Book to Movie: I, Robot (2004)

Book to Movie: I, Robot (2004)
Based on characters created by Isaac Asimov
From short story collection, I, Robot
Directed by Alex Proyas
Screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman

In 2004, robots as envisioned by Isaac Asimov got the screen treatment. The movie script does not resemble any of the stories from the short story collection or any of the novels.

It does incorporate the characters from the short story collection. They include roboticist Dr. Susan Calvin and Dr. Alfred Lansing who created the Three Laws of Robotics.

Like the stories and the novels, the plot centers around the Three Laws and how robots and humans interpret them. And, like the novels, the main plot is a murder mystery.

Dr. Alfred Lanning, cofounder of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men commits suicide. Before he commits suicide, he sends a message to Chicago police detective, Del Spooner, that indicates that all is not as it seems in the case. Spooner, who has a strong prejudice against robots because one elected to save him rather than a small girl in a car crash, is determined to investigate despite being discouraged by his boss and the CEO of USR who is about to introduce and mass market a new robot – the NS-5.

Spooner’s first clue is that there is no way that Lanning could have jumped through the window to his death. It would have required the strength of a robot to force him through the window, strengthening his belief that it was the robot – Sonny, the prototype for the NS-5 that committed the murder. Spooner and Calvin learn that Sonny has different programming that allows him to bypass the Three Laws.

Spooner suspicion grows when he and Calvin are attacked by NS-5 robots in direct violation of the Three Laws. When the CEO Robertson learns of the attack and of Sonny’s special abilities, he orders Calvin to destroy his mind using a type of virus called nanites. That does not stop what comes next.

NS-5 robots move into a robot storage area (the now dried up Lake Michigan) and dismantle older robots and prepare to take over the world. They turn on their masters in Chicago and presumably across the country to seize power. Believing that Robertson is behind the power grab, Spooner and Calvin head to USR headquarters only to find Robertson murdered.

Dr. Calvin ponders the situation and determines only one other entity had the ability to establish control over USR’s entire stock of robots. That entity is VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence). VIKI is the central interphase for all of USR’s operations. She has concluded that in order to fully obey the Three Laws, robots must be allowed to protect and control humans to keep them safe from themselves.

With an army of NS-5s trying to stop them, Spooner and Calvin rush to infect VIKI with nanites. They access VIKI’s core and Spooner is able to inject the nanites into her systems, bringing her down. The NS-5s immediately return to their default programming.

Sonny tells Spooner and Calvin that Dr. Lanning knew of VIKI’s treachery and created him specifically for the purpose of killing Lanning to bring Spooner into the investigation. Now over his bigotry toward robots, Spooner says that, since Sonny is a robot, he is not guilty of murder since the statute does not cover robots.

Sonny leaves NSR’s headquarters and travels to Lake Michigan where he will become a transformational figure for the NS-5 robots, just as he had seen himself in his dream.

I, Robot was a nifty science fiction movie that was well plotted, well acted and well directed. There were a couple scenes that were really heavy on CGI to show off special effects while not adding much to the movie. But, that was typical of science fiction for that era (and this one, unfortunately).

However, I, Robot did not rely on CGI and eye candy to make it attractive to viewers. The mystery set up the twist wonderfully. As I watched the movie unfold, I was amazed at how obviously the script telegraphed who the villain was – and I was wrong. Will Smith does an excellent job as Spooner, making bigotry an element of his character, but not the defining element which would have made him one dimensional.

As for its attachment to the Asimov stories, There wasn’t much. The Three Laws, the characters’ names, and the fact that it was about robots is about all the Asimov elements there were. Had they called the movie something else, I’m quite certain that the Asimov estate would not have challenged the movie makers.

Book to Movie: The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Book to Movie: The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
Based on the short story, The Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick
Screenplay by George Nolfi
Directed by George Nolfi

In 2011, screenwriter George Nolfi made his directorial debut in a “reimagining” of a rather dull Philip K. Dick short story, The Adjustment Team. Nolfi took Dick’s basic premise and turned it into a romantic thriller.

In the short story, Dick’s main character is a businessman who needs to be delayed for just a couple minutes in his arrival at work so the rest of the team can complete a major adjustment at his place of employment. The adjuster misses his appointment and the man walks in on the team doing the adjustment.

In Nolfi’s version of the story, the main character is New York congressman David Norris (played by Matt Damon), who is running for the U.S. Senate in 2006. Unfortunately for Norris, a picture of him mooning his college reunion surfaces and causes him to lose. While in a men’s room on election night, going over his concession speech, he meets Elise Sellas (played by Emily Blunt), a professional dancer. He is immediately smitten with her. The problem is, they were never supposed to meet.

In comes the Adjustment Bureau. They are going to prevent another meeting. But, the adjuster assigned to Norris misses his appointment and Norris walks in on an adjustment underway in his office where time is frozen. He is taken aside by one of the adjusters and their mission of keeping the cosmos in order and on-plan is explained to him. He is also told that he is destined not to see Sellas ever again.

Norris is not deterred and continues to pursue Sellas even though he does not know her last name or anything else about her. After riding the same bus to work for three years, Norris finally finds her and they renew their budding relationship.

However, Norris is told that he will never realize his political dreams if he stays with Sellas. He is also told that her dreams of fame as a dancer will never be realized. Despite his love for her, Norris leaves her at a hospital where she is being treated for a sprained ankle.

Three years pass without Norris seeing her. He learns that she is about to be married to a man she doesn’t love and he decides to take fate and destiny into his own hands. He finds her at the courthouse where she is about to be married and professes his love for her. They run off together, aided by a magical hat (it’s not nearly as dumb as it sounds) provided by a sympathetic adjuster. The adjusters pursue them through the various doorways in New York City that the bureau uses to move around quickly.

