Book to Movie: The Dead Zone (1983)

Book to Movie: The Dead Zone (1983)
Screenplay by Jeffery Boam
Directed by David Cronenberg

It was about 1983 that movies based on the works of Stephen King really became a hot commodity. The Dead Zone, Cujo, and Christine were all made into movies in 1983 with Children of the Corn and Firestarter following in 1984. During this time, screenwriters took liberties with King’s stories and usually made them work in the visual medium.

Jeffery Boam uses the ideas and concepts of King’s book. The movie captures the essence of King’s tale. However, he tells a different story. As I noted in my review of the book, this story was a tragedy. Boam tells King’s tale in a four act screenplay.

Sarah and Johnny – played exceptionally by Christopher Walken -- are planning to get married as the movie opens. They return home from the carnival where nothing happens. Sarah invites Johnny in to spend the night. The virtuous Johnny says he wants to put off sex until after marriage. They say goodnight and Johnny drives off into the night.

As he’s headed home in his yellow Volkswagen Beetle, a milk truck overturns in front of him and he collides with it. Sweet, wholesome milk does in sweet, wholesome Johnny Smith.

Johnny awakes in a private clinic run by his doctor, Sam Weizak. Almost five years have passed and he is stunned and heartbroken to hear that Sarah has moved on and gotten married.

Johnny’s first precognitive event is a great deal different in the movie and too melodramatic. Instead of just telling his therapist her house is on fire, as he does in the book, Johnny tells the therapist that her child’s bedroom is on fire with the child in it. The call for help is placed and Johnny saves the day!

His parents come to see him. We get hints of Johnny’s mother’s religious mania, but it is never developed. Sarah stops in also to tell Johnny of her life with her new husband and baby. She shares Johnny’s sorrow for their lost and doomed relationship.

Johnny returns home and tries to rebuild his life. His mom is now dead and he and his dad live alone in the country. One day, out of the blue as Johnny is splitting wood, Sarah shows up unexpectedly. They have lunch and when Sarah’s son falls asleep, they make love. They have dinner with Johnny’s dad, then Sarah leaves, making it clear that, after their love was consummated, she was moving on with the life she’d made for herself, without Johnny.

That is the chief emotional difference between the book and the movie. In the book, when Sarah and Johnny made love, Sarah made it clear it was a single act that was to suffice to make up for what was lost. It was ritualistic, and it was emotionally uplifting.

In the movie, the scene plays out as if Sarah is trying to absolve herself of something. She is quick to cut off Johnny’s pleas to see her again. She is done with him. She’s done her best to make it right. The scene in the movie is a downer.

Here ends Act One

Sheriff Bannerman of Castle Rock pays Johnny a visit. Driving him is the young deputy, Frank Dodd. Bannerman makes his plea for assistance and Johnny rejects his request and tells him to leave. But after hearing of another murder and pressure from his father, Johnny gives in and agrees to meet with Banner.

In the book, Johnny first handles the cigarette pack in the station where he can’t get anything. When he visits the crime scene is where he’s able to figure out Frank Dodd is the killer. In the movie, they are visiting the crime scene of the last murder when they are called to yet another murder that has just happened. Deputy Dodd drives them there and is then dispatched to handle crime control.

Johnny hovers over the spot in the town gazebo where the girl was killed and identifies Dodd as the killer. Dodd has taken the sheriff’s car and has headed for home. Bannerman and Johnny go to the house where they find Frank Dodd dead in the bathroom by his own hand.

The scene where Bannerman and Johnny close in on Dodd is the best part of the movie. Dodd’s mother is played exactly like Norman Bates’ mother and one can’t help but believe that King delved deeply into Robert Bloch’s Psycho inasmuch as he tapped Bram Stoker for ‘Salem’s Lot. The fifties, little boy cowboy motif of Frank Dodd’s bedroom and in the dilapidated house is a creepy setting suitable for a Stephen King movie. The brief interaction between Walken and Colleen Dewhurst who played Dodd’s mother is intense.

Here ends Act Two

As in the book, Johnny gets a job tutoring the son of a rich industrialist. But this story line plays out entirely differently than it does in the book.

As Johnny enters the Stuart home, he is introduced to Greg Stillson who is running for the U.S. Senate. Roger Stuart promises to consider a large donation to the Stillson campaign, but later tells Johnny that the guy is a buffoon – but a buffoon who will probably get elected.

Johnny agrees to tutor Stuart’s son, Chris. Chris is shy and struggles with school work. Johnny tutors him in reading and also works to build the kid’s self esteem. Roger is pleased with the progress. To reward Chris, Roger decides to form a hockey team, purchase the equipment, and coach it.

When Roger arrives at the home with the hockey gear, Johnny touches it and gets a premonition of the boys falling through the ice and sinking to the bottom of the pond (instead of being trapped in a burning building). Johnny frantically begs Roger Stuart to cancel the hockey practice. Johnny’s behavior scares Chris who also begs his dad to call it off. Disgusted and angry, Roger agrees. But Johnny is told his services are no longer needed.

Here ends the Third Act.

There is a knock at Johnny’s door and there to greet him is a Greg Stillson supporter going door to door for the campaign. As Johnny talks to him, his long lost Sarah walks up and introduces the campaign worker as her husband. The meeting is slightly awkward.

Greg decides to cross the street to the park and hear what Stillson has to say and see what makes him so charismatic and engaging. He greets Stillson as he approaches the stage. The two shake hands. Johnny gets hit with a terrifying image.

President Stillson is in his bunker. Before him is a general, reluctant to place his hand on a palm scanner and authorize a nuclear strike. Stillson is dressing him down for his cowardice when the Secretary of State bursts into the room, claiming that a diplomatic solution has been achieved. Stillson ignores them and launches the missiles, reveling in his triumph and his place in history.

When the two separate, both are stunned. Stillson staggers toward the stage, terrified by his new knowledge. A few days later, he asks Dr. Wiezak if he were given the opportunity, would he kill Hitler in his infancy. Without a moment of moral reflection Wiezak declares that he would.

This was where the movie is weakest. When asked in the book, Dr. Wiezak is concerned that Johnny has asked the question. He reflects before admitting that he would kill Hitler given the opportunity. In the movie, it appears almost as if Dr. Wiezak, whom Johnny has told of his Stillson vision, is compelling Johnny to act. Wiezak’s character is developed enough in the book and the movie for us to know he would not be so reckless in answering such a macabre hypothetical question asked of a man who is experiencing nervous and mental difficulties.

Greg decides to act. He acquires a sniper rifle and breaks into the town hall, hiding in the gallery. He is awakened by the entry of Stillson’s people when they enter to set up for the rally. He locks, loads, and waits. Stillson arrives and works his way to the stage.

Johnny jumps up and takes two shots, missing with both. As in the book, Stillson grabs a child and uses him for a shield. In the movie, it’s Sarah’s child who is at the rally with mom. Johnny recognizes her and her child just as a bullet from a Stillson body guard takes him in the chest. He falls from the balcony to the floor.

In the pandemonium, Stillson approaches the dying Johnny and asks, “Who are you?” Johnny grabs his hand. He sees Stillson, looking at the cover of Newsweek bearing the photo of him using the child as a shield. He takes a swig of whiskey and blows his brains out with a revolver. Johnny is satisfied he’s saved humanity.

Sarah comes over to him and weeps over his stricken body. As he dies, she tells him, “I love you.”

Although much different in the telling than the book, I thought Boam’s script was a tremendous rewrite of a book that would have been incredibly dull by direct transfer to screen.

This was before Christopher Walken had developed a reputation for playing crazy people, so his portrayal of vanilla Johnny Smith is believable and at times, superb.

King wrote many books better than The Dead Zone and many movies based on King’s work were better than The Dead Zone. However, many more were much worse. In the dozens of King’s works to be adapted to the visual medium, The Dead Zone certainly ranks as above average, but not anywhere near the best.

Book to Movie: The Mist (2007)

Book to Movie: The Mist (2007)
Screenplay by Frank Darabont based on the novella by Stephen King
Directed by Frank Darabont

I’m surprised it took 22 years to turn this fine King novella into a movie. The story just screams out for a screen treatment In 2007, Frank Darabont, who successfully adapted King’s two prison stories, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile to the big screen took King’s science fiction/horror crossover and made it into a superb movie.

Darabont has done well with King’s work because he doesn’t try too hard to improve upon the story that King told in print. Both The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are nearly straight retellings of King’s stories. He tinkers at the margins to successfully translate the story to the visual medium, but he knows good work when he reads it and isn’t so arrogant to believe that he can tell a better story than King. The only movie maker to dramatically alter a King work and improve it for the screen was Stanley Kubrick’s retelling of The Shining.

The story unfolds exactly as it did in the novella. The stark differences – and improvements – are in the casting. The obnoxious next door neighbor in the novella, Brent Norton, was obviously a middle-aged white guy. Darbont cast Andre Braugher who carried off the role well. Mrs. Carmody, the story’s antagonist, is an overweight antique dealer who dresses in garishly yellow polyester. On film, (and perhaps in the novella), this would be a caricature and a cliché. Darabont instead drafted the attractive Marcia Gay Holden to play the fanatical preacher of Old Testament doom.

