|
Khizan posted:If it's a Stephen King book that's not about prison, you can safely ignore any movie versions of it, imo. You're no fun. As a way of getting around this I could recommend Rose Red and Storm of the Century, both of which are original teleplays. I could do that.
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2014 08:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 10:28 |
|
|
Dystram posted:I'm about half-way through Salem's Lot and it's really good. The original movie is good if you're prepared for late 70s horror motifs and design
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2014 11:03
|
|
|
The ultimate in horror! 
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2014 14:26
|
|
|
Whenever I read the Dixie Pig part of the 6th Dark Tower book I can't help but picture all the vampires as looking like that thanks to that movie. That and the taheen make it really hard to take that scene seriously/view them as menacing at all. They just sound goofy as hell.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
I thought the 70's TV version of Salem's Lot was pretty OK. Better than a lot of King adaptations I'd say.
|
|
#
?
Dec 14, 2014 23:23
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:I thought the 70's TV version of Salem's Lot was pretty OK. Better than a lot of King adaptations I'd say. As I said before I watched the miniseries when it originally aired (I was 7), and it hosed my mind up for life (I will never sleep with the curtains open). The book is my favorite of King's while I think The Shining is his best. Most underrated has to be Cujo.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 02:42
|
|
|
nate fisher posted:Most underrated has to be Cujo. I can think of at least one book that is more reviled but I think gets a worse rap versus its quality. Just off the top of my head and leaving out any Dark Tower novels, I'd say Lisey's Story is a pretty good book that gets shot down too quickly for its. Um. Quirks. It even had a pretty satisfying ending.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 04:01
|
|
|
Is it bad that I sincerely like (and have watched more than once in every case) the King miniseries MASTERPIECES of the 1990s: all four of them! You know what, I think I'll go over them in overly exhaustive detail, because I can. Let me know if I'm missing any. IT - Perhaps the most legendary and well-known due to Tim Curry's over-the-top performance? Memorable for some surprisingly honest (and actually kinda decent) child acting, notably from a young Seth Green as Richie Tozier (and he would still be great for the adult part now, as has been pointed out in this thread!) as well as a veritable cavalcade of character actors, has-beens, and never-was's rounding the cast out. Although, I suppose this can be said of most '90s King miniseries, you do get some legit actors here or there - but one of the great things about It is that other than the child actors, the biggest names are Tim Curry and John Ritter. Which is kinda great, actually. About to re-made into a fairly big-budget 2-part film that hopefully won't suck! The Stand - Probably the next most well-known one? I doubt it would be as well known if it wasn't the only film adaptation. Done in 4 parts, I remember this being a HUGE television when it aired in 1994. It really was sort of the time when "the mini-series" was still kind of a big deal, and even though I was only 9 I remember my older brother and my mom being really excited and the network promoting it really heavily, and it just being this massive week-long event. They did get a fair amount of big names (at the time) for this one - Gary Sinise! Rob Lowe! Ed Harris! Molly.. Ringwald... - but it was mostly the lesser-known actors who stand out - except for Gary Sinise who is actually pretty awesome and kinda got the role. Like the books, I find this peters out in the latter of the 4 parts, but the first two are cracking fun, at least, and since I used to live in Boulder and they filmed there on location the later ones are still kinda fun to watch. Also being remade into a modern Hollywood film supposedly! Available to watch on Netflix (I think). The Shining - Much-maligned for being inferior to the Kubrick adaptation, and for having an intolerably annoying mouthbreathing child actor in like two thirds of the film (seriously his mouth hangs open the entire time and he speaks in an intolerably nasal voice who in the hell was the casting agent) this film still manages to be kinda fun and watchable. Stephen Weber does his best to save things as Jack Torrance, and he actually does a pretty drat good job, in my opinion, selling the transition and playing an Iconic Jack Nicholson character while making it his own, and not making you think of Nicholson the whole time - that's not easy to to do. I also like whoever the guy they cast as Halloran -he's not Scatman Crothers, but he was pretty good. The Langoliers - Ahh... We come to the final one, and my own personal favorite one. Also, probably the worst, the cheesiest, the most obscure, the most low-budget (probably), and the one with the least big name actors present. Unless you count Robert Morse and Dean Stockwell as big names - and to be fair I'm fans of both of them! Anyway, this miniseries is just amazing, the way they manage to stretch it out to 3 hours boggles the mind. It's just... Indescribable. You have to see it to believe it. It's got more of that "Stephen King '90s Miniseries" character and flavor than all the others. And for some reason, I actually do like this. God knows why, but I do. This is also available to watch on Netflix, so I mean, what on earth are you doing not watching it?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 04:05
|
|
|
I have a boxset which has The Stand and The Langoliers together, it was about $12! Awesome value even if just for The Stand by itself. Kinda wish I had IT on DVD too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 04:49
|
|
|
kaworu posted:Also, probably the worst, the cheesiest, the most obscure, the most low-budget (probably), and the one with the least big name actors present. Unless you count Robert Morse and Dean Stockwell as big names - and to be fair I'm fans of both of them! Don't forget Bronson Pinchot. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 15:19
|
|
|
Who can forget Balki having meltdowns over his daddy issues?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 15:29
|
|
|
Who can forget that horrible Rice Krispies sound?
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 17:15
|
|
|
FreezingInferno posted:Who can forget that horrible Rice Krispies sound? Every time I eat Rice Krispies, I pretend I'm a Langolier chomping through the dead remnants of space and time 
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 20:04
|
|
|
kaworu posted:Every time I eat Rice Krispies, I pretend I'm a Langolier chomping through the dead remnants of space and time This tickled me for some dumb reason. Thanks.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 20:14
|
|
|
Tommyknockers - actually boring and with a stupid change to the ending. I'd watch all of those miniseries again (in a sort of comfort-food / security-blanket compulsion) but I'll never watch Tommyknockers again. Cujo is terribly bleak. It is the only SK novel I admired and think is good but have never re-read. (As opposed to Rose Madder, which I'll never read again because it is rubbish.) Fake edit: I haven't re-read Dolores Claiborne, even though I thought it was a good book.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 21:41
|
|
|
You should watch the Dolores Clairborne movie then.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
kaworu posted:Is it bad that I sincerely like (and have watched more than once in every case) the King miniseries MASTERPIECES of the 1990s: all four of them! You know what, I think I'll go over them in overly exhaustive detail, because I can. Let me know if I'm missing any. And Harry Anderson--known for Night Court! Like they didn't even try to make older Richie look like younger Richie. I will always have a soft spot for Cujo because it was the first Stephen King book I ever read and it was the first grown-up book I ever read--I was about nine. So I graduated from Beverly Cleary to Stephen King.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 15:30
|
|
|
bean_shadow posted:And Harry Anderson--known for Night Court! Like they didn't even try to make older Richie look like younger Richie. That's actually why I like The Dark Half more than a lot of other people do. I read it in 8th or 9th grade and was blown away at the Alexis Machine graphic stuff. It disturbed me, and hooked me on King. I read through his entire library available up to that point within 6 months.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 17:22
|
|
|
So I looked up the synopses of the 'Salem's Lot movies and, wow, they sound horrible. Why is it so tough to just stick closer to the plot of his books?
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2014 17:52
|
|
|
Because the actual plot of Salem's Lot is like "a vampire comes to town and then people get vampirey and there's vampires" and most of the actual goodness of the book comes from a lot of totally un-filmable exploration of the Dark Heart of Small Town America and musings on the nature of faith.
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 16:32
|
|
|
^ I'll go with this view. SL is a book that could have been a fair bit longer - something of a rarity with SK novels. The whole set up leads directly to the final confrontation (no sooner than the team has been formed it is broken apart), the deaths of certain characters seem to occur too soon and it isn't a long book (not even in the restored version). So actually, I would have liked it to be longer. Can anyone break down (with spoilers) the additions to the restored text? I've never read it and am curious. What is the difference in terms of page count?
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 18:13
|
|
|
Having only read Salem's Lot last year, the thing that struck me is how much of modern vampire conventions/plots come straight from it. There are scenes/passages in fright night, interview with the vampire, etc. that are clearly influenced, if not outright lifted, from SL.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 18:31
|
|
|
Reading Night Shift now just finished Jerusalem's Lot I liked it it was spooky and it was cool to get more background lore on a story I'd already read Were Charles and Calvin homosexuals
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
joepinetree posted:Having only read Salem's Lot last year, the thing that struck me is how much of modern vampire conventions/plots come straight from it. There are scenes/passages in fright night, interview with the vampire, etc. that are clearly influenced, if not outright lifted, from SL. Yeah it was very interesting reading it and seeing things that King would later carry over to his other works and also things the movies I've seen borrowed heavily from - Fright Night for example.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 05:02
|
|
|
joepinetree posted:Having only read Salem's Lot last year, the thing that struck me is how much of modern vampire conventions/plots come straight from it. There are scenes/passages in fright night, interview with the vampire, etc. that are clearly influenced, if not outright lifted, from SL. To be fair (and SK has been, by mentioning it in a few places) a fair bit of SL was inspired by I am Legend by Robert Matheson, published in the 60s. But I guess most of today's writers and filmmakers probably only know SL.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 11:33
|
|
|
Josef K. Sourdust posted:To be fair (and SK has been, by mentioning it in a few places) a fair bit of SL was inspired by I am Legend by Robert Matheson, published in the 60s. But I guess most of today's writers and filmmakers probably only know SL. Ah, yes, that very obscure book " I am legend." I am sure hollywood will discover it any day now... What I meant, obviously, was about the tropes and conventions of modern vampire stories. And I am legend is far from being a main influence in SL, since other than vampires the stories overlap very little (if you are looking for more straight up influences into SL, Our Town, Peyton Place and The Haunting of Hill House are much more visible - and acknowledged). But Salem's lot has had a substantially greater influence in current vampire stories, as a vampire story in a world where people know about vampires. The whole "vampire moves into a small American town, one or two people see it but no one believes them because vampires are known in fiction, even though weird things start mysteriously happening" is essentially the plot of a lot of later vampire stuff. Fright Night is almost entirely lifted out of that, down to the cross and "you have to believe" scene. Same for Lost Boys, etc. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 16:29
|
|
|
joepinetree posted:Ah, yes, that very obscure book " I am legend." I am sure hollywood will discover it any day now... About the only thing the book and movie have in common is sharing a title, so yeah, the actual novella and what makes it great is pretty obscure and it would be nice if Hollywood made a real "I Am Legend" movie.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 21:11
|
|
|
Fried Chicken posted:About the only thing the book and movie have in common is sharing a title, so yeah, the actual novella and what makes it great is pretty obscure and it would be nice if Hollywood made a real "I Am Legend" movie. You realize that there have been more than one adaptations of the book, right? And that pretty much everyone who has filmed a zombie flick in the past 50 years has acknowledged the influence? I mean, "Vampire Novel of the Century" winner I am Legend is not "pretty obscure" by any definition of the term, and the notion that people mistakenly credit King for stuff that actually came from Matheson because they don't know I am Legend is completely laughable. Especially since Salem's lot is a completely different story. The one where King draws heavily from Matheson is Cell, by his own admission.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2014 22:08
|
|
|
corn in the bible posted:Full Dark No Stars is the best King book, I think. I wouldn't say it's his best but I really enjoyed it. Especially 1922.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2014 11:35
|
|
|
joepinetree posted:What I meant, obviously, was about the tropes and conventions of modern vampire stories. And I am legend is far from being a main influence in SL, since other than vampires the stories overlap very little (if you are looking for more straight up influences into SL, Our Town, Peyton Place and The Haunting of Hill House are much more visible - and acknowledged). But Salem's lot has had a substantially greater influence in current vampire stories, as a vampire story in a world where people know about vampires. The whole "vampire moves into a small American town, one or two people see it but no one believes them because vampires are known in fiction, even though weird things start mysteriously happening" is essentially the plot of a lot of later vampire stuff. Fright Night is almost entirely lifted out of that, down to the cross and "you have to believe" scene. Same for Lost Boys, etc. What always made SL standout to me is that mix of the Peyton Place and The Haunting of Hill House influence crossed with what is basically Dracula. I think enjoyed reading about what the small town folks do behind closed doors more than about anything in that book. Also I would love for King to write a prequel to SL, just about Hubert Marsten and the Marsten House. But I guess just like The Haunting of Hill House what makes it so great, is not knowing what the evil is (why has Jerusalem's Lot always been so evil?)/ joepinetree posted:You realize that there have been more than one adaptations of the book, right? And that pretty much everyone who has filmed a zombie flick in the past 50 years has acknowledged the influence? I mean, "Vampire Novel of the Century" winner I am Legend is not "pretty obscure" by any definition of the term, and the notion that people mistakenly credit King for stuff that actually came from Matheson because they don't know I am Legend is completely laughable. Especially since Salem's lot is a completely different story. The one where King draws heavily from Matheson is Cell, by his own admission. Yep George Romero said that he basically ripped off I am Legend with the idea of NOTLD. So you can pretty much trace everything from Walking Dead back to I am Legend. I think my favorite movie version is the Vincent Price one, The Last Man of Earth (I hate Will Smith, but I actually enjoyed that version too outside of the ending). nate fisher fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Dec 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 13:54
