stephen king Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Admittedly, I experienced Stephen King's N. under utterly ideal conditions, which might explain why I consider it such a marvelous short story – one of King's best. I was driving to northern California for a weekend of camping and whitewater rafting (the Cal Salmon river – just an hour or so south of Oregon). It got dark just as I left the highway and hit the winding, narrow country backroads; no headlights, no cars. I happened to be listening to King's recent Just After Sunset short story compilation, where N. – one of the longer pieces in the set – appears in the middle, taking up discs 8 and 9 in their entirety. The story started just as I hit a series of switchbacks going up a mountain. The twisty roads, the oppressive darkness, the (seemingly) complete emptiness, and Stephen King in his Lovecraftian unknowable-cosmic-terror mode... I'm probably lucky to be alive and not in a ravine somewhere.

Actually, King denies that Lovecraft was the inspiration for N. Instead, he cites Arthur Machen's classic horror story The Great God Pan, which you can (and should) read in its entirety right here. Either way, N. is terrifying – a story of unspeakable horrors lurking just beyond the thin veneer we know as reality. Better yet, it's not – like some of Lovecraft's tales were – all concept. King's got a couple of great hooks: first, the story is told through letters, journal entries and newspaper clippings, somehow amplifying the atmosphere of impending doom. Second, King provides a clever alternative explanation for obsessive-compulsive disorder. It seems that all that counting, touching, and insisting that things be arranged just so isn't mental illness, but an attempt to save the world: to keep the evil out.

When's the last time a short story scared the crap out of you? Japanese author Kôji Suzuki (of the original Dark Water and The Ring) seems to be aiming for as much. According to Dread Central, he has written "Drop," a setting-suitable novella that comes printed on rolls of toilet paper. Each roll comes with multiple copies of the story, so no need for cries of anguish when the tee-pee runs out before the twist is revealed.

But seriously, folks, before this metaphor gets too corny and starts to stink, what are some of your favorite short stories that were adapted successfully to the big screen? Can you name any that you think are ripe for a film version? I'm not sure if it's short enough to count, but I'm still waiting on Frank Darabont to give us Richard Bachman's Stephen King's The Long Walk, after doing a bang-up job on both The Mist and The Shawshank Redemption (and I guess The Green Mile counts too, being a serial and all).

Almost twenty years after it terrorized the boob tube, Stephen King's creepy clown is back.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that It is slated to hit the big screen, courtesy of Lin Pictures and Vertigo Entertainment. Dave Kajganich, the pen behind the 2007 Invasion, has been tapped to adapt King's new work and bring it into the new millennium -- and out of 1958 and 1985. Kajganich is also becoming the new adapting man about town, taking on projects like Escape From New York and another King scare fest, Pet Sematary.

Back to It -- As you might remember, this is the story of a group of kids who take it upon themselves to bring this creepy, shape-shifting creature called Pennywise down, back in '58. They hurt it, flee, and then decide to bind themselves together in case they ever need to fight It again. In one of the most warped rationales ever, this involves not only blood, but the lone girl of the group having sex with all of her boy pre-teen friends. Years later, the thing, who often takes the shape of the classic creepy clown, starts killing again and the friends reunite for another baddie butt-kicking.

I'm betting that the kids become teens so that the sex can become a sexy, marketable aspect of the film, but other than that, I'm curious to see how this gets updated. But how about you? Do you want more It?

Follow me if you want to live.*

*Yes, that's really obvious.

Last time we checked in on Stephen King's ten favorite films of the year, it was 2006 and we found titles like Waist Deep (?) and Snakes on a Plane. Okay, so maybe the legendary author didn't watch many films that year -- but here we are two years later, King once again dished out a top ten for Entertainment Weekly, and so maybe he's managed to see a bit more. Check out King's list below, with brief quotes from him for each -- then read the rest over at EW.

1. The Dark Knight -- "The best superhero movie ever. This is to cape-and-tights movies what Godfather II was to the gangster movie: a genre-defining event."
2. Slumdog Millionaire -- "It's been years since the movies have produced such an affecting story about the power of friendship."
3. WALL-E -- "I don't think it deserves a Best Picture Academy Award, but it certainly deserves to be nominated."
4. Tropic Thunder -- "The funniest, most daring comedy of the year."
5. Funny Games -- "It works as a savage parody of the snuff-porn genre even as it transcends it."
6. The Bank Job -- "High-tension cerebral thrills."
7. Lakeview Terrace -- "Jackson's performance deserves an Academy Award nod, but won't get one. Too bad."
8. The Ruins -- "It could have been ludicrous. Instead, it's unrelenting."
9. Redbelt -- "... this is not your father's Karate Kid."
10. Death Race -- "Death Race is filled with laconic violence and blasting muscle cars, but just beneath the surface is a biting satire of reality TV."

So, is King nuts for suggesting that Samuel L. Jackson receive an Oscar nod for Lakeview Terrace? Do you agree with the horror guru, or does the man still need to see more movies?