Darabont also recruited a couple veterans of King films in Frances Sternhagen, probably best know as Cliff Clavin’s mother in Cheers, but known to King fans for her work in Misery, and Jeffery DeMunn from The Green Mile and Storm of the Century. As the story moves toward its climax, these two veteran actors deliver stunning performances.

There are a few minor deviations from the King story. The flying creatures that get into the store and fire that starts when the inhabitants try to fight them with fire provide a nice action sequence after building the tension. Mrs. Carmody actually gets her blood sacrifice in the movie when she and her followers sacrifice Pvt. Jessup by gut stabbing him and throwing him out to the monsters in the mist. Again, it was a nifty dramatic sequence that added to the tension of the film.

The novella ends ambiguously. I like where King left us in the novella, with David Drayton, his son, and Laurie Holden creeping along the misty landscape of post apocalyptic Maine. Darabont throws a major curve ball and delivers a satisfying – albeit tragic – end to the tale. I will not describe it for fear or ruining what I think is one of the better twist endings I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. I will say if you’ve read the novella, you won’t see the end coming because King doesn’t event hint at what Darabont does with the end of his tale.

The movie was well received by critics, horror fans, and general movie goers. The CGI material is minimal and enhances the movie rather than carrying it. Much of the horror is generated by good, old fashioned puppets and rubber monsters. Thank you very much Mr. Darabont for not turning this story of a cross section of ordinary Americans confined in horrific circumstances into a CGI extravaganza of eye candy.

Frank Darabont seems to have developed a taste for horror. His latest project is the AMC television series The Walking Dead which has riveted horror fans to the small screen. Darabont is the first person to accomplish this in decades. I’ve only seen the first two episodes (I just can’t set aside specific times to watch television. It’s not in my nature). But I have the just released first season in my Netflix queue and am eagerly anticipating its arrival.

If you’ve read the novella, seeing the movie is a must. Darabont is true to King’s story that ranks among his best short works. Unspoiled by pretentious retelling, foolish subplots, and garish special effects, Frank Darabont produced a fantastic, horrific movie that is well worth the time invested in watching.

Book to Movie: The Stand (1994)

The Stand
Miniseries made for television
Original air date: May 8, 1994

In the early and mid 90s, mini-series based on Stephen King works became an industry for ABC television. Between 1990 and 1995, ABC cranked out mini-series based on IT, Sometimes They Come Back, Golden Years, The Tommyknockers, The Stand, and The Langoliers. Some were good and some inferior.

In 1994, ABC aired The Stand in a four part mini-series over four nights. This would be an easy book to make into a very bad movie. Hollywood could have taken the barest elements of the story and dressed it up in special effects and makeup, as they were wont to do even in an era before computer generated effects. Instead, they did a good job of casting, used a script that held true to the novel, cast it well, and turned out a decent small screen version of King’s apocalyptic novel.

The screenplay eliminates none of the story’s elements. It only abbreviates them much as King’s editors abbreviated them from his original manuscript. Gone in the screenplay is the Trash Can Man’s trip across the desert and his encounter with The Kid. Gone is Nick and Tom Cullen’s encounter with the tornado and gone is the tragic character of Rita who would die after leaving New York City with Larry Underwood. Her pill popping vice and neurotic behavior is transferred into Nadine in a character amalgamation that is about 90 percent Nadine and ten percent Rita.

It is the introspection that develops each character so well in the novel as they march across the landscape of ruined America in search of a purpose in the immediate aftermath of the superflu. That introspection is not in the movie. Trash Can Man’s tortured walking day dreams are still there, but are tacked on and, unless you have read the novel, don’t make much sense. The dreams of Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail serve to set the tone of morality in the novel. On screen, it’s impossible to develop the dreams into anything tangible. Such are the shortcomings of celluloid.

All of the story’s best scenes are incorporated in the show and none of them are botched. Larry’s slow, ponderous crawl through the Lincoln Tunnel is well written and well shot, but still falls far short of the reading experience. This scene demonstrates best how film often comes up so short when interpreting Stephen King material. It is not what Larry sees in the tunnel that is terrifying. It is not what happens to him. It is what he thinks he sees and what he thinks is going to happen to him. An interior dialogue tacked on to the scene would have made it foolish. There was no way for Mick Garris to pull this off, but we can give him credit for knowing it and not making it worse by trying to make it better.

Although not nearly as dramatic as Larry’s escape through the Lincoln Tunnel, Stuart Redman’s escape from the Stovington Center for Disease Control is another riveting scene in the book. This transfers much better to film. Knowing the jig is up, Stuart overpowers the man sent to kill him. He encounters dozens of dead medical and administrative personnel in the hallways after being locked up for a month. As he searches frantically for an exit, on the brink of panic, he is accosted by the demented and nearly dead. Director Mick Garris deserves kudos for the pacing of this scene which accurately depicts the panic. The viewer almost holds his breath as Redman, played by Gary Sinise, makes his last dash toward the exit to find the ghost town formerly known as Stovington.

Garris relied very little on animated or computer generated special effects. Only at the end, as the two remaining heroes make their stand, do special effects come into play. Garris does the best job possible in bringing to film the hand of God as a special effect, but if falls far short of the novel as King describes death by fire as prophesized in Revelations.

Garris enlisted a few top notch actors and a capable list of unknowns to bring the script to life. Gary Sinise is perfect as the east Texas factory worker, Stuart Redman. Sinise was at the top of his game as an actor then – fresh off of his performance in Forrest Gump and preparing to make Apollo 13. Sinise’s average looks, slow speech, and unpretentious bearing are very close the character I envisioned as Stuart Redman.

As I read the novel, I never envisioned Frannie Goldsmith anything like Molly Ringwald. This is a role that is truly miscast. Although she was 26 at the time, that adolescent whining she did so well in the 1980s is pervasive in a character who is supposed to be more mature. Frances Goldsmith, in the novel was anything but whining. She was not brash or demonstrative, but she was stubborn, decisive, and insightful. The character portrayed by Ringwald is a whining observer of others. Ringwald does a marginal job of acting with a marginally written character.

Rob Lowe -- like Ringwald, a brat packer of the 1980s -- is cast as Nick Andros. Playing a deaf mute, Lowe obviously has to work hard to develop the Andros character on film without any dialogue. His performance might be the strongest of the cast. Lowe is a little older than the Nick Andros of the novel, but aptly conveys the cynicism combined with innate goodness that King authored.

Bill Faggerbake, known best to children as the voice of Patrick Star on Spongebob Squarepants and to adults as Dauber Daubinski, was born to play Tom Cullen. His huge stature, combined with his innocent, boyish facial features and mop of blond hair give him the tools to play a mentally challenged character. His baritone voice, ability to portray juvenile characters, and strong direction help Faggerbakke develop Tom Cullen as fully on television as he was developed in the novel.

True to his character, King did not gift Cullen with great insight into his own character or nature. He thought simply, acted simply, and reacted to events around him. Tom Cullen is not developed through introspection, but through deeds. Garris stays true to this and serves the story well.

Adam Storke portrays Larry Underwood – the narcissistic and self loathing rock star. King once wrote that he’d like to see Bruce Springsteen cast as Larry Underwood. Alas, The Boss is too old and is a rock and roll icon. It would be impossible to imagine him as a would be rocker who sold out to pop to make some easy cash. Storke’s body of work in Hollywood is limited to just a few roles – none of which I’ve ever seen. He is well cast here and carries off Larry Underwood’s dramatic character arc seamlessly.

Randall Flagg had to have been the most difficult character to cast. Flagg is beguiling, charming, and affectionate while his nature is evil, cruel, and antagonistic. He is portrayed by Jamey Sheridan. Sheridan has an impressive television resume and is best known as portraying Captain James Deakins on NBC’s Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Far from looking like a cop, Sheridan has the countenance of an graying 60s radical. His long, stringy hair and faded denim jacket are exactly what is depicted by King. Sheridan is charming enough when Flagg must charm. However, his rage is usually depicted through animation and makeup – and not particularly well. Sheridan did the best he could while producers and graphic artists fudged the rest.

Occasionally, a director will find a way to improve upon what is in the novel and make it work on television or the big screen. This was certainly the case with Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of The Shining. The novel is ranks among the finest of King’s work and it probably could not be improved upon as a book. Kubrick worked his magic and took scenes that just wouldn’t work on the big screen and rewrote them for his medium, making a better movie than a straight retelling of the book.

Garris, unfortunately, doesn’t go that direction. His is a straight, although abridged, rendering of the King text. Perhaps a little more imagination on Garris’ part would have made the stand in Las Vegas more meaningful. Admittedly, the hand of God is hard to top. But if you can’t pull it off on screen with the majesty it deserves near the end of an 1100 page novel or eight hour made for television miniseries, find another way to do it.

The miniseries is The Stand in a vacuum. We are given no insight into Flagg’s link to the master of the Dark Tower or the evil wrought by him in other worlds.

While it will never rank among the best or most important of King works on screen, it is better than most of his work that was made for television.