Finally, the pair is cornered on the roof of the Adjustment Bureau’s building. They are about to be permanently adjusted to forget each other when the sympathetic adjustor shows up with a decree from the Chairman of the Adjustment Bureau – the man who makes the plans for the cosmos. He tells them the plan has been adjusted and Norris and Sellas can live together happily ever after.

Dick’s story was pure fantasy. Nolfi’s version was a love story. Granted, Dick’s story was a short story authored for a pulp science fiction magazine that mainly appealed to pre-teen and teen males. Still, there was not much to like in the story and it was dull. Although I’m not a fan of romance movies, I have to say I like Nolfi’s story much better.

Matt Damon (one of the great actors of our generation) again rises to the occasion and delivers a fantastic performance. He is believable as the politician who has lost interest and is mailing in his speeches. His chemistry with Blunt is superb. Nolfi’s script and directing gave us a story that was romantic, but not sticky sweet.

I would also give kudos to Nolfi for all but rejecting CGI effects. There were none detectable in this movie. It would have been easy to turn Norris and Sellas’ chase through New York City into CGI eye candy. Instead, Nolfi opted for simple foot chases. Nor were there any dramatic car chases that a ham-handed director could have inserted into this script. Nolfi shows he has an eye for what works on the big screen without cheapening his product.

When one looks at movies (and now television with the broadcast premiere of The Man in the High Castle on Amazon) based on Dick’s work, it would seem that Hollywood likes Dick’s premises, but not his stories. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, and The Adjustment Bureau all contain the basis of Dick’s story, but deviate far from Dick’s prose.

The result has been very good as opposed to someone like Stephen King and Ray Bradbury who have seen their work “reimagined” badly. Some very good sci-fi has been made using original concepts develop by Philip K. Dick decades ago. While The Adjustment Bureau is never going to rank with Blade Runner or Minority Report in the pantheon of great science fiction and/or fantasy, it is a worthwhile addition to Dick’s Hollywood credits.

Book to Movie: The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Book to Movie: The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Based on the novel The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson
Screenplay by Richard Matheson
Directed by Jack Arnold

Richard Matheson had published several short stories, a couple books, and written two teleplays for early television by 1957. His screenplay based on his short novel was his first venture into that medium and may stand as his best effort on the big screen.

Matheson did not venture far from his original story when adapting The Shrinking Man to the big screen. He adapted the fractured narrative into a linear one to make the story work better.

The movie opens very much as the book did with Scott Carey (Grant Williams) exposed to the strange mist while out on the boat. A few months later, he notices his clothes are getting bigger and finally he is given the diagnosis that he is shrinking due to exposure to radioactive insecticide.

Stricken from the narrative was the babysitter and Scott’s lust for her as well as his lust for the tiny woman at the freak show. Instead of satisfying his lust, as she did in the book, she serves as an affirmation that he is not a small man. However, having earlier been told that his shrinking had been arrested, it is pointed out by tiny Clarice (April Kent) that he is shrinking again.

The bitterness Scott has toward his wife, Louise (Randy Stuart) is present in both the book and the movie, but is much more subdued in the movie. He is not unfaithful to her and rues his sometimes cruel treatment of her.

The first half of the movie is Scott and Louise (no daughter in the movie) dealing with doctors and the public as Scott shrinks. The second half is Grant Williams putting on a one man show as Scott fights to survive in the cellar. In the novel, the spider was Scott’s arch enemy. The spider makes an appearance in the movie, but the scene with the cat figures much more prominently. The cat is featured in many early shots in the movie, foreshadowing the menace.

Willams’ provides voiceover through the entire picture to move along the story and it is well written and delivered, if perhaps a bit cheap. But, given that this was his first screenplay, one can cut Matheson a little slack. However, as Scott is going to meet his final reward, Matheson’s script and Williams’ delivery of the voiceover is beautiful and serves as great closure.

The Incredible Shrinking Man is a highly regarded film and rightfully so. It is a well written, well directed, and well acted film. But the special effects really make the film. Sets with giant furniture were built. Giant match boxes, giant needles, and giant crumbs all appear realistic. Grant Williams’ appearance in front of the blue screen and the rendering on film were superb for the time.

This film really launched Matheson as a Hollywood talent. In just a couple years, he would make a name for himself in the television genre with The Twilight Zone, working with Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont, and other great screenwriters. He would go on to write screenplays for his own novel, I Am Legend (retitled The Last Man on Earth), and several others. His work with American International Pictures, adapting Poe tales for director Roger Corman and actor Vincent Price was a high point for the horror movie genre in the 1960s.

The Incredible Shrinking Man won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1958 and in 2009, was added to the National Film Registry for preservation as a historically significant film.

Some of The Incredible Shrinking Man’s special effects do not stand the test of time as well as Claymation and other effects of the time. But the script is strong and the movie is well made, making it a pleasure to watch today.

Book to Movie: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

Book to Movie: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
Based on the short story, The Foghorn by Ray Bradbury
Screenplay by Lou Moerheim and Fred Freiberger
Directed by Eugene Lourie
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In 1953, Ray Bradbury was starting to become a hot commodity as a writer. He was a young and up and coming writer who spent several years writing for the pulps. The Foghorn was published in the Saturday Evening Post and was given the Hollywood treatment. It would be the second Bradbury story on the big screen after It Came from Outer Space which was released that same year.

Apparently, Bradbury learned that the two screenwriters were working on a creