Cats, Cycles, & Changes

My last post was “late” by about 300 pages or so.  This meaning that I started reading Pet Sematary before I had gotten around to writing my post for Christine because I was waiting on the movie, but wanted to get started reading.  Then once I watched the movie I kept putting of the post because there was no urgency since I was already reading Pet Sematary.

This time I decided to outdo myself.  This post is not only late, but it’s double late.  Meaning, since I have finished Pet Sematary I have not only started the next book, Cycle of the Werewolf, but I have finished it and am over 500 pages into The Talisman as well…. And I’ve watched the movie for Pet Sematary…  Why the delay you ask?  Well, it just so happens that the day I watched Pet Sematary was the night I started Cycle of the Werewolf.  But, Cycle isn’t exactly a novel as much as it is a short story that got published individually.  So I blew through that in about an hour.  At that point I decided I would save my post until I had watched the movie for it, Silver Bullet, and then have one big double posting for you.   Not knowing for certain when that would be, I started The Talisman.

Now, here we are, 500 pages later and I still haven’t watched Silver Bullet.  I’ve actually had it in my possession for a couple weeks now, but haven’t convinced myself (or my wife) to sit down and watch it.  That being said, as I am closing in on the end of The Talisman I figured I’d better get to posting because I don’t want to have a triple post sitting over my head.

So, let’s jump in to Pet Sematary and then I’ll explain a few minor changes to my process from here on forward.

Pet Sematary was the first Stephen King book I ever read.  I read it when I was a senior in high school.  Which, as I look back to the timing of when I would have read it (somewhere near the beginning of the second semester of my senior year) I can’t help but find it interesting that as I am sitting here posting my thoughts about my second reading of it that it is just about 10 years to the day that I would have read it previously.  That’s a crazy thought.  And quite cool how it turned out.

Obviously, I enjoyed Pet Sematary the first time I read it because it turned me into the King fan that I am today.  As such, this book probably holds a strong nostalgic place in my heart, and may have swayed my opinion of it this go around.  Pet Sematary is not a literary masterpiece.  And really, ultimately, it’s nothing all that special.  But, it’s fun, dang it, and I enjoyed reading just as much this time as I did the first time.

Interestingly, Pet Sematary almost didn’t happen.  When King finishes a book, he lets it sit for several weeks before going back to it to re-read and begin editing.  When he finally went back to Pet Sematary, he was so disturbed by what he wrote that he put it back in the drawer.  However, later down the road when he was parting ways with his publisher and owed them one last book, he dug it out and gave it to them.  Perhaps the reason he didn’t like it was that since he based much of it on some personal experiences it rang a little too real to him.  Or maybe he just recognized just how out there he was going with this one and that it was quite a disturbing story.   Whatever the reasons, I’m glad that he eventually submitted it, because it’s one of my favorites.  Yes, it’s disturbing.  Yes, it’s out there.  But, again I say, it’s fun dang it.  Of course, maybe that says something about me….

Reading the story this time I had a much different view point than when I read it as an 18 year old kid.  Mostly because I’m a father now, so that aspect of the story hit a lot closer to home.  I could empathize with Louis a lot more (spoiler alert, you have been warned) over the loss of his son and I could see how someone in his position could slowly slip into madness and do everything they could to bring their son back (especially when you throw in some supernatural outside influences).  It makes a lot more sense in that light.  It also makes it a lot sadder.  To see Louis overcome by his grief to the point of going against his better judgment, not once, but twice, is sort of heart breaking.

Despite the 10 year gap, I remembered most of the major (and several of the minor) elements of the story.  I’m not sure if that speaks to the simpleness of the story, or to just how impacting of a story it is (or was to me when I read it).  Perhaps a combination of both.  Either way, I remembered quite a bit about the story.  I even remembered the scene when Louis is sneaking into the cemetery to dig up Gage and has an image of himself slipping and impaling himself on the arrow tipped fence rods.  For some reason that particular scene remained vivid in my mind over the last decade, not that I’ve really thought about it much (ever really), but when I sat down to read the book again, it was one of the first scenes I thought about when I first picked up the book.  I even cringed at the description I knew that King would be providing (I guess something about having your testicle impaled just sticks with a guy).

Other interesting facts about the book.  Cujo is referenced during the story, but not by name.  At one point some of the characters are discussing rabies and one of them mentions that a while back a Saint Bernard down state caught it and went on a rampage killing 4 people.  This is not the first time King has referenced his other stories.  It is the first time however that a “non-Castle Rock” story makes reference to a Castle Rock story.  I’ve talked about the “sub universe” that all the Castle Rock stories share, so I won’t go into that again, but this book does not take place in Castle Rock, yet it does reference Cujo.  Speaking of references, the town of Jerusalem’s Lot is also mentioned, though I can’t remember what the context of it was.

The other thing I wanted to bring up is that in the book it is established quite clearly that Church, the cat, is male.  Yet when Louis talks about getting him fixed he constantly makes reference to having him “spayed”.  Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought that “spaying” was the term used for female animals and the “neutering” was the term for males.  Or is that just for dogs?  Are the terms different for cats?  Someone with more expertise than me feel free to chime in on the comments.

And there we have it.  My thoughts on Pet Sematary.  You’ll notice I didn’t give much of a summary of the book (like, I didn’t give one at all), but I did make a few references.  I’ll be interested to hear from you what you think of this.  I don’t want this blog to turn into just me giving a plot summary of each story, and I don’t want to be ruining anything for anyone.  But, on the other hand, if this detracts from your ability to follow what I’m saying about the book, please let me know.

Up next, the movie.

Pet Sematary (1989)

Where to start?  Well, Stephen King wrote the screenplay, so I can’t really complain about the differences much, since he was the one who made them (and frankly, there weren’t that many that were significant).

So, what else can I talk about?  How about the acting…. It was horrible.  Just plain horrible.  Argh, this movie was not enjoyable at all.  And the sad thing is, this is the second time I’ve watched it.

I first watched the movie with my buddy Matt shortly after I finished the book the first time.  Why on earth he ever agreed to watch it with me I don’t think I will ever know.  This is not his type of movie.  But for some reason, I was able to convince him.  Frankly, I don’t even know why we decided to watch it in first place, but we did.  And I will never forget just how much he didn’t like it and how uncomfortable he was.  Matt uses humor as a defense mechanism, and I’ll never forget the scene when Pascow’s ghost shows up looking all “run over by a car” like and everything and Matt says, “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.   Look at those shorts.”  Now, obviously, the ghost corps is the gross part, but leave it to Matt to look past that and point out the super short 80s bicycle shorts the ghost is wearing.  Obviously he was deflecting (but in all fairness, 80s shorts are ridiculously short and quite disturbing).  Again, I’m not sure why he watched the movie with me in the first place… But I’m glad he did, if just so that I will always have that memory.

Acting aside, the movie was slow and not all that enjoyable.  It certainly did not capture me the same way the book did.  Which is interesting.  Because it certainly capture the whole disturbing aspect pretty well.  It actually said mostly faithful to the book and the parts it deviated from were not what made it un-enjoyable.  I think what it comes down to is just what I’ve been saying over and over, just because a story makes for a good read does not mean it will play well on the screen.

And I don’t really want to waste any more time talking about the movie.

So, let’s move on to Cycle of the Werewolf.

As I said, I powered though this book (novella) in about an hour.  It was a fun little read.  The story covers the span of a year in a small town that becomes plagued by a werewolf.  The story has 12 chapters, one for each month of the year.

I won’t say much about it, because it’s got a little twist in it that I don’t want to spoil if I can avoid it.  But, consider this your warning 🙂  The main issue I had with this story when I first read it was I felt cheated when it was revealed who the werewolf was.  We meet the character earlier in the story and he finds one of the victims and is completely shocked by it.  The first time I read this, when we find out later he is really the werewolf, I felt that it was a cheat, that the story was purposefully “misleading” us earlier in order to not allow us to guess who the werewolf was.  This read though, however, I changed my mind.  I realized it was explained in the story that at first the person who was the werewolf had no knowledge it was them.  They had no memory of the change and so they were unaware of their own actions.  Thus it was ok that they were “surprised” upon finding one of the victims, and this little scene, while provided in some part to “distract” us from suspecting them, is not “cheating”.  So I’m ok with that now.

The version of the book I have is illustrated, which is really pretty cool.  It’s also neat because the illustration for the scene in which we discover who the werewolf is actually comes on the page before that part of the story.  So you turn the page and there is this picture that clearly shows who the werewolf is, but you haven’t read that yet, so you think “Oh, Oh my, OH MY.  IT’S HIM!!!”  Pretty cool.

Ultimately, this book didn’t really contain a lot of werewolf action.  So if that’s what you are going for, you might be disappointed somewhat.  The main focus of the book is on the town and the aftermath of each monthly attack.  (If you don’t know why the attacks occur monthly….. you should not be reading a werewolf book.  Just saying.) But, despite the lack of actual werewolf mayhem, and despite the shortness of it, I enjoyed this book quite a bit.  If you are looking for a nice quick read, this is one you should check out.

And this would have been the part of the post where I talked about Silver Bullet.  But, as I mentioned before, I have not been able to get myself to watch it yet.  Partly because, now that I’m a father, my free time has decreased drastically, so I’m much more selective in how I choose to spend that time.  Partly because out of the last 5 movies I have watched, only 2 have been enjoyable.  And partly a combination of the two reasons (less time to watch movies means I am not all gung-ho to waste what time I have watching a movie I don’t expect to be good).

And that brings me to the changes I’m going to be making.  I do still plan on watching all the associated movies.  However, due to the fact that my life schedule has changed so much, I’m not going to hinge my progress on this journey on the movies.  So when I finish a book, I’ll blog about it and move on to the next book.  Whenever I happen to find the time, I will watch the movies and blog about them as well.  I will still be watching the movies in the order they come up on my list, but I’m not going to hold of reading/blogging just because I haven’t gotten to the movie yet.  Hopefully that will allow me to start making a little more progress and maybe even take some of the pressure off the movie watching side of things so that I might have more of a chance to actually enjoy them when I do watch.  Although no amount of pressure relieving is ever, ever going to make Trucks enjoyable to watch. Ever!

And that concludes this post.  Please weigh in on your thoughts about whether I should go back to including any sort of plot summary or if just talking about my thoughts works.

Up next will be The Talisman, which, as I stated earlier, I am actually over 500 pages into.

Thank you for reading.

Richards, Running, & Rentals

Well, I have finally finished The Running Man. I say this not because it took me a particularly long time (3-4 weeks isn’t so bad when you look at how long some of the books have taken me… *cough* The Stand *cough*), but because I flew through the first 200 pages or so in a couple of days and it has taken me 3 weeks to finish the last 100 or so. I have a fantastic reason for this of course. I started the book over the weekend that Amanda was admitted to the hospital to induce labor. Since she spent 2 days in labor before they finally decided to do a C-section and since there wasn’t a whole lot I was able to do while in the hospital with her, I was able to get a good chunk of reading done. At one point I thought I might just even be able to finish the book. I did not, however, and once our baby arrived, I was just a tad busy the next couple weeks getting used to being a parent and stuff and reading took a back seat. But, things are starting to get somewhat back to normal now (or at least, what normal is now going to be) and I am figuring out just how to get reading back into my schedule. Good thing too, because there are quite a few books to go on this journey and I am definitely enjoying myself and would hate to quit.
So let’s jump right on in shall we?

For those of you who don’t know what The Running Man is about, it takes place in a futuristic America in which a giant television network seems to have taken over the country. This book has a very strong science-fiction/futuristic vibe to it, and as such a lot of things aren’t really explained. You just kind of have to pick things up with the story as it goes. In some sense, this is nice for this story, as the action is really all that is important anyway. Anyway, the network has developed a whole series of “reality programs” for poor people to participate in, in order to win money. For example, one of these shows places people with poor hearts on a treadmill and they run and earn money based on how far they go. The appeal of the show for the “viewers” is of course what would draw anyone to any of the idiotic reality shows they have today… Seeing someone else in crisis is apparently very appealing (interesting how King was able to pick up on this fact several years before reality TV really took off, or even existed). And of course, the twist is that someone with a heart condition is going to have some issues after running on a treadmill for any length of time.
The book follows a man by the name of Ben Richards. Richards is down on his luck and applies to be on one of the shows. He gets selected to be on the network’s premier prime time show The Running Man. The premise of the show is that after a day’s head start, Richards will be hunted down by the networks top mercenary and his team. The prize is that for every hour Richards is able to evade capture, his family will receive $100 (I say his family because when Richards is “caught” he will be executed. So, as you can see, this book is very much a futuristic take on The Most Dangerous Game). If Richards is somehow able to survive for a month, he will win the ultimate prize of one billion dollars.
Now, what makes running that much harder for Richards is that, in addition to avoiding the “hunters”, he is also competing with every single viewer of the show. This is because any viewer who submits a tip to help find Richards receives a prize as well. And if that tip leads to his execution, the prize value is increased. Also, Richards must make two tapes of himself everyday (think of the “confessional” times they have on reality shows now – once again, King hits the nail on the head before the nail is even there) and mail them in to the network to air on the program. If he does not, he will forfeit all prize money, but will still be hunted… Of course, as soon as he sends something via the mail, the network knows where he is. But the network “does not share this information with the Hunters”…. Of course they don’t….
And that is the basic premise of the story. We follow Richards as he tries to avoid capture. It doesn’t seem like much, and it isn’t really, but the story is very engaging and moves at a pretty rapid pace. Which was nice after the long, slow, drawn out story that was Roadwork. Another thing that was interesting about this book, and helped with the pacing I suppose, is that it was divided up into 101 short sections; I guess you could call them chapters… Each one was titled the same way, “…Minus ### and Counting…” where ### was a running countdown starting with 100 and ending with 0 (which is why there are 101 of them). With the page count being only a little over 300, you can imagine that these “chapters” would be very short indeed. The chapter thing was kind of neat, and was definitely a stark contrast to Cujo which had absolutely no chapters whatsoever.
Other things I found interesting about the book include:
The main character’s name is Ben Richards. Which I couldn’t help but notice (being the comic lover that I am) is a nice cross between Ben Grimm and Reed Richards (two of the members of the Fantastic Four). Whether or not this was intentional by King, or just a random coincidence, I do not know. But I found it kind of cool.
Another thing I liked was how there wasn’t a lot of (read: any) detail given as to how America got to be the way it was, or much detail given about the state of things at all. Rather little details and tidbits were given though out the story in an almost casual way that someone would mention something that was widely known. For instance, there are air cars. No explanation is given as to what exactly this means, but they seem to be a pretty standard form of transportation. There are “new dollars” and “old dollars”, with new dollars being apparently more valuable. Also, at one point it is mentioned that deer are extinct on the east coast, but no mention as to why or how or what caused that. And then of course there was the mention of the Seattle riots of 2005, wonder what those were about? The final thing I thought was crazy and showed just how strange this future America is was the mention of Nevada’s “Have-One-Kill-One” mandatory abortion law. Of course, as I said, there is no explanation as to what this means at all. It’s just mentioned. But one can only imagine what the law could say, and cringe at the thought of what could cause things in our country to take that sort of turn….

I mentioned earlier that the pacing of this story was in direct contrast to the pacing of Roadwork. The other contrast is with the main character, specifically his name. If you recall from my post about Roadwork, we don’t actually find out the main character’s name until about page 19 or so. In The Running Man, there is no questions about what the main character, Ben Richards, name is. It would be pretty hard to forget too, as it seemed that King used his actually name “Richards” when talking about him almost as much, if not more, than he used the word “He”. Imagine reading a book and every other time you see the word “He” being used to reference the main character, replace that with the character’s actual name. It wasn’t necessarily distracting or anything and it didn’t really change the way I read the book at all. I think I just noticed since I had just finished Roadwork where the character’s name was used so infrequently that it was very noticeable that the name was used A LOT this time around.

Well, those are my thoughts about The Running Man. I really enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s a very quick read. The short chapters help with that, but the book itself just reads fast, so I’d encourage you to check it out of you like futuristic stories, or anything like that. I don’t want say too much about the ending of the book, but there is one more thing I feel I want to mention because it goes hand in hand with King using the whole “reality TV” idea before it existed. So, SPOILER ALERT!!! If you are thinking of reading the book, you may want to avoid the rest of this paragraph. The book ended with a plane flying into the networks main building. Again, keep in mind this book was written 1982, well before the tragedy of September 11th, 2001. I only bring it up because I find it interesting to read books, watch movies, or anything like that that deal with subject matters that at the time wouldn’t cause any issues, but now a day would not be acceptable. I’m sure no one really thought anything about the ending of the book in 1982 other than “Wow, that’s intense” or something like that. But I’m sure today there would be a big hullaballoo if someone tried to include something like that in a book (that wasn’t based on or about the World Trade Center incident).

And that really is all I have to say about the book.
I was planning on being able to share my thoughts on the movie as well, as it arrived before I finished the book and has been sitting on my shelf waiting for me. However, when I went to stick it in on Sunday, I was amazed to find that the disc and a significant dent in it. Not a scratch. Not a crack. But an honest to goodness dent. Needless to say it would not even load in my player. So I reported it to Blockbuster and they are sending me a replacement which should be here Wednesday. I suppose I could have waited to post until after I had watched it, but I don’t know if I’ll get to it right away or not and I didn’t want all my thoughts to evaporate (as they tend to do). I’m still trying to figure out just exactly what could cause a “dent” in a DVD… Maybe I just don’t want to know. Regardless, it’s very clear that Blockbuster does not have inspecting their discs very high on their priority list before sending them out (unless this somehow occurred in transit). I did make the decision to keep moving on with my reading though, as I don’t want to risk stalling while I’m still on such a good roll (three-week delay excluded). So I started The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger last night. Not that it really matters that much to you what I’m doing or what order I’m doing it in… But I just thought I’d share.

I hope you have enjoyed my thoughts. As always, thanks for reading.

Roadwork, Richard, & Running

I finished Roadwork last night. I would say that I don’t have a lot to say about it, but it seems that every time I do say that I end up having a post a mile long. So instead I’ll just say I don’t know how much I’ll end up saying and leave it at that.

 

If you’ve never read Roadwork before, allow me to give you the briefest overview of what the book is about. The book follows a man by the name of Barton Dawes. The city where Bart lives has decided to add an extension to the freeway which will go right though Bart’s neighborhood. As a result, Bart (and the rest of his neighbors and several businesses, including the one where Bart works) is forced to relocate. Bart, however, does not accept this very well, and the book is about his slow mental breakdown as he struggles to keep his house.

Struggles is not really the right word though. What he really does is just flat out deny the reality of what is happening. He goes about his life pretending to everyone around him that he is doing what he is supposed to be doing. He tells his wife that he is looking into new houses, but always comes up with some excuse as to why he isn’t buying one yet (termites, not a good deal, etc.). He tells his boss that he is working on signing a new lease for their business to move into a new building, giving excuses as to why he is delaying and waiting until their option from the city runs out. But, the reality is that Bart is doing nothing. He is not looking at houses; he has no intention of that. He is not going to sign the new lease; he has no intention of that. In fact, it comes across that Bart really has no intention of doing anything. Well, eventually he has intentions of doing “something”, but I’ll let you read and discover what that is on your own. I will tell you this though, Bart’s inaction eventually cost him his job, his marriage, and one might say even his sanity (though one might also say that his sanity was gone to begin with, which is why he failed to act in the first place).

As always, I’ll get to my thoughts on the book closer to the end of my post, but first, here are a few things I found interesting about the book.

The first thing is that we don’t actually learn Bart’s name until page 19 of the book. For the first several pages, he is only referred to as “he” during the narrative sections of the book. I found this to be somewhat interesting. Reading so far into a book and getting somewhat “invested” is a little odd when you don’t even know the name of the person you are supposed to be invested in. I don’t know that this really had any overall effect on anything; I just found it to be interesting.

The second thing is we never actually find out where this story takes place. The name of the city is never mentioned, and neither is the name of the state. There are some implications as to this being somewhere probably in the middle of the country, but nothing is ever stated specifically. That being said, this marks the second book not to take place in Maine. However, Maine is mentioned a couple times, so the prize for the first book to not mention Maine at all is still up for grabs (yep, even Danse Macabre mentioned Maine, more than once. Danse doesn’t qualify as “not taking place” in Maine since it was non-fiction and didn’t really take place anywhere, but since it did mention Maine a couple times, I thought I’d share that with you).

Next up on the interesting list, Bart works in an industrial laundry. There is one point in the book where there is a brief mention of the folding machine nicknamed “The Mangler” (so called because of what it would do to you if you got caught in it). And of course, this is interesting because King wrote a short story called The Mangler about just such a machine (you can view my post about that story here if you need a refresher).