|
|
|
Just to add something to the thread, but I actually liked Revival. Look backing at what he has written (to be clear I haven't read past the 3rd book in the Dark Tower series), it might be my favorite thing he has written (along with 11/22/63) this century. I wouldn't call it King in his prime, but I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than other books like Under the Dome or Doctor Sleep. My only real complaint was the ending was kind of obvious not that far in the book if you've read reviews talk about the Lovecraft influence. Also King got the length just right this time. I need a opinion here. My son (Freshman in high school) has gotten into reading over the last couple of years, and has been reading stuff like Andrew Smith (Winger and Grasshopper Jungle). The only thing he has ever read by King is the short story The Raft. He wants to read his first King novel, and I am not sure where to point him. I want him to read The Stand, because it has been a major influence on things his has enjoyed (Lost for example), but is that too daunting a task right now? The kid loves horror movies, but so far has not much interest in horror novels (he enjoys reading things that he can relate to). Any suggestions? Maybe I'm pushing The Stand too hard, but heck I read it myself in 8th grade. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Dec 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 14:14
|
|
|
nate fisher posted:Just to add something to the thread, but I actually liked Revival. Look backing at what he has written (to be clear I haven't read past the 3rd book in the Dark Tower series), it might be my favorite thing he has written (along with 11/22/63) this century. I wouldn't call it King in his prime, but I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than other books like Under the Dome or Doctor Sleep. My only real complaint was the ending was kind of obvious not that far in the book if you've read reviews talk about the Lovecraft influence. Also King got the length just right this time. Though it's not only by King, he might enjoy The Talisman a great deal at his age; IT might also be good to start him off with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 17:07
|
|
|
Dystram posted:IT might also be good to start him off with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 18:45
|
|
|
I would go for some of his short story collections, probably either Night Shift or Skeleton Crew. They're more horror than anything else, but short stories are probably where King is strongest and the format is inherently less daunting than King's doorstoppers. IT is amazing but it's also a pretty hefty introduction. As for other good introductory books, The Running Man is one of my favorites.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Josef K. Sourdust posted:Count down the minutes before someone posts "what about THAT scene? It's practically child abuse to suggest IT" Goons really don't like that scene. When I allude to it with non-goon King fans, they inevitably blank on it. I think people here are just really appalled by it in a weird hugbox way of "gotta be offended so I don't out myself as Aatrek's alt!  "Or maybe Pennywise made them forget!
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 20:36
|
|
|
nate fisher posted:I need a opinion here. My son (Freshman in high school) has gotten into reading over the last couple of years, and has been reading stuff like Andrew Smith (Winger and Grasshopper Jungle). The only thing he has ever read by King is the short story The Raft. He wants to read his first King novel, and I am not sure where to point him. Go with Salem's Lot. It's short-ish but has that epic King sprawl, lots of great scares and is pretty representative of King's body of work (if he doesn't like it, then Stevie probably isn't for him).
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 21:20
|
|
|
High Warlord Zog posted:Go with Salem's Lot. It's short-ish but has that epic King sprawl, lots of great scares and is pretty representative of King's body of work (if he doesn't like it, then Stevie probably isn't for him). If he's a modern teenager, have him read "The Long Walk". Should cheer him right up just in time for high school.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:If he's a modern teenager, have him read "The Long Walk". Should cheer him right up just in time for high school. The Long Walk might be the best thing King ever wrote anyway. It's what I always recommend to people who might not like King's supernatural horror. Blows my mind there's never been a movie adaptation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 22, 2014 23:53
|
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:If he's a modern teenager, have him read "The Long Walk". Should cheer him right up just in time for high school. Good call. So is Rage (if you can find it).
|
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2014 01:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 10:28 |
|
|
Josef K. Sourdust posted:Good call. So is Rage (if you can find it). My mom got me The Bachman Books back in 1987, and I still have every book I've ever own. So I have Rage. Right now I am giving him the choice of Salem's Lot or The Bachman Books. Myself I am embarrassed to say I haven't read It since the late 80's, and my copy is pretty rough looking. So I just ordered another copy of It, and I'm going to give it another read. I am one of the people that doesn't remember the gangbang for some reason. Khizan posted:If it's a Stephen King book that's not about prison, you can safely ignore any movie versions of it, imo. Stand By Me and The Mist are exceptions to that rule, but those are based are novellas. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Dec 23, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 23, 2014 03:41
|
|