Tag Archives: Stephen King

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A very short review of “Cell” (2016)

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The lower-budget “Cell” (2016) wasn’t quite the spectacular horror movie that I was hoping for.  (A Stephen King zombie film?!)  But it was still pretty good — I’d give it an 8 out of 10.

The screenwriting and directing are average.  The acting seems uneven too.  And, yes, that includes its curiously low-key performances by John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.  But the opening action set piece was well done, and it succeeds in capturing the creepiness and originality of King’s 2006 novel.  What a neat genre-buster too — this is zombie movie meets sci-fi film meets supernatural horror epic meets art-house road movie.  It really is an interesting (and quite divergent) variation of the zombie subgenre.

I’ll go ahead and answer the million dollar question for those who have read the book.  Yes, that widely unpopular ambiguous ending has been changed, and what we are shown is far more conclusive and satisfying.

By the way, this isn’t King’s first venture into zombie horror.  He wrote an excellent short story entitled “Home Delivery,” which I cheerfully recommend.  It’s far closer to mainstream zombie horror, and I think it would appeal to “The Walking Dead” fans.  I first read it in a worn copy of 1989’s “Book of the Dead” zombie anthology; it also appears in 1993’s “Nightmares & Dreamscapes.”

 

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Gonna hand these out at a Donald Trump rally.

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Who’s with me?

 

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A very short review of “Thinner” (1996)

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“Thinner” (1996) was a fun enough outing; I’d give it an 8 out of 10.  You can easily tell that this story originated with Stephen King.  Only he can take an antiquated plot device like a gypsy curse and actually make it frightening.

I do get the sense that screenwriters Michael McDowell and Tom Holland stuck closely to the original novel (which I have not read).  It seems like a character-focused story; I’ll bet the original prose really explored the incongruous friendship between Robert John Burke’s mild-mannered attorney and Joe Mantegna’s apparently psychotic mobster.  I’ll bet that King’s unique style would have perfectly rendered certain plot points in the movie, such as one key conversation being overheard early on.

I feel like an idiot … For the life of me, I thought that actress Kari Wuhrer was Marissa Tomei.  Her resemblance in this movie is striking.  I can’t be the only one who made that mistake, can I?  Anyway, I really panned Wuhrer’s performance in 2005’s disappointing “Hellraiser: Deader.”  But she is damn terrific here in her role as the beautiful banshee adversary — she damn near steals the movie.  Also outstanding is Michael Constantine as her haggard, curse-casting gypsy father.

 

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Cover for “Startling Mystery Stories,” Fall 1967

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This was the home of Stephen King’s first published short story, “The Glass Floor.”

 

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“Say thank ya.”

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Two really good buddies of mine brainstormed with me today in New York about our plans for an eventual road trip to Maine.  I’m posting this as a little incentive for us to firm up our plans in the coming months.

Our “Three Musketeers” thing worked out quite awesomely when we last headed north together, on a trip to Rhode Island maybe … 12 years ago?  Tempus fugit.  We’re long overdue for another adventure.

I’m not clear about whether “Say thank ya” is actually said in Maine.  It is the vernacular for much of “Mid-World,” one of the many parallel universes depicted in Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” novels.  And it is correctly quoted — it’s separate from the  “Thankee, Sai” formal expression that we more often hear in the world of Roland Deschain.

 

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West 34th Street today and views of the NYC skyline.

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I never claimed to be a famous photographer.  (Okay, once I actually did claim to be a famous photographer, but I was twentysomething and hitting on an amazing girl in one of Long Island’s tawdrier bars “out east.”  Was it … Bawdy Barn?)

If my inelegant eye doesn’t put you off too much, then enjoy these shots of West 34th Street today and the NYC skyline.  (I regret not getting a shot of the Freedom Tower.)

A quick thanks to the U. S. Army for making me feel safer in Penn Station, really.  Those guys look tough as nails, and just as sharp.  They were visibly scanning every passerby right in the middle of the station, a task I can’t imagine is easy.  But they were at the top of their game.

Hey Stephen King fans — you see that poorly taken snaphot that is second to last?  That’s none other than the NYC entrance to The Lincoln Tunnel.  Our good friend Larry Underwood had a particularly hard time entering and traversing that tunnel, didn’t he?  (It was much easier for me, as I inhabit a different level of The Tower.)

“Baby, can you dig your man?”

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Yeesh. Lotta nightmares last night.

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Rescue a helpless little girl lying unconscious in the street during the vampire apocalypse?  The tiny one with golden braids and porcelain skin?  There’s a reason you couldn’t feel her heartbeat.  Her skin is porcelain because she’s undead.  Have fun watching her rise, slowly and ceremoniously, in the makeshift fortress of your living room.  For added fun, the lock on your bedroom door won’t work!  Ha!  The moral of the story?  No good deed goes unpunished.

Thrilled to see your childhood dog again?  She’s NOT thrilled to see you. Because she’d been buried in “Pet Sematary” or something, and she’s biting your fingers because she remembers all those times you pulled her tail when you were three.  (Mom TOLD you to stop, but you couldn’t resist.)  The moral of the story?  [In best Fred Gwynne voice:] “Sometimes dead is better.” Also: be kind to animals!

That wicked cool GIGANTIC snake you keep snapping pictures of when it drinks from the backyard birdbath?  The one with a head the width of a shovel?  It’s actually NOT harmless merely because you cannot see any fangs.  It all fun and games until it wraps its coils around you, and you realize it’s a python.  For added fun, your Mom can’t hear you in the kitchen and cannot respond to your pleas for her to throw you a butcher knife, and then shut the open back door to protect herself.  For added confusion, your childhood home NEVER HAD A F***ING BIRDBATH.  (We WERE the 99 percent.)  The moral of the story?  [IN best MST3K voice:] “Watch out for snakes!”  Also: if clothes don’t make the man, then fangs don’t make the snake.

Christ!  What did I EAT last night?

 

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Pete Harrison recommends 10 horror movies for Halloween!!!

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Among the many unique Internet resources for horror fans, the best just might be blog correspondent Pete Harrison. Pete’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of horror, whether it’s films, books, comics, classic short stories, or even vintage radio broadcasts.  The guy’s priceless.

Pete regularly swaps tips online about the best movies to watch — including fright flicks that are older or more obscure.  So he’s the ideal candidate for suggestions about Halloween viewing.  I asked Pete to name ten great fright flicks for October, and the list below is what he recommends.

I love that he’s included 1973’s made-for-tv movie, “A Cold Night’s Death.”  You’ve probably never heard of it.  But I know it.  It was one of the features that my “movie uncle,” Uncle John, screened for me back in the pre-Internet days of VHS — when hard-to-find thinking-man’s horror films were even harder to find.  It’ll get under your skin.  If it’s any indication of quality of the rest of the films that Pete has listed here, then this is advice for some damned fun late-night viewing.

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From Pete Harrison:

Per your request, SIR!!!!! There’s a million more!

TEN HORROR MOVIES I DEARLY LOVE, NO PARTICULAR ORDER!

1) JOHN CARPENTER’S “PRINCE OF DARKNESS” (ALL TIME CLASSIC!)
2) “RITUALS” (HAL HOLBROOK)
3) STEPHEN KING’S “THE NIGHT FLIER” (WAY BETTER THAN ANYONE THINKS)
4) “SHOCK WAVES” (NAZI ZOMBIES! PETER CUSHING!)
5) “A COLD NIGHT’S DEATH” (1973 TELEFILM)
6) “THE INNOCENTS” (OOZES WITH GOTHIC DREAD)
7) “THE SENTINEL” (1977)
8) “NIGHT GALLERY” (1969 TV PILOT- PORTIFOY? PORTIFOY!!!!!!!!!!)
9) “DEAD AND BURIED” (HELLUVA TWIST ENDING!)
10) “THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA” (SPIES, VAMPIRE BRIDES, PLAGUE, KITCHEN SINK!!!!!!)

Thanks, Pete!

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A review of “Parallels” (2015)

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First, a clarification — “Parallels” (2015) is absolutely not a feature film; it’s an undisguised attempt at a pilot for an ongoing web-based series.  I think it’s pretty cruddy of Netflix to market it as a standalone film, as viewers expecting a conclusive story will doubtless be disappointed.  Its parallel universe-hopping premise also seems so similar to “Sliders” (1995-1999) that it just might approach the boundary between inspiration and ripoff.

With that said, however … dear LORD!!!  “Parallels” was frikkin’ FANTASTIC.  What we’ve got here is a far edgier, grownup version of “Sliders,” with a first episode introducing the same type of show-spanning mysteries as “Lost.”  But where “Sliders” was milquetoast primetime family fare, this looks like an excellent serialized thriller with plenty of pathos.

What a shame this thoughtful series never reached fruition.  I was hooked.  It’s smartly written by Christopher Leone; he’s visibly well acquainted with string theory, and has a hell of a lot of clever fun with it.  “Parallels” is a face-paced 80 minutes that follows a tragic, dysfunctional modern family embroiled in the mystery of the plot-driving “Building.”  The Building appears to be the nexus of countless parallel universes, a bit like the “The Dark Tower” links them in Stephen King’s multiverse.  The cast is uniformly good; the standouts were Eric Jungmann as the comic relief and Michael Monks as an understated but terrific bad guy.

I had only a few tiny quibbles.  Some of the family melodrama and the mysteries were a little forced and heavy-handed.  The ending (?) here, while really intriguing, also borrows a page or two from “Cube” (1997) and one particularly good episode of Ron Moore’s “Battlestar Galactica” (2004-2009).

I’m not sure how to rate this.  It fails as a standalone film, I think, because it simply doesn’t have an ending.  I suppose I’d give it … a 4 out of 10?  If you can forgive that fatal flaw, however, and want to enjoy some top-shelf science fiction, then I’d easily give it a 9 out of 10.

Dammit.  Why wasn’t this show made?

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I NEED TO ADOPT THIS “PINE MARTEN” AS A PET.

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So I’m working on a poem, and I need to ascertain that the martin and the raven are indeed two different species of birds.

Google shows me this.  Holy crap, do I ever need this animal as a pet.

Evidently, this animal is called a “pine marten?”  So some mammals are also “martens” with an “e?”

Whatever.  As a guy who just doesn’t get sports, the agent provocateur here is far more entertaining than the actual game.

“Pine marten” is a pretty name.  But I think proper adherence to scientific nomenclature better suggests “funnier wolverine” or “disruptive weasel” or even just “AWESOME BASTARD.”

Weird world: I had no idea that a “rook” was a crow until I read “Wizard and Glass.”  (Cuthbert Allgood wears a “rook’s skull” as a pendant, as a gag.)  You can learn a lot from Stephen King.