecisive figure so mesmerized by onrushing tragedy that he was helpless to divert its course or alter it in any way.” Stephen King, The Shining

Holy moly. I think I almost had a bookish heart-attack reading this book. 'Fo realz yo' I actually had to turn it off a few times and start listening to something completely different so I could ACTUALLY sleep (y'know, because some people actually have to go to work!).
I'm not sure whether The Shining just had a pulse and expressed my own deep rooted and illogical fears, or whether it was the coming together of the movie with the book that was freaking me out. Either way, I really was biting my nails for a week. It took me so long to listen to this, and the real reason, the honest reason was some nights I was just feeling a little too vulnerable (haha, I sound like a lunatic) and needed something light hearted. 

It was absolutely impossible not to think of this face every time
Jack Torrence was mentioned

So the book goes like this. The Torrance family, on the verge of being down and out, take up temporary residence in the Overlook Hotel. Jack, the patriarch, is the Overlook's newest caretaker. He is in charge of looking after the building and its grounds during the winter months when snow pretty much cuts it off from the world. Danny Torrance, a child with psychic abilities is not feeling too thrilled, and in fact is being haunted by terrifying dreams about the Overlook, and what may be waiting for them. Jack loves the Overlook, desperately, but the Overlook is a personality in itself, and it is greedy and wants Danny, and it will do anything to get him.

The Audiobook
Campbell Scott is the narrator for this book, and what a narrator he is! In fact, as a narrator I'd easily give him 5*, he is EERIE, fantastic, believable and I kid you not sometimes he was able give me goosebumps. In fact, it was weird, there were even times when I would swear he sounded a little like Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance. The presentation is excellent. I downloaded it from Audible and of course, as usual it was delivered promptly to my phone and I  enjoyed it. 

The Story
So, this story is really scary! Not because it is a bare all horror story but because it is almost Hitchcockian in its style, in that less is more, and it had me at my wit's end! Honestly, the parts I found so horrifying really were the parts that just did not reveal too much. Stephen King is just so good at doing it. [The part that had me turn off the audiobook because I was so freaked out was the moment Jack closes the door to 217 and King describes the hurried footsteps of somebody coming after him and then rattling the doorknob... oh my goodness, I almost died.]

The story unfolds at a leisurely pace. King does not rush his narrative at all and gives the reader plenty of time to be slowly terrified. I think the best part of the novel is that growing sensation of dread, the same way that Danny is teased by his dreams we, the readers, are constantly teased by King. When you think something awful is going to happen, sometimes you're right and want to cry a little, sometimes you're wrong and you curse King for freaking you out.

What I found interesting about the novel, in comparison to the movie is Wendy. Wendy, played by the wonderful Shelley Duvall is a semi-weak, floundering and unassuming character, whilst King's Wendy has a lot more oomph to her, and speaks her mind... a lot! Although I also greatly enjoyed Duvall's (Kubrick's) version of Wendy, I was surprised by King's version... and much preferred her. There are also lots of different themes and scenes that are added and taken away by Kubrick in the movie, and I know die-hard King fans spit on the movie but y'know what? I think it's an awesome re-imagining of the book. The movie and the book itself are so embedded in our culture now that we should all pay homage to its epicness. Forgive me Stephen King for only just getting around to reading it.

So if I thought the book was so epic why, oh why did I only give it 4 stars? Well, it's actually because when I completed the book (the movie ending is completely different to the book ending) I didn't feel wholly satisfied. I wanted something else to happen. It's not that I like tidy little endings all the time, I don't expect that, but this novel seemed to need it. Anywho, I loved it - and I hope you will too. Please don't message me with complaints about nightmares though... you take full responsibility for any reading you do... (even if I recommended the books, haha!)

Mini-Soapbox Moment
People kind of roll their eyes when you talk about Stephen King - it's as if you consider Mills & Boon novels to be high-literature. I think what is forgotten about Stephen King is that he is an artist, just a study of his language alone would blow your mind. If we forget the excellence of King's command of our humble language, then he can easily become a joke, and I think that's so sad, he's completely taken for granted because the majority of people (I've met anyway) barely consider the language when they read and focus on the story alone (which of course is important! But language is too!!). Rant over. So my point is, is that give Stephen King a chance and just look at the language and I promise you, I double promise and Brownie promise that you'll see King in a different light! 

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My Love-Affair with Stephen King

I am not really a dedicated fan of the horror genre any more (although I was pestered by many an English teacher for never branching out of my little box of horror as a teenager), and it is particularly rare to see me reading things from that genre. I have a penchant for Gothic fiction - especially good ol' 19thC Gothic - but that's for another post! 

But you know, no matter how hard I try to fight it, I do love to read horror... but only if it is written by Stephen King. 

What I appreciate most about his writing is that King exhibits a freakishly absurd understanding of the human condition, and with perfect command, deciphers and reveals both the psychologies and motives of his characters. To put it in the most cheesy way possible - King is master of his pen, the pen is not master over him.