In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday that nears, it seemed only fitting that our minds turned to those films for which we are most unexpectedly grateful, those flops and duds, those bombs and turkeys rife with unintentional humor and renewed entertainment values. Now, we've pretty much stuck with the past decade or so with our picks; anything before that has either been done right by MST3K or is probably titled Showgirls.

With that said, please enjoy this Cinematical Seven responsibly, and do feel free to contribute your own personal favorite howlers of late in the comments below...

1. Twilight (2008)

Oh, dear God, I'm kidding. J/K!

This is a follow-up of sorts to my piece on Mikael Hafstrøm's adaptation of Stephen King's 1408. If you're interested, you should check that out. There, I half-marveled at and half-lamented the fact that the film managed to transform 1408 from a spectacularly scary, quasi-Lovecraftian horror tale into a personal, abstract meditation on grief and loss. In effect, the movie transplanted the story from the conceptual, hard-horror half of King's ouvre (think Cell and From a Buick 8) to the character-driven half (Lisey's Story, Bag of Bones). It was still a good film, but it needed someone who understood the existential terror that King is so good at evoking: a glimpse of something so alien, so divorced from the world we know, that it is simply beyond our comprehension. That's scary. Give me a movie like that.

At the time I wrote that post, such a film already existed. I suspected that this was the case, but I hadn't read the source material, and so couldn't validly make the comparison. Now I can: Frank Darabont's The Mist understands the sort of paralyzing, staring-into-the-abyss horror that King does so well. Even more impressive: not only does it brilliantly translate that aspect of the novella to the screen, it – like 1408 – fleshes out dimensions that the author barely implied. I knew I loved the film when I saw it, but only now do I understand how accomplished it really is.

Since I've gotten away with confessing my relative apathy towards highly regarded horror classics The Shining and Suspiria, it seems perfectly safe for me to go ahead and admit that I've not yet seen Children of the Corn. I know, I know, that one isn't exactly in the same league as those two, but it does hold a reputation in its own right.

Now that a Sci-Fi Channel remake is getting into gear, I'll likely make a greater point of getting around to it (sorry it has to come to that, but call it somewhat of a personal trend). Monika Bartyzel brought up the first round of casting news, and now from Shock Till You Drop comes word that young actor Daniel Newman has been cast in the role of Malachai on the production, which just began filming in Iowa this week.

I'm going to take a stab and guess that an announcement of this singular import means that Newman will be playing the leader of the Children. If I'm wrong, you lot can go on and have your laugh, but if you're familiar with either Stephen King's original short story or the 1984 adapation, then I suspect that you get the idea of this Corn kernel.

Hey, why'd the laughter stop?

I don't know when exactly AMCtv.com's Sci-Fi Scanner blog came about, but after bringing us the news last week that Mathieu Kassovitz wasn't exactly happy over the final product that was Babylon A.D., they've continued their hot streak by landing an interview with "Lost" and Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof, who fessed up that he'd be just as eager to adapt Stephen King's series as he would be to see someone else do it.

"The Dark Tower is to me every bit as daunting an adaptation as the Lord of the Rings trilogy must have been for Peter Jackson, except we've got seven books we're looking at," said Lindelof, who then explained that doing that doing the films alongside the closure of Lost would be too challenging a task at the moment.

Not unlike Watchmen, King's series remains among the literary works that everyone else insists to me are positively OMG!-awesome and that I have yet to get around to (I know, I know). With any luck, I'll get to them before someone gets to the movies, which seems to be an inevitability with or without Lindelof's involvement.

[by way of Bloody Disgusting]

Is there a Joe Hill story that isn't optioned right now? I think even the ones unfinished on his laptop are optioned. Combine his name with that of his famous father, Stephen King, and it probably doesn't even have to have more than an opening sentence.

According to Variety, Throttle, the novella Hill co-authored with King, has been optioned by Nick Wechsler. It won't be published until 2009, in an anthology titled He Is Legend that will be dedicated to Richard Matheson. The story follows a father and son, members of a motorcycle gang, who are being chased by an 18-wheeler tanker truck.

Were you in The Shawshank Redemption? Did you work on set? Were you otherwise involved in the production? If so, you're invited to a 15-year reunion this August in Ohio. Someone having something to do with the 1994 Oscar-nominated film has put together a weekend-long event and a really snazzy website providing details. Oh, and if you're merely a fan of the movie but had nothing at all to do with its making, you can attend as well. A few of the things on the itinerary do cost an admission fee, but only because there are prison and museum tours involved, plus a concert featuring a southern rock band.

Many people consider The Shawshank Redemption one of the best films of the '90s, maybe even of all time, so there are likely plenty of people who'd be interested in a little trip to see the film's shooting locations and meet with extras and crew members who helped create the film. Apparently there aren't many people on board just yet, but if the word gets out to enough people, there's a chance of making this a huge deal. Maybe principal talent like Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Stephen King and/or Frank Darabont could even make room in their schedules to make an appearance. And then, perhaps this can be a yearly thing, like Star Wars conventions and Lebowski Fest.

[via Pop Candy]