In relation to where Bart works, there comes a point in the story where Bart is told that had he not sabotaged his career he would have been on track for an executive vice president position which would have paid $35,000 a year. I only bring this up because I always find it fascinating to read older books and think about just how much has changed since the time they were written. Here we are with a guy potentially being offered an executive position with a salary that is smaller than what some people make in their starting positions now. And ultimately, this book isn’t even that old yet. Granted, it takes place a few years before it was actually published, but not that many. It’s just amazing to me sometimes how much in our society has changed so quickly.

The last thing I want to talk about that I found interesting is actually something I’ve talked about before. If you’ll remember from my post on Cujo, I talked about how the main character made a comment that if her situation had taken place in a book, someone would have come along to have helped them (which, and I didn’t mention this before as I only just thought of it, is a little ironical because the fact that it is a book is probably the only reason that all of the events that needed to happen actually did happen to leave her in that position….but I digress). Anyway, this book also pulled the “let’s specifically say something to try and make this more real only to call more attention to the fact that this really is a book” card. Twice!

The first was early on in the book when Bart is talking to someone and says something that didn’t quite come out the way he wanted it to and he makes the comment (or thought) that it’s “only in books that people say everything right the first time”. To which I make the same comment as I did before – that it’s only in books (or so it seems) that people make the comments about what only happens in books.

The second event was later on in the story, and was a little… different in delivery than these other two examples. Bart is talking to someone about his life and how things are going and he makes the comment that “I get the feeling I’m a character in some bad writer’s book”. HA HA. So now, not only are we pulling the “this is real not a book” card, but were also commenting on the author. What makes this kind of extra funny is that this is one of the books that King originally published under the name of Richard Bachman (I may have forgotten to mention that earlier, so there we go). So is this perhaps some subtle comment by King that, “Yes, I know this isn’t the best book I’ve done, deal with it”? Probably not, but the line made me smile nonetheless.

 

So there we have it friends. That is Roadwork. It is definitely not the greatest book you’ll ever read (if you chose to do so), but it is by no means the worst one either (so why not give a try?). It’s by no means a bad read, and I’d recommend it if you’re a King fan or you want something quick and easy. But don’t expect anything big to come from it. The story is pretty simple and the character development is pretty basic (I know, pretty shocking for King, right? But then again, this is “Bachman”, so…). I got the feeling at times that some of the character “relationships” were just included because they would be expected to be. I didn’t get a lot out of the interactions between Bart and his wife. I suppose part of that is to show just how distant the two have grown. So I suppose in that sense things worked just how they should, because the interactions between them felt forced and unnatural. But they felt that way in a very simplistic way, not in the way that you could tell the author was really trying to convey a sense of distance between the two, but rather in a way that almost conveyed a sense of “I don’t know what to do with these two, but they have to interact, so here.”

One thing I did appreciate about the book is that a little bit of time was taken to explain some of the reason why Bart reacted the way he did. It seems for a while that he is just going crazy for absolutely no reason, but we eventually learn part of the cause and it actually does create a little bit of sympathy for him. A little bit. There still really is no excuse for his actions. But learning the why at least lets us feel a little sorry for the guy, but just a little.

Over all I did enjoy the book. It wasn’t exactly gripping in any way and as I mentioned, a lot of the relationships felt superficial and forced. The writing certainly wasn’t King’s greatest, but you have to keep in mind this was an early work of his and there is likely a reason why he published it under the Bachman name instead of his own (I mean, he could have chosen not to publish it at all, and that would have been a loss. A small one, but a loss nonetheless). That being said, the book was still fun and enjoyable for me, even the second time around. The best part was probably the short little epilogue at the end where we find out that (SPOILER, if you’re worried about that type of thing. It’s only slight and doesn’t ultimately affect the overall story, so you should be good) the highway extension wasn’t even necessary. The city simply had some extra money it had to spend on building roads and so it decided to use it (so it wouldn’t lose it next year). Thus, Bart’s whole livelihood ended up being ruined simply because of the government machine. HA.

 

And that’s about all I have for Roadwork. Up next is The Running Man, which is also a Richard Bachman book. It’s a little shorter than Roadwork, so I may be back pretty quickly. Or we might have a new baby soon, in which case who knows how long it will take me to get back. Either way, I will be back at some point.

 

As always, thanks for reading.

Cujo, Complaints, & Comparisons

I finally got myself to sit down and watch Cujo after having the disc for over a week and a half. For some reason I just could never convince myself to watch it. I’m not sure if it’s because I’d seen it before, or if I’m just tired of “old” movies, or if I wasn’t looking forward to watching another movie with a little kid as one of the main characters, or some other reason altogether. Whatever it was, there was definitely some kind of mental block that was just making me not want to watch it. Part of it may be that, since I’m still only halfway through Danse Macabre, and the next book I’m reading also doesn’t have a movie associated with it, there just wasn’t any sense of urgency involved.

Whatever the reason might have been, I finally pushed through it this weekend and watched it. I don’t have a lot of thoughts to share, but I do have some. The few I have though might result in some long winded (worded) tangents though, so at this point there is no telling how short or not short this post is going to be. Also my thoughts are not really all that organized, so I’m sure this post will be jumbled. But hey, you should be used to that by now, so hopefully you won’t mind.

Here we go.

Cujo (1983)

First off, the movie followed the book fairly well. There was really only one major difference (which I’ll get to later) and a few minor differences. The first notable difference is that the movie opens up with the scene of Cujo chasing the rabbit, getting stuck in the cave, and getting bit (not scratched) by the rabid bat. This scene didn’t occur in the book until a little ways into the story. You might recall that I mentioned in the book that King made sure to develop Cujo as a character, a nice dog, before he contracted rabies. That doesn’t happen in the movie. Right away we are aware that Cujo has been bitten. Not to mention that, before Cujo even begins to turn, every time he appears on screen the music turns very “menacing”. It was a little disheartening to see Cujo portrayed and depicted as the evil villain right off the bat. But alas, that’s what horror movies do I suppose.

My next comment might sound familiar to those of you who have been following my blog since the beginning. Yet, at the risk of starting to sound like a broken record, I feel I must point it out. The movie did follow the book very well, but it still missed the essence of what made the book so good. Once again, it seemed like the move was including certain aspects because “they were in the book”, but didn’t develop them enough to actually make them mean anything on screen. The affair was included, but it didn’t seem to add anything to the story. It felt forced almost. Part of this could just be that the character development wasn’t there in the movie. I didn’t find myself caring for any of these people, so I certainly didn’t care that Donna was having an affair. The same thing could be said about “The Monster Words”. They were also included in the movie, but they were just suddenly there and being used and for someone who hadn’t read the book it would certainly have to come across as odd. And the whole lottery winning thing was also rushed and forced. Of course, this wasn’t something that could have been left out, as it was necessary in order to have the Cambers be gone when Donna and Tad come to drop the car off. But it sure felt unnatural in the way it was presented. Once again, not having the character development was part of the down fall. When Mrs. Camber told Joe that she bought him a present, now he needed to give her one, it just didn’t really make any sort of sense at all without knowing all of the background information from the book. The line, which worked very well in the book, actually sounded quite dumb to me in the movie (and I even knew said background information). It seems like the screenwriter just used whatever he could from the book to make his job easier, instead of developing a screen-worthy script that could have actually done the book justice.

Which brings me to probably my biggest issue with the movie compared to the book, the character’s thoughts. Much of what happens in the book, and much of the information that makes you care about the characters is given to us by allowing us to see into their thoughts. Now, obviously this can’t be done in a movie (without being cheesy), so I understand that this isn’t something that could easily be fixed. Especially when it comes to the instances when we get to see into Cujo’s thoughts in the book. There really is no way that this could be done in a movie, no matter how good the screen writer was or how hard he tried. And to be honest, if they did find a way to do it, I’m not sure it would be something that would be enjoyable to watch (again, the cheesiness factor), so I’m not putting the movie down “per say” for lacking this. What I am saying is that what made the book so good was the insight into the characters thoughts. Knowing what they were thinking and feeling about all of the situations is what made you care for them and root for (or against) them as the action played out. However, just seeing the action play out without knowing any of the thoughts simply makes for a ho-hum movie. This isn’t anything the movie necessarily did wrong, it’s just a plain and simple fact (well, more of an opinion I guess) as to why the movie simply wasn’t as captivating.

Ok, enough comparisons to the book (for now, I’ve still got one more big one for later), let’s just talk about the movie on its own for a minute.

Let’s revisit the affair plot point for just a minute. I pointed out that it felt a little forced, and just didn’t seem to add anything to the movie, and I still stand by that. Sure, it added some tension between Donna and Vic later on, but I don’t think the movie would have been any worse off if that tension hadn’t been there (the book might have, but we aren’t comparing for now, remember). The only thing that would have been an issue would be that there would have been no police investigation at the Trenton’s house and so that would have caused some problems with getting the police, and eventually Vic, out to the Camber’s farm. However, a little bit of work with the script could have created something I’m sure. This is starting to sound like comparing again, so I’d better get back to my point. Which is this, even though two of the characters were having an affair, we didn’t have to actually see any sex scenes or nudity. My wife pointed out that, see, it is quite possible for a movie to imply sex (which the movie most certainly did) without having to show it in detail (which this movie did not). So if there is any place where Cujo scores some points, it would be in this area 🙂

The only other thing I really have to say about the movie directly is that, despite their attempts to make the dog appear brutal and mean (and their attempts were good, the make up on the dog was truly very well done), one thing you can’t disguise is a dog’s eyes. In many scenes, even though the dog is “growling” and has foam coming out of his mouth and is covered in blood and mud, you can still see that the dog’s eyes are quite peaceful and happy. Now, I can’t say that I’ve ever actually seen a rabid dog before, or even a dog that was truly mad and angry and attacking, so I’m not sure exactly what a dog’s eyes would look like in that situation. What I do know though, from experience with my own dog, is that I can usually read my dogs emotions pretty well from his eyes (or at least I like to think I do). It is usually pretty clear when my dog is happy, or tired, or irritated, or exasperated (yes, I do believe that sometimes my dog gets exasperated with me), or just plain in a loving mood. His eyes speak volumes. And so did Cujo’s eyes in the movie. As my wife pointed out, “His eyes never looked mean”.

Going along with that, there were a few instances when Cujo was about to “attack” someone and the camera wasn’t quite positioned right, or they didn’t edit the scene properly, and you could clearly see Cujo’s tail wagging. Again, not necessarily something you would picture happening in a dog about to bite someone’s throat out, but rather the action of a dog that is “doing what I’m being told to do”. Later on, it seemed that the director must have noticed the dog was wagging its tail a little too much, because in some scenes the tail was tucked between the back legs and didn’t move at all (you know, kind of like what a tail would do if it was tied down…).

Well, I think that’s just about all I have to say about Cujo the movie. Except, I do believe I promised you earlier one last comparison to the book that was a major difference. So this would be the part where I yell “Spoiler Alert”, for both book and movie. In the book, despite Donna’s heroic effort at the end to kill Cujo and save Tad, it is all just a little too late. Tad has already died of dehydration. In the movie, after killing Cujo, Donna carried Tad into the house, splashed his face with water, performs mouth to mouth, and successfully brings Tad back from the brink of death. Apparently the young boy dying at the end was just a little too bleak even for this horror movie. And what makes this difference even more interesting is that, Stephen King himself was offered to work on the screenplay for the movie, but he turned it down because he felt it would have been too tempting of an opportunity to change everything he felt he got wrong in the book (and for someone who has no memory of writing the book, you can imagine there might be quite a bit to “fix” in his mind). And yet, even though King didn’t want to give in to the temptation to “fix” the story… Whoever ended up writing the screenplay still felt that the ending needed to be fixed…

 

And that really is all I have to say about Cujo. The movie as a whole wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t fantastic by any means. If I had to rate it, I’d say it was “just ok”. The book, on the other hand, was “really good”.

 

Well, that’s all I have for now. I mentioned before that I was about half way through Danse Macabre, so just take how long it has been since my review of Cujo, the book, and that is about how long it will be from now (approximately) until I’m back.

 

As always, thanks for reading.

Canines, Cujo, & Coke

Titles

I finished Cujo this past weekend.  I’ve got quite a bit to say about it, so be prepared for a somewhat longer post today.

The first thing I’d like to say is that Cujo is probably pretty high up on the list of books people know about or think about when you mention the name Stephen King (the others I’m sure are high on the list would be Carrie and The Shining).  It’s another one of those stories that people know even if they haven’t read it.  Or at least, they know part of it, but I’ll get into that in a bit.

First off, for the few of you out there who might not know anything about Cujo, allow me to fill you in on the very basics of the story.  Cujo is a St. Bernard who during the course of the story contracts rabies and winds up trapping a woman and her son in their car for several days.  That’s the spoiler free synopsis that most people already know about Cujo, so nothing should be spoiled for you (although, later there will be spoilers, but don’t worry, I’ll give you a heads up before they come).  There is a LOT more to this story than just that though.  A LOT.  But we’ll get to that later.  I’ve got a lot to talk about with this book, and I’m thinking I’ll just cover story points and plot and stuff along the way as I go.  So, let’s go.

What better place to start than at the beginning, right?  This book actually starts out with the phrase “Once upon a time”.  Yup, that’s right.  I don’t think I’ve ever actually read a book that starts out like that before (other than the fact that I’ve read Cujo before).  What’s interesting is that this phrase is on its own separate page, in larger print.  It almost looks like it’s not part of the story, however, when you turn the page to start “the book” the first line is clearly a continuation of the “Once upon a time” phrase, as it’s not capitalized and is clearly the middle of a sentence.  This really has no bearing on anything at all with the story, I just find it interesting because in movies, books and fairy tales always start with “Once upon a time”, and yet until now (or until the first time I read Cujo, which I suppose counts, but doesn’t really count since I don’t remember noticing it then) I’ve never actually seen that phrase in a book as the actual beginning of the book.

The next interesting thing about Cujo is that it has no chapters whatsoever.  The book starts with “Once upon a time”, things start going, and it never stops until the end.  Fortunately, there is an extra return space between paragraphs when the scene changes, so it at least gives a nice breaking point to leave and come back to.  But, not having chapters, or any other mark indicating a break, is pretty rare.  Especially for Stephen King.  Most of his books not only have chapters, but have numbered sections within the chapter to even further break things up.  I’m not sure what the reasoning for going chapterless was, but it does make the whole story kind of flow a little differently.  It’s like one big long narrative of what happened “Once upon a time”.  I know of only one other book that King wrote without chapters, but I won’t say which one it is until I get to it (but if you want to take a guess, feel free in the comments.  If someone gets it right, I’ll give them 5 bonus points).

When I posted about The Dead Zone, I mentioned that it was the first book to introduce the town of Castle Rock, and that all of the books that King writes about Castle Rock take place in the same “universe”.  Cujo is the second book to feature Castle Rock (the main events of the story occur in Castle Rock this time, rather than just a side story).  King establishes the “universe sharing” right off the bat too.  The first paragraph of Cujo is actually a recap of the Castle Rock events from The Dead Zone (as in “Once upon a time there was a bad man in Castle Rock named Frank Dodd” – those aren’t the exact words, but I don’t have the book on me at the moment, but you should get the idea).  The recap reminds us of Frank Dodd and gives us a rundown of all the girls he murdered.  We are then reminded that Johnny Smith came to town and stopped him.  We then find out that the story of Frank Dodd has stuck around and Frank has become a sort of boogeyman to the local children (as in, be a good little boy/girl or Frank Dodd will come and murder you in your sleep).  Many, many times throughout the book the characters either make reference to or have remembrances about Frank Dodd.

The main events in Cujo center around the Trenton family: Vic, his wife Donna, and their son Tad.  The events that everyone knows about involve Donna and Tad.  But there is a lot more that happens in the book.  Some of the other story lines include Donna having an affair, Vic having problems at his job and story lines looking into Cujo’s owner’s (the Cambers) lives and what is going on with them.  When all is said and done, I would say that the “known” story of Cujo actually takes up the least amount of time in the book.  Which I suppose make sense when you consider that not a lot is going to “develop” with a 200 pound St. Bernard trapping a woman and her 4 year old son in a car for two days.  It’s just interesting how the “main” story actually takes up less story time than all of the side stories.  Of course, all of the side stories are almost necessary to allow the events to “line up” just right for the main events to even happen.

This was the second time I’ve read Cujo.  The first was in high school (almost 10 years ago now, yikes), so I don’t really remember much of what my first impressions were then, or what I thought about the book, or how I felt while reading it.  However, I remembered most of the story, so there wasn’t much that surprised me this go around.  One thing I had forgotten about though was just how much time was spent talking about Cujo before he turned rabid.  King made a conscious effort to let us see just how nice of a dog Cujo was.  How he was friendly, and only wanted to be a “good dog”.  Obviously the intention is to let you get attached to Cujo, so that later on there is conflict created in your mind as he “turns bad”.  I can’t say I remember how I felt reading it the first time, but I don’t think I got as emotionally attached to Cujo then as I did this time.  Knowing what is going to happen and how it is going to turn out makes the nice descriptions of Cujo early on even worse.  Here King is telling you all about this great dog, and how awesome and friendly he his, but the only thing I could think about was how he was going to turn into a 200 pound monster…. Through no fault of his own.  Maybe it’s because I’m older.  Maybe it’s because I actually own a dog of my own now.  But I felt really, really bad for Cujo.  Just thinking about it now makes me a little sad (and if that doesn’t tell you just how good King is at establishing his characters, I don’t know what else will).  The book made it even worse at the end, when King is wrapping things up, he once again reminds us how Cujo was a great dog and he was just unfortunately a victim of a terrible disease.  Being left with that as the book ended was not only a major downer, but it made me want to roll over and hug my own dog, Toby, really tight.  This made me feel a little better, but I’m pretty sure it only pissed Toby off because he was trying to sleep 🙂

Ok, before I get into the next topic, which is mostly just an expansion of the previous topic, I have to issue a warning.  I’m going to give away a pretty major spoiler here.  I went back and forth on whether I should or not, but I decided that to fully be able to articulate my feelings on this subject, I have to.  So, here is your chance, if you don’t want something major revealed, skip to the next paragraph now.  Ok, those of you who are still here have either read Cujo before, or don’t care about knowing the end.  After the whole ordeal comes to a close, Tad winds up dying of dehydration.  I wanted (had) to tell you this, because I want to expand on the idea that knowing the ending makes reading the book much more emotional.  When reading it for the first time, you can have whatever suspicions you want about how things will turn out, but without knowing for sure, you can’t get as emotionally involved.  Also, when you read the book the first time and you find out that Tad dies, you are of course sad.  But, then the book is over and you move on.  However, when you know that Tad is going to die before you start reading, all of the detail that King goes into to develop him as a character become overshadowed by what you know will eventually happen.  I found myself getting emotionally invested in the character, then remembering what would happen, and getting sad for him as I was getting to know him.  The other thing that knowing the ending does is it lets you see just how all of the “little” things that happen lead to the “big” thing later on.  And each time one of those little events happened, I found myself almost wanting to scream into the book “NO!  Don’t do that!!  You’re going to be so sorry!  Please, just don’t!”  When I was younger, I use to like to imagine what it would be like if I had a device that would let you insert yourself into a movie as any character and live in that world.  You could follow along with how the movie was supposed to play out, or you could make any changes you wanted to.  Then you could pull yourself back out of the movie and watch it to see what would be different.  For example, in Aladdin, you could put yourself in to the place of Abu and not grab a hold of that giant gem.  Then you could pull back out and see just how things would have played out if that hadn’t happened.  As I was reading Cujo, I was reminded of that as I really wanted to be able to just jump into the book and keep Donna from doing the things that I knew would eventually lead her out to the Camber farm and the nightmare waiting for her.

If you’re just coming here from the beginning of the previous paragraph, welcome, you should be free and clear on the major spoilers.  There might be one or two more depending on just how this post ends up going, but I’ll give you fair warning, and it won’t be anything as majorly important as the previous one.  The last thing I made a note about wanting to talk about was the inclusion of a phrase I found interesting.  At one point while trapped in the car, Donna starts to wonder why no one at all has come around to help.  She then thinks to herself that, “If this was a book, someone would have shown up by now to rescue us”.  I’m hoping that, if you’re reading this, you’ve read most of my others posts too and have gotten to know me enough to see just why I found that quote interesting.  If you’re not quite sure, take a look back at my review of The Dead Zone, specifically the part where I talk about Carrie.  When I read this comment, my mind immediately focused on the subtle joke that, of course, this is a book (haha).  But then I got to thinking, that’s not the first time I’ve heard a phrase like that before.  I realized that I’ve heard people say lots of times “oh, if this was a movie then….”, or “if this were a TV sitcom then….” Or any other variation you want (“if this were a soap opera then….”).  And then I started to think about it a little deeper and I realized that I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve ever heard anyone say anything like that is……….. In a movie, TV show, or a book.  I don’t know that I’ve ever really seen or heard the phrase used much in real life (except for the fact that maybe we all sometimes fantasize about how our own lives might be different if…. But I don’t know that it’s ever in a serious train of thought).  But apparently one of the best ways to try to make it seem like your particular piece of fiction is “real” is to have the characters fantasize about what would be happening if they were in a movie/book/show.  I find this pretty funny to think about.  The funniest part, ironically, is that I just so happened to have been thinking lately about how some events in my life would be proceeding if it were a movie…. It’s actually related to my blog, but I won’t go into it now, I’m saving it for a time when I don’t have a lot to say about something but still want to write a big long post 🙂

Or another phrase that I’ve heard a lot in movies is “That only happens in the movies”, which is, again, a little funny considering you are watching a movie.  Seems like you only hear the phrase “that only happens in the movies” in the movies.

Well, that finishes up everything that I wrote myself notes to make sure I talked about.  I’ve still got one more thing to discuss, I just didn’t need to write myself a note because I knew I wouldn’t forget about it.

This interesting little tidbit just so happens to be that, during the point in his life when he wrote Cujo, Stephen King was immersed pretty heavily into drugs and alcohol.  In fact, he was so high on cocaine at the time when he wrote Cujo, that he has stated he can’t actually remember doing it.  I’ll probably go into more of the details of all this when I get to On Writing, since that is where I think I first learned about it.  That way the information will be a little fresher in my mind and I’ll get the details right.  But just think about that for a moment, he was so drugged out that he doesn’t remember writing the book.  With that in mind when I started to read Cujo this time, I immediately became aware that there was something “different” about this book.  Now, obviously he had editors and stuff to read over everything, so it’s not like the story is incoherent, or anything like that.  But somehow there is an under lying “tone” that is different in this book than any of the others I’ve read so far.  The book seems a little more “raw” and a little more “blunt” in some of the descriptions of certain events (almost as if the author just didn’t care about being subtle with certain topics).  It’s not something you would necessarily think twice about if you were just reading it on your own, but with the knowledge of the mental state the author was in while writing, it definitely makes you think twice about some of the undertones going on.

For instance, there is a lot mentioned about the presence of evil in Castle Rock.  The idea is presented by some characters that perhaps Frank Dodd’s spirit never really left and that he just moved on and inhabited the body of Cujo, and that is why he really went as crazy as he did.  This isn’t stated directly at all, but some of the characters have thoughts of Frank Dodd when they look at Cujo, and they have that fleeting thought that Frank is still around.  If you wanted to analyze things, you could make the argument that perhaps the “evil” that King is really alluding to is the evils of addiction and how they can do all kinds of damage.  Now, I know I’m normally the first person to get all huffy when people try to “analyze” an author’s hidden meaning in a book.  I like to enjoy a story for the story that it is.  So don’t think I’m all of a sudden trying to say that we should analyze everything anyone has ever written and discover what they are really trying to say.  All I’m saying here is that, if ever there could be hidden meaning behind the writing, Cujo could be a prime candidate.

The other undertone I thought could possibly be there is that King on several occasions makes references to the fact that Cujo is a good dog.  He didn’t want to do the things he wound up doing.  He simply became the victim of a terrible disease that turned him into something completely different than what he is.  Kind of sounds like something someone might think about themselves while in the deep pit of drug addiction.  They might not want to be doing the things to their friends and family that they are, but the addiction takes over and turns them into something completely different. (Now, before you jump on my case here, I do recognize there is a subtle difference.  Drugs addicts are responsible for their situation in that they chose to get involved, and they can choose to quit – as difficult as it might be for them.  Cujo did not choose to get rabies, and once he got it there was nothing he could do about it.  Though, it’s not hard to see how someone in the grip of addiction might try to take the argument of being a victim).

Well, I think that’s enough soapboxing and analyzing for one post.

All in all, I really enjoyed Cujo.  It’s not the most elaborate story ever, however, if you’ve never read it but only know about it, you might be surprised just how much there really is to this story.  I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t read it.  Hopefully my post hasn’t given away too much of the story that you’ll still be able to enjoy it with fresh eyes.

Blockbuster cooperated much better this time, so the movie version of Cujo will be here on Thursday and I’ll probably get around to watching it this weekend.  So I should be back sometime early next week with my thoughts on that.

In the meantime, I’ve gone ahead and started Danse Macabre.  As of right now, it’s probably the book I’ve been least looking forward to reading, simply because it’s non-fiction.  Also, since I’ve read it before, it’s not anything new.  I am hoping that I won’t get bogged down with it though and that I should be able to move through it pretty quickly.  I’d really like to at least be reading a real novel when we go to the hospital next month 🙂

As always, thank you very much for reading.

Forgetfulnes, Follow-up, & Firsts

Annnnnnnnd I’m back. That was fast, wasn’t it?

No, I haven’t quite finished Cujo yet; I’m only about 50 pages into it. I’m back for a different reason. That reason being…. I forgot something in my Firestarter review. Apparently I got so wrapped up in talking about how I didn’t have that much to talk about that I forgot the one thing that I absolutely did want to talk about….

That one thing being that Firestarter marks the first King novel to not take place in Maine at any point. There is a brief mention in one spot of a senator from Maine, but at no point in time do any of the events take place in King’s home state. This to me is significant, because even The Shining, which took place exclusively in the Overlook Hotel in Colorado, had a short epilogue which was took place in Maine. I was actually surprised at this part, because I was totally expecting The Shining to win the award for first King book to not take place in Maine. But, the epilogue was there, so Firestarter ends up with the award.

After the surprise epilogue in The Shining (I say surprise because I had quite frankly forgotten all about that part), I am a little disappointed that the “first non-Maine book” came so soon into the journey. I would have been ok with it had it been the third book. That would have been ok because it wouldn’t have had time to be an established “thing” yet. But now that it is an established “thing” (if only in my own mind) it seems a shame to have gone away this quickly. I was hoping that I’d make it to The Dark Tower books at least. Alas, that is not the case.

So there we have it, Firestarter takes the award for first book not to take place in Maine. Though, with the mentioning of a Maine senator, I suppose there will still be a consolation prize awarded to the first book to not mention Maine at all (which, I’m still holding out hope for being The Gunslinger – actually, my secret hope is that there is somehow a surprise mention of Maine in The Gunslinger and I can make it all the way to Eyes of the Dragon, but I don’t think there is).

I still have one more “first” prize to give out…. But I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you what it is until we get there. 🙂 And by surprise, I mean the surprise of what the prize is for. As to which book will win, that will be a surprise to all of us, because I don’t even know. I almost thought Firestarter was going to take it, but it slipped by. Though, at this point it’s looking like Cujo might be in the running, but there is still a little bit of time left for it to lose. We’ll just have to see.

 

I hope you enjoyed this small little insight into my weirdness. And I do apologize for forgetting this information in yesterday’s post. But hey, this way you got a nice little bonus 🙂

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back soon with the review of Cujo (unless I’m back sooner with something else I forgot…. But I really don’t think I will be).

Pushing, Pyrokinesis, & PlayStation

I finished Firestarter. I think, at this point, it’s probably ok to say that I’m on a roll. Or at least, I’m back into things pretty well and my momentum is keeping up.

 

Firestarter was a good read. I think I remember not really getting into it the last time I read it, but this time I enjoyed it pretty well. Of course, that just could be because compared to The Dead Zone, Firestarter actually had somewhat of a payoff at the end 🙂

 

If you don’t know what Firestarter is about, I’ll give you a brief summary. This is the part where you would want to stop reading if you are concerned at all about spoilers 😉

 

Firestarter is about Andy McGee and his daughter Charlie. Andy met Charlie’s mother in college during a medical test for a compound called “Lot 6”. This compound turned out to be a government experiment in giving people psychic abilities through drugs. The experiment was funded by the agency known as “The Shop”, which is described as being a government agency much like the FBI or CIA. The Shop’s area of expertise is scientific research. As a result of being exposed to “Lot 6” Andy gained the ability of mental domination, that is, he can make people do or think whatever he wants them to. Andy’s wife, Vicky, also gains a small amount of telekinesis power, but nothing to the extent of Andy’s power. The unexpected side effect of the drug is that when Andy and Vicky have a baby, Charlie, she too inherits powers. Charlie has the power of pyrokinesis, the ability to start fires with her mind. When The Shop finds out about Charlie’s power, they kill Vicky and attempt to kidnap Charlie. Andy is able to save Charlie, and they must go on the run. The book follows Andy and Charlie as they run from The Shop and are eventually caught (the book actually starts off with Andy and Charlie running from The Shop and we are given the rest of the back story through a series of flashbacks and memories that Andy has while they are running). Andy and Charlie are then tested by The Shop to determine the extent of the powers. Eventually Andy and Charlie attempt to escape. And that is all I’ll give away as far as that goes.

 

Overall the book was an interesting enough read. It was a little slow at points, as a lot of the book focused on the time at the shop as one of the agents, John Rainbird, tried to form a bond with Charlie in order to coax her to participate in the testing process. I was glad that the ending of the book was actually exciting and provide some “finish” rather than the way The Dead Zone just sort of, stopped. Firestarter actually kind of wrapped things up at the end. This provided for a much more satisfying ending.

 

The only other thing that I have to say about this book was that at one point, we are introduced to a character by the name of Eddie Delgardo. That won’t mean anything to most people at this point, and for someone who is reading “in order” this way it won’t mean anything at all. But for Stephen King fans, particularly fans of The Dark Tower series, you’ll notice that if you leave the “r” out of Delgardo, you get the name of a pretty important character in that series. I highly doubt that King intended any sort of connection there when he “reused” that name. More than likely he just liked that sound of it. He may not have even been consciously aware of the connection.

 

And that is really all I have to say about Firestarter. It seems odd that I expressed how I enjoyed it somewhat more than The Dead Zone, yet didn’t have nearly as much to say about. I think this is mainly due to the fact that even though it was somewhat more exciting, Firestarter was a pretty simple story in concept. There wasn’t a whole lot of depth to it. Some of the characters relationships were built pretty well, but ultimately the story was about a girl who could start fires. Now, someone a little more analytical than I could probably tell me all kinds of things the story was “really” about. But for me, it was about a girl who could start fires. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Did I get pages and pages of ideas and things to talk about from it? Nope.

 

Before I jump in to talking about the movie, allow me to share my experience in trying to get a hold of the movie. First, as with The Dead Zone, Firestarter is listed as “Very Long Wait” on my Blockbuster queue and has been ever since I added it back when I started the book. However, this didn’t bother me quite as much as it did last time, as I was armed with my Hasting’s 49¢ rental attack. Unfortunately, Hasting’s did not carry Firestarter. I was kind of upset about this at first, as I didn’t know what I was going to do. I then looked on Amazon and discovered it was available as an instant download there. This was not my most favorite idea, as I don’t particularly like watching movies on my laptop when I have the option of my TV. Of course, with no apparent options for watching it on the TV, I seemed to be out of luck. I considered Netflix, but I had no way of knowing if Firestarter was available in their streaming library or not, as they no longer indicate “how” movies are available to non-members. I didn’t want to waste my two week free trial if the movie wasn’t available. Then I got an idea. I turned on my PlayStation and went to their movie store. And there it was. Firestarter, available as a rental download. I was super excited. It was available right now, and on my TV. The only thing that makes this option not better than Hasting’s is the price. But at $4.50 for the high definition version, it was still better than what I used to pay for movies at Blockbuster before they introduced their new daily prices. I could have opted for the $2.99 standard definition version, and almost did, but the PlayStation store makes you add a minimum of $5 to your wallet. And since I’ve had my PlayStation for almost 3 years now and have until now not had a need to add money to my account…. Chances are that unless I run into another movie issue like this I won’t be purchasing anything from the PlayStation store again. That said, I figured the movie was going to cost me $5 either way, so I opted for the high def version J

 

Well, now that I’ve described my adventure, perhaps I should tell you what I thought of the movie itself.

 

Firestarter (1984)

 

First things first: the problem with making a movie where the main character is a 9 year old girl (or boy, gender doesn’t really matter) is, and always will be, that you have to have a 9 year old girl (or boy) play the character. Child actors are not my favorite. And regardless of how cute Drew Barrymore may have been in E.T., and regardless of how good she may be now, at the age of 9 she was about as good as any other child actress. Which is to say, not that good. I’m all for kids playing kids as side characters, that’s fine, but when the child has to carry the weight of the movie, most of them just aren’t ready for that.

 

So, right off the bat, Firestarter has a negative strike against it 🙂

 

Other than that though, the movie wasn’t all that bad. It followed the book pretty faithfully. Although, I’m starting to notice that this may not always be a good thing. Yes, it’s true, I said it. When making a movie based on a book, I’m starting to believe that following the book 100% may not always be the best idea. At least, not when you don’t have the time and budget to do it right. When you try to cram things in there just because “it was in the book” that takes away from the success of the movie. I think Firestarter could have been better had they focused a little less on fitting everything in, and a little more on just developing the story into something that would play out well on screen. That right there is the main issue, the page versus the screen. Stephen King is great at writing things for the page. His stories always seem to flow well and are always full of detail. But when he is writing them, it is for the purpose of creating something that someone will read and let their imaginations run with. When writing something for the screen, you have to take into account the fact that you will be supplying a lot of the details that a reader would normally supply themselves. Not only that, you also have to express something visually that might not have been “visual” in the book. For example: in the book, whenever Andy would use his powers, which he called “Pushing”, it was simply described that he would be talking and then he would “push”. However, how to you portray this “push” in a movie? The viewer is not going to be able to know what Andy is doing in his head… Firestarter decided to tackle this by having Andy put his hands to his temples and act like he was concentrating and “focusing” at the person extra hard. The problem with this is that, for people watching the movie, it appears that part of Andy’s power requires him to hold his hands to his head, as he does this every time he tries to “push” someone. In fact, in one scene, some of the guards even pull his hands away from his head and put them behind his back to stop him. While, in the book, I never got the indication that Andy had to do anything other than “think” while he was “pushing”.

 

That’s just one instance of how things work better in the book version than the movie version for this particular story.

 

Now, to pick up the other side of the argument for just a second, I’m sure that had the movie not followed the book, I’d be here arguing and complaining that if you aren’t going to follow the material from the book, why even bother making the movie…. and blah blah blah… And I’ll admit that I’m probably the first person to do that when a movie strays from the book as well. However, I think (hope) that after watching Firestarter I’ll be a little more forgiving in the future. Firestarter followed the book, yes, but I think that hurt it in some instances. All in all, any movie adaptation should focus on simply making the story play out the best it can on screen. The more details they can include from the source material, the better, but when it starts to detract from the story that is being told on screen, stop.

 

I don’t really have anything else to say about Firestarter. Oh, except that Martin Sheen was in it. That makes two Stephen King movies in a row to feature Martin Sheen. I find that neat, especially since the movies came out in consecutive years (1983 for The Dead Zone and 1984 for Firestarter). But that’s really it. The movie was alright. But it’s not anything I would probably ever watch again.

 

 

Well that’s all I’ve got for you today. I’ve started Cujo already, and since it’s about 100 pages shorter than both The Dead Zone and Firestarter, I should be able to finish it faster. I’ll probably be back within the next two weeks on that one. In other news, the guessing game has now started as to what book I’ll be reading in the hospital (only 72 days to go, give or take). I’m predicting either The Running Man or The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. Feel free to wager a guess if you’d like. Perhaps I’ll issue a prize for the winner…. Though probably not 🙂

 

As always, thanks for reading.

Ledges, Lawnmowers, & Lurkers

I guess we can throw the three theory out the window, I’ve got five for you today 🙂  Also, rather than repeat myself in every review, let me just get this out of the way now, there will be spoilers below.

The Ledge

This story centers on an aging tennis instructor who is having an affair with a wealthy mob boss’ wife.  The story opens with the instructor, Stan, in the living room of the husband, Cressner.  Cressner informs Stan that he is planning on framing in for possession of drugs unless Stan agrees to a little wager.  Cressner’s building has a 5 inch ledge that extends all the way around it.  If Stan is successful, he will be free to go, with Cressner’s wife, and with a substantial pay off as well.  If he fails, well, the consequences are obvious.  If refuses, he goes to prison and will never see the woman he loves again.  Stan, with apparently no other option, accepts, but first confirms that Cressner is not one to welsh on bets, which Cressner claims he is not.

After a very trying ordeal, Stan is successful in his quest.  Upon returning, Cressner reveals that he will not welsh, and Stan is free to take the money and Cressner’s wife.  Cressner reveals, however, that while Stan is free to take his wife, she won’t be much company, as Cressner has already had her killed.  In a rage, Stan is able to overpower Cressner and kill his bodyguard.  Stan then tells Cressner that he’d like to place a little bet: Stan won’t kill Cressner if he is able to also navigate the ledge around the building.  Cressner, with no other choice, begins his journey.  Once Cressner is out of sight, Stan comments that, while Cressner may not be a welsher, Stan has no qualms with welshing on a bet.

I enjoyed this story a lot.  The journey around the ledge was presented very tensely.  The best line in the whole story came when Stan was just starting on his journey.  He was thinking about how scared he was, but he should be able to do, he then pointed out (to himself) that if the ledge was only a foot off the ground he would be able to do it with no problem.  He then pointed out the obvious, if you “mess up” when you are only a foot of the ground; you simply say “rats” and start again.  However, at the top of a high-rise building, there is no starting over.  I thought this statement was a great way of presenting this.  Because the thought if navigating a ledge, when there is no danger, seems like it is totally doable, but throw in the idea of being hundreds of feet in the air……

That’s really all I have to say about this story for now.  On to the next.

The Lawnmower Man

I’m pretty sure this is one of the most disturbing, creepy stories I’ve ever read.  Ever.  I remember the first I read this story, I was utterly shocked at what happened.  So, let me warn you now, what follows might be slightly (or more than slightly) disturbing.

This story is about a man name Harold who, after a tragic accident at the end of the summer with his lawnmower (the neighbor’s cat ran under it), decides to sell the mower, figuring he can hire someone to mow his lawn the following year.  When the next summer comes around, Harold puts off hiring someone until his lawn becomes so out of control he must do something about it, so he calls a lawn care company he finds listed in the yellow pages.  When the lawnmower man shows up, Harold is surprised to see not a young teenager as he was suspecting, but a middle-aged, semi-overweight man.  What happens next, as presented in the story, is one of the most shocking and unsettling things I’ve ever read.  Unfortunately, I’m sure that sensation won’t come across here, so, please, if you have any intention of ever reading this story, stop reading this now (or at least skip the next paragraph) until after you’ve done so……….

Ok, for the rest of you, let’s continue.  After hearing the mower start up in the backyard, Harold decides to go have a look.  What he finds is a menacing looking contraption operating by itself.  The lawnmower man is following along behind it on all fours, completely naked, eating the grass.  Harold is completely shocked and is unsure how to respond.  After a conversation between Harold and the lawnmower man, it is revealed that the “boss” of the lawn car company is Pan, yes, Pan, as in the Greek god.  Harold, still in shock, pretends to understand and approve while the lawnmower man proceeds to the front yard.  Harold then decides to call the police.  After the phone call to 911, Harold turns around to see the lawnmower man standing behind him, telling him that he just made a big mistake, and now a sacrifice must be made.  At this point, the lawnmower comes into the house and cases down Harold.

As I said, I’m sure my description of this story falls completely short of conveying the complete shock, uneasiness, and slight disgust I felt the first time I read this story.  The way King sets it up, then the descriptions and details he includes (green juices dribbling down the lawnmower man’s face, Harold swearing he can see the lawnmower man’s stomach expanding as he eats) all add to the feeling.  However, as disturbing and weird as the story was, I still found myself enjoying it.  I think partly because the “surprise” in the story really was just that, a surprise.  I really, truly, didn’t see it coming.  Many times with King’s stories, the “surprise” really isn’t much of a surprise, as you are expecting something, and often times, simply being exposed to enough of his other material is enough to give you a little bit of a clue.  Usually the build up to something weird takes away the surprise when it actually happens.  For example, in Gray Matter, the whole story is building up to the fact that the dad is changing into something, so when we finally see what it is, it might not be exactly what we envisioned, but it’s not unexpected.  Also, often times the title helps give clues to what’s going to happen.  In Sometimes They Come Back, just reading the title, knowing it was written by Stephen King, I went into the story expecting sometime involving ghosts, zombies, or something like that.  However, with this story, there is no “build up” to what happens, and the title really gives no clue as to what is going to happen.  Sure, you might be expecting the lawnmower man to be untrustworthy, and to do something strange, but I was not prepared for what actually took place.  That surprise is what made the story great in my mind.  And I hope, if you are reading this, that you either have already read the story, as that surprise is not something you can get back.

The last thing I’d like to say about this story is in regards to the movie The Lawnmower Man.  If you remember from the beginning of my blog I stated that I would not be including this movie on my journey.  The reason is very simple.  Despite the fact that the movie claims to be “loosely” based on the short story, it is not.  I’ve seen this movie, I watched it after I read the story the first time, and I was highly disappointed in it.  Apparently by “loosely based” what they mean is that there is a man in the movie who mows lawns.  That is about the only thing the two have in common.  From what I remember about the movie, it’s plot it centered around a scientist who is trying to increase intelligence in monkeys by the use of virtual reality.  At one point, he tries his experiments on a young man with some sort of learning disability (this man is employed as the lawn keeper – lawnmower man – next door to the scientist).  The experiments work, but they also turn the lawnmower man evil in the process of making him smarter……. And that is enough about that movie.  I watched it, it was bad.  It was originally supposed to be titled Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man, but King successfully sued the company to have his name removed from the film.  I hope you can see why I decided not to include this movie J

Let’s move on, shall we.

Quitters, Inc.

This story was quite interesting, and I think it has a pretty powerful message hidden in it, but more on that later.

This story follows Dick Morrison as he is recommended by a friend to a company, “Quitters, Inc.”, that promises to help people quit smoking.  His friend will not tell him the method used, that is one of the companies requirements, but he promises that it’s legit, and that going through the process changed his life.  Dick is skeptical, but decides it can’t hurt to check the company out.  Upon arrival, Dick is introduced to Victor Donatti, the man who will be his quitting counselor.  He is also required to sign a contract.  He is than told that he may go home and enjoy his last day of smoking, his treatment will begin the next day.

When Dick returns, he is greeted and led to a back room where he is shown a rabbit in a cage.  When the rabbit begins to eat, Dick sees it begin hoping up into the air sporadically.  He then gets angry as he realizes that it is being shocked.  It is then explained to Dick that, if the rabbit is continually shocked every time it tries to eat, it will eventually learn not to eat and would starve to death with food right in front of it.  Dick then realized that Quitters, Inc. is employing aversion therapy to help people quit, and says he wants no part of it.  He is informed that he has no choice, the treatment has already begun, and he signed a contract…  Dick is then given the rules of the program.  He will be monitored 24 hours a day for the next year, if he smokes, they will know.  After a year the monitoring drops off to 18 hours a day, but Dick won’t know what 18.  Eventually the monitoring will become less and more spread out, however, Dick will never know when it is happening.  Any time he chooses to smoke, he is gambling.  What are the consequences for smoking?  Dick assumes he will be put in the room, however, he is mistaken.  The first time he smokes, Dick’s wife Cindy will be placed in the room while he is forced to watch.  The second time Dick will be put in, the third time they both will.  A fourth offense would result in Dick’s mentally handicapped son being beat, with of course no way of knowing why, only knowing it was because his father did something bad.  Continued offense will result in further visits to the room for Cindy and Dick with increased voltage and more intense beatings for Dick’s son.  After 10 offenses, Dick will be considered one of the stubborn unrelenting 2%.  However, Donatti lays a gun on the table as he informs Dick that even those unrelenting 2% quit smoking……. It’s a guarantee.

For several weeks Dick abstains from smoking until, after a particularly rough day in the office, and while stuck in traffic, Dick finds an old pack of cigarettes buried in the glove compartment.  After lighting up and taking a few puffs, Dick realizes what he is doing, snuffs out the cigarette and once traffic is clear he speeds home.  His wife, however, is not there.  He then receives a phone call from Donatti, informing him that they have some business to take care off.  Dick returns to Quitters, Inc. and is forced to watch his wife endure the shock room.  After words, Dick is then forced to go into the room and explain to his wife what happened.  Cindy is, surprisingly, understandable and accepting of the situation.

After several months of being cigarette free, Dick is introduced to the next step of the program, weight control.  A high percentage of the programs participants experience dramatic weight gain after they successfully quit smoking.  To help combat this, Dick is given a supply of, somewhat illegal, weight control pills, and is also required to participate in weekly weigh ins.  Dick is given a maximum weight, if he goes over that weight, his wife’s pinky will be cut off.

The story ends with Dick and Cindy meet up with Dick’s friend that introduced Dick to Quitters, Inc.  During the meeting, Dick notices that his friend’s wife is missing her pinky finger.

This story was definitely intriguing.  Ignoring the fact that a company like Quitters, Inc. would never be allowed to operate, the story was compelling and fun to read.  I was slightly confused as to the lack of reaction from Dick’s wife over the whole incident, but I just chalk that up to King not wanting to delve to deep into that side of the character in the story, as that was not what the story was about.  I mentioned earlier a hidden message, so I’d like to talk about that for a second.  Obviously, one could interpret this story to be anti-smoking if you wanted.  However, I saw a comment posted somewhere that, what truly makes this story “scary” is that it shows just how powerful the addiction to cigarettes can become.  After all, the urge is so strong that, despite the threat of bodily harm to his own wife, Dick still cannot resist the urge to smoke.  Not only that, but there are people who, even when faced with death, still chose cigarettes.  Obviously the story is fiction, but I don’t think it is beyond the realm of impossibility to believe that for some people, the grip of smoking really can be that strong.

Over all, this story was fun.  I particularly liked the part when Dick receives his bill from Quitters, Inc.:  $2,500 for the program, $2,500 for the counselor fee, and $0.50 for electricity J

Next up, a review of a movie that actually contains three stories in one.

Cat’s Eye (1985)

The way this movie was presented was very interesting.  It presented three of King’s stories (Quitters, Inc., The Ledge, and The General – which King wrote specifically for the movie).  I thought this was an interesting way to handle some of these shorter stories that would clearly not play out well over the course of an hour and a half to two hours.  However, when presented in only 30 minutes, they work quite nicely.  However, rather than do the stories as separate episodes of a mini-series, King (who wrote the screen play) created a third story, and then linked all of the stories together through the adventures of a cat….. It seems slightly silly, and in some ways it is, but it worked.  And it was semi entertaining. And it was better than Trucks J

The movie opens with a cat being chased by a St. Bernard, almost getting run over by a car, then wandering into the city where it receives a psychic vision of a young girl (played by Drew Barrymore) asking it for help.  The cat is then picked up by a man getting out of a car with a logo for Quitters, Inc.

Quitters, Inc.

The movies handling of this story was done very, very well.  The few minor changes that were made didn’t really impact the story a whole lot, and the integrity of the original was kept intact.  Maybe I’m more biased to accepting the changes when they were made by King himself, I don’t know, but regardless, the story was done well.

First change, the rabbit was replaced by the cat.  This change was done of course as part of the bridging, and doesn’t really affect the story.  The only really major change was that rather than given 10 chances, Dick is only given 4, and the consequences are slightly altered.  First, his wife enters the room.  Second, his daughter (also played by Barrymore, which is obviously the reason for the change here) would be put in the room.  Third, his wife would be raped.  Fourth, the “guarantee” that he would quit smoking.  Again, as with the story, Dick only ever falters once.  The only thing I missed from the onscreen presentation was the inclusion of Dick receiving the bill.  But, it wouldn’t have added a whole lot, and probably would have detracted from the overall tone that was being aimed for, so I understand the reason for not including it.

During the course of the story, the cat is able to escape from Quitters, Inc.  He (I assume it’s a he, although I have no basis for this other than the names “he” is given by various people throughout the movie) then makes his way to another part of the city where he is picked up by Cressner, who is in the process of having Stan abducted and taken back to his building.

The Ledge

Once again, the main idea of the story is kept intact.  Again, a few changes are made to make things slightly more exciting to watch on screen, but these are minor and do not violate the intent of the story.  The only major difference here is that Cressner ends up falling off the ledge to his death, rather than the end being left up in the air (with the understanding that Stan will welsh if he has to).

As before, during the course of the story, the cat escapes from the building and is able to continue on his journey.

The General

There is nothing to compare this to, as King wrote this story specifically for this movie.

In this story, the cat finally finds the girl he was looking for, Amanda.  She wants to adopt him and gives him the name General.  Her mom is not keen on the idea, and doesn’t want the cat staying in her room.  Amanda already has a pet bird, and the mom is afraid the cat will kill the bird.  She also has a slight fear passed on to her from her own mother that cats are prone to “steal” the breath from young sleeping children (interestingly enough, this is a true fear that many people have passed down through the years as an old wives tale).  Amanda is insistent that General be allowed to sleep in her room because he is protecting her.  Amanda claims that there is a troll living in her walls, but when General is around, she is safe.  Despite Amanda’s please, her father says they must listen to her mother.

That night, Amanda is visited by the troll, whom we get to see.  The troll actually climbs into the bird-cage and kills the bird, then climbs onto Amanda’s bed.  At this point, General comes in through the window and chases the troll back into the wall, then escapes out the window.  Amanda’s parents hear the ruckus, and upon entering the room, assume that General has killed the bird.  They next day Amanda’s mom takes the cat to the animal control shelter to be rid of it.  General escapes, however, and returns to the home that night.  Meanwhile, the troll has once again entered Amanda’s room, climbed up on her bed, and just take a guess at what it is doing…. It’s stealing Amanda’s breath of course!  Fortunately, General arrives just in time to save the day.  Eventually the troll is hurled into the fan that is running in Amanda’s room and is cut to pieces.  Amanda’s parents again enter, and discover that Amanda was telling the truth about the troll.

The story ends with Amanda sleeping with her parents.  General climbs up on the bed, inches close to Amanda’s face, the music start to get intense, and General begins to………… lick Amanda’s face.  Although, there is a pretty strong feeling that, despite everything, General is going to steal Amanda’s breath after all.

I thought this story was quite interesting.  It was, of course, a little ridiculous too, but it was entertaining.  I absolutely loved the end.  I was almost 100% certain that General was going to steal Amanda’s breath.  My wife also questioned if that was going to happen.  I thought it was a great way to end to movie happily, yet keep you guessing until the very last second.

All in all, I thought this movie was decent.  It was obviously intended for fans of King.  Bridging three stories like that in such a way would certainly only be confusing to anyone watching it who didn’t already have knowledge of the stories.  Otherwise one might be confused as the connection between them, other than the cat.

The movie was also intended for fans in another light as well.  There were 4 different references to other Stephen King works included in the film.  Now, most of these won’t make as much sense to some of you, as I haven’t read those books yet.  I’m watching the movies based off of when I read the stories they are based on, but the movie wasn’t actually made until several years later.  The references are as follows: 1) The dog chasing the cat at the beginning is Cujo; 2) The car that almost runs over the cat is Christine; 3) After his first visit to Quitters, Inc., Dick is watching the movie version of The Dead Zone on TV.  After a while he shuts it off stating “I can’t understand what’s going on in this thing.  Who writes this crap anyway?”  I thought that was a particularly fun reference J; 4) At the end of the movie, Amanda’s mom is reading Pet Sematary.

Overall, I felt thought this movie was quite enjoyable

I Know What You Need

This is an interesting little story about a stalker.  The story opens with a young woman studying for her college finals.  She is interrupted by a young man sitting down across from her saying “I know what you need” (that line is actually the first line of the story).  She looks at him strangely, and he responds “Strawberry double dip waffle cone”.  He then goes on to say he could just tell she needed a break.  She blows him off and goes back to her studying, however, with the idea of ice cream now in her head she finds it hard to concentrate.  Just when she is about to quit and go get a snack, the mystery man shows up, holding two ice cream cones.

The rest of the story somewhat follows the basic stalker motif.  Every time something happens in the girl’s life, the young man is there and has “just what she needs”.  Eventually the girl starts to fall for him.  The girl’s roommate is suspicious (and probably justifiably so), so she hires a private investigator.  It turns out that the boy knew the girl from grade school.

Long story short, the girl eventually discovers that the boy was controlling her using some sort of voodoo power.  It was definitely an interesting twist on the typical stalker

I enjoyed the story.  There wasn’t a whole lot of depth to it.  There are a few twists along the way, but they aren’t exactly unexpected twists.  I don’t have a lot more to say about it.

I’ll have another post shortly, very shortly.  In fact, I’ll probably have it posted before anyone gets much of a chance to read this one.  I’ll also have a few changes to discuss, but that will come in the next post.

As always, thank you for reading.

Manglers, Machines, & Monsters

I’m back with a couple more reviews for you. Today I’ve got 2 stories and 1 movie. I’ve also got an update on my first edition collection, as well as a change to the structure of how I’m going to do some of my reviews. But, that’s all boring, so I’ll put that at the end. Let’s start things off with the reviews.

The Mangler

This story was pretty enjoyable. It doesn’t mess around either, it jumps right in, and so I will too (spoiler alert). This story starts out with officer Hunton being called to the Blue Ribbon Laundry to investigate an accident. One of the workers was somehow been pulled into the large industrial speed ironer/folder machine, nicknamed The Mangler. The accident is horrific. After the machine is inspected for negligence, which is what Hunton assumes, it is found to be up to standards. The incident is ruled a freak accident, and work is allowed to continue. Hunton is not entirely convinced. While discussing the case with a friend of his and emphasizing that with all the safety features working properly, this accident not only shouldn’t have, but really couldn’t have happened, Hunton’s friend proposes the idea of possession. Hunton laughs this idea off, but the friend persists. Upon receiving word of another accident occurring, Hunton begins to consider this as a viable option. After doing some investigating, Hunton and his friend suspect the machine must have become possessed by random “ingredients” falling into it. They suspect that the possession is of a “mild” nature and visit the laundry in an attempt to perform an exorcism. While they are doing this, the readers are told that there was one ingredient that was added which Hunton and his friend don’t suspect. This ingredient makes the possession much more powerful than expected. The attempts at exorcism thus fail and only make the machine even angrier. Hunton’s friend is killed, Hunton flees, and the machine frees itself and begins to wander through town.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. I’ve left out some of the littler details, so the story should still be able to present some intrigue should you decide to read it yourself. As with most of the short stories I’ve read so far, there isn’t a lot of depth to this one. This story is certainly not going live on as a masterpiece or anything, but it is entertaining and I enjoyed it.

I cannot say the same thing about the movie version!

The Mangler (1995)

This movie was just plain awful. I don’t think any other word would describe it better, except maybe horrible, or terrible. Actually, I think what I would really say is that this movie was just a mangled mess. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone.

First, and foremost, the acting is completely horrible. Now, anyone who has watched a lot of horror movies will be able to tell you that as a general rule, horror movies aren’t watched for the acting, but this was exceptionally bad.

Secondly, because the story itself was so simple in premise, details were added to make things more screen worthy. All of the main elements of the story are there, but the movie added a whole new sub-lot to the movie involving the owner of the laundry. In this sub-plot, which I suppose was more the main plot, the owner had been sacrificing young girls to this machine for decades. It seemed, although not explained very well, that in doing so he was able to obtain wealth and perhaps live longer in return. What’s really ridiculous about this is that, even though the movie portrays this angle, which almost makes one assume that he was the one in brought on the possession, the movie still includes all of the aspects from the story about the random ingredients getting into the machine to cause the possession. So the big question becomes, if it took all these ingredients to cause the possession, what was happening before when the owner was “feeding” the machine? Or, if the owner brought on the possession, what was the purpose of noting the ingredients (besides them being the link to the original story)? It almost seems as if two separate ideas came together into one movie, and someone forgot to bring up that they didn’t intertwine right.

Lastly, the story version ended at just the right spot. You knew the machine was possessed, and you knew it was loose and free to wreak havoc. But you are left to determine just how that happens and to what extent. Alas, this would not be an acceptable end to a movie (by the regular movie viewer’s standard. I personally would have no problem with it). Thus, after the botched exorcism, we get to see the machine break loose of its holdings and chase the main characters through the building, all the while watching them run and scream in horror (well, we know it’s supposed to be in horror, but see my comment above about the acting). This scene, in my opinion, took what was already a horrible movie and shot it into overdrive. Rather than be taken into the movie and encapsulated in the fear that was indenting to be produced, I was pushed further out of it and into the realm of laughing at the absurdity of what I was seeing.

Also, if this horrible movie wasn’t bad enough, it actually spawned two sequels. The first, The Mangler 2, actually seems, from the plot description – I haven’t actually watched it, to have nothing to do with the original idea. It’s about a computer virus that comes alive, so I suppose there is some slight comparison. The second sequel, The Mangler Reborn, appears to go back to the original idea. It takes place 10 years later and seems to be more of just a rehashing of the same idea. After the horribleness that was this movie, I’m very glad I’ve decided to not include sequels in this journey.

Well, I think I’ve wasted enough of your time on this movie. I know I’ve definitely wasted enough of my time. So let’s move on to the next story.

The Boogeyman

This story was short, simple, and pretty good (spoilers ahead). The story opens with a man walking into a psychiatrist’s office and saying he needs to talk. He then proceeds to tell the doctor about how he has killed his three kids. The doctor asks if he means he actually murdered them and the man clarifies that no, he didn’t, but that he feels he is the one responsible.

The man then proceeds to tell his story, beginning with the death of his first child. He describes how the child started to become afraid of the dark, but that he wouldn’t let him have a night-light because he didn’t want to coddle him. Later, when the boy woke up crying one night and saying “boogeyman” over and over, the man dismissed this and scolded his wife for teaching him the word. Later, when they found their child dead one morning, he only barely noticed that the closet, which he was sure he closed the night before, was open, but only slightly. The cause of death was attributed to crib death syndrome.

When the cycle started to repeat itself with their second child, a daughter, the man became a little more suspicious, but still didn’t do anything about it. He ignored the child’s cries of “boogeyman”, and ignored the thoughts in his mind that he saw something moving in the closet one evening when he was checking on her. It was only after they found her dead one morning as well that he began to really put the pieces together. This time, the death was due to suffocation caused by the girl swallowing her tongue. The doctors say she must have had some sort of convulsions that caused her to swallow her tongue. The man however, felt that the only thing that could cause convulsions like that in a child was intense fright. And, of course, the closet door was open, but only slightly.

After this, he moved to a new house. When his wife became pregnant and had a third child a year later, the man started to make some startling discoveries. He noticed closet doors starting to be open again. This time he let the child sleep in his room to better keep an eye on it. However, he started getting the feeling that the monster wasn’t just after his child this time. With his wife out of town, and the feeling growing stronger, he decided to do something awful. He put the child in its own room, thinking if he did the monster would leave him alone. However, when the child began to scream that night, he went into the room, only to see a grotesque monster shaking his baby. When he heard the baby’s neck snap, he fled in terror. Upon returning the next morning, he told the police that they child must have tried to climb out of its crib and fallen, breaking its neck, which is of course exactly what it looked like. Also, the closet door was open, but just slightly. He ends his session by telling the doctor that he is glad to have finally been able to tell someone this story.

I won’t spoil the very end of the story for you; I’ll leave that to you if you decide to read it for yourself.

All in all, I enjoyed this story. It was again, short and to the point. But it was good. There were some nice subtle touches that added to the depth of the emotion, like the man constantly being suspicious of the doctor’s closet. I’m sure that this line is getting old by now, but it remains true: this story isn’t anything fantastic, but it’s a fun read.

Well, that’s all I have for reviews for today. As promised earlier, however, I do have a few updates to talk about.

First update is on how I’m going to continue to handle my reviews when it comes to stories with movies. When I originally started, my intent with the short stories was to always include the movie review along with the short story review. However, when I sat down to watch The Mangler last night, I realized this might not be the wisest course of action. The movie was horrible, and I recognized this earlier on and was already starting to form the basis of my review in my mind. However, I also realized that I had not yet written my review of the story, a story which I actually liked. I started to be afraid that I wouldn’t be able to separate the two when I sat down to write this. As I didn’t want this to be an issue in the future, I was planning on telling you I was going to start separating story and movie reviews into separate posts, like I have done with the novels so far. However, now at the end, I don’t think I had too much of a problem. I still might separate some of the reviews, but I’ll probably make my decision based off of when I finish reading and when I’ll be able to watch the movie. If there is some significant time there, I’ll probably write my review of the story while it’s fresh. However, if I’m reading during an afternoon, and going to watch the movie that night, I’ll probably do them both together.

So, that seems like a lot to tell you something that really isn’t going to affect you one way or the other. But, this is my blog, so I can do what I want 🙂 Besides, sometimes a lot of what I write is for me anyway. I think that’s the case for most authors. They write for themselves. Some of them, like King, just so happen to write things that others find interesting and entertaining. Others, like me, have our moms, wives, sisters, and work buddies. 🙂

My final update is much more exacting, at least for me. I’ve added two more first editions to my collection. I went out on Friday and was able to find a first edition of Storm of the Century. Additionally, I found a first edition Cujo on eBay last week and it arrived on Saturday. I’m slowly completing my collection, and that is cool. However, I will eventually run out of the “easy finds”, and will only have the truly rare ones left. I’m not looking forward to that, as that will mark the point where this quest will go one of two directions. Either it will come to an end, uncompleted, or it will get very, very expensive. Until then, I keep my hopes up that I’ll find something, somewhere, where someone doesn’t realize what they’ve got. I might never actually find something, but the hunt and the search is exciting enough for now. And when that hidden treasure does come along, it sure is exciting.

That’s all I have for you today. As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll be back again soon.