I'll give you a perfect example. King is the only author, ever, in my reading history who has ever physically compelled me to close a book and stop reading because I was so freaked out. That may sounds nuts, but I remember a particular moment in Salem's Lot [1975] that took place in a prison cell that had my hair standing on end! I closed the book and took a twenty minute break before I went back to it. I was overwhelmed, not just by the creepiness, but also by the very fact that no book had actually made me look away before. Under the Dome [2009] (though I would consider that more of a sci-fi novel rather than a horror) also had moments that chilled my bones, and characters so repulsive and uncomfortable that I would pause the audiobook to give myself a break.

King is quite simply a prolific writer, and can churn out a book or two a year. Needless to say, some of those books are just not as good as others, but his good books are just so, so good - I can ignore the bad ones. 

One of the greatest things about King are his unashamedly philosophical undertones that are present within his writings. King is a political-animal and this shows both in and out of his writing. Carrie [1974], Misery [1987], Under the Dome, Firestarter [1980] and his Dark Tower series [1982-2012] (please forgive my adding the Dark Tower books as they're sci-fi, but there are some truly horrifying scenes within it) all carry philosophical or recurring political themes.

From where I've been standing, and it is probably because I am biased and not a great consumer of horror as I once was, but the horror genre has pretty much stagnated. I've not seen any great morphing, either within literature or even on the big screen. Horror has had paranormal-romance grow out of it and leave the nest, it's had gore which is now a genre all on its own, but horror, horror is sat waiting for somebody to notice it. 

Stephen King, who is arguably one of the most well known horror writers of our day is not really considered high-literature. His books are not being clutched in the hands of housewives at books clubs, or had Oprah Winfrey jumping on her couch about them, but I believe a lot more credit should be thrown King's way. After all, some of the best and most horrific characters within our collective memories were his own gruesome creations (Annie Wilkes, It (Pennywise), Carrie, Big Jim Rennie, Jack Torrance and of course Cujo).

Books Mentioned

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Under the Dome - Stephen King

'We're a blue planet in a corner of the galaxy, and for all the satellites and probes and Hubble pictures, we haven't seen evidence of anyone else. There's nothing like ours. We have to conclude we're on our own, and we have to deal with it. We're under the dome. All of us.' Stephen King

I am quite simply a Stephen King fan. I sing it loud and proud, so it was only a natural progression that I would reach for Under the Dome [2009]. 

The book has a simple premise. A small town in Maine is quite suddenly disconnected from the rest of America by a dome. Quite simple really. This obviously has horrifying consequences as the government begins to realise that the barrier is completely impenetrable to all of their attempts to destroy it. What ensues is an uncomfortable read of how the townspeople of Chester's Mill suddenly turn on each other, and what happens when people stop fearing the law (think of Lord of the Flies by William Golding).
King does an amazing job of commanding his MASSIVE cast of characters. And basically speeds through the plot. The characters can be scary, only because of just how real they are. They can be difficult to read, as deep down, we know that people can truly be as described. This, of course, is what makes King great - he has such an insight in to the human mind, our capabilities and our spirits that his novels (even his not so awesome ones) always have believable, uncomfortable characters. What is scary though, is how we read the townsfolk basically destroy themselves and others because they stop feeling accountable. 

The villain of the piece is 'Big Jim' Rennie - the Second Selectman and downright control-freak. He does anything to keep his power, and even uses some Hitler-esque techniques such as employing his own police-army, organising arson and vandalism too, oh, and stealing gas canisters from hospitals (the last one isn't so Hitlerish). I have yet to find a character in any novel I have read that I loathe as much as him.

We are also introduced to Dale Barbara i.e. 'Barbie', who plays the typical 'goodie' an ex-serviceman who spent time in Iraq. He is in constant opposition to 'Big Jim' Rennie which creates such a jarring atmosphere that I found I could only applaud King. I wish I could write characters with as much believability.  

There is a recurring theme of hypocrisy throughout the novel, and quite rightly so. We see corrupt mothers, corrupt pastors, corrupt town officials and corrupt policemen, and as readers we become so drowned by this corruption it can create a sense of bleakness and a despair at the human condition.... well, that's how I felt anyway!
King also makes it a point to discuss the ecological effects of living inside the dome. With cars, explosions, pollution, fires and what-not, we read as the dome becomes darker and darker with pollution - and also, how it starts to become warmer, being magnified by the sun's rays. 

Throughout the read I was bragging to my friends 'King is back... King is back!' and I believed it. Until the end.
[Spoiler alert] 
Yes. Until the end. Until the only explanation King could muster for the dome was a silly ol'cop-out in the form of extra-terrestrial children, deciding to perform a little experiment by placing a dome over the town and watching how it self destructs. King reiterates this idea by likening it to children burning ants with a magnifying glass. This, I just could not reconcile with the rest of the book. I was quite honestly disappointed, and what should have been the climax of the book was a complete let down. It just could not stand up to the build-up. 

The sci-fi aspects of the novel really ruined it for me, but that is only because I pretty much stay away from straight sci-fi books. Although it is barely touched upon it made enough of an appearance that it overshadowed the rest of the narrative. 

My advice (to those of you like me) is this.... read it, please do, it is awesome... just don't read it to the end! If you love sci-fi of course, you'll (hopefully) love the ending and close the humongous book with satisfaction!

I love you King. I do. But I just don't do aliens... (unless it is Dreamcatcher... it seems I can only do aliens if it is Dreamcatcher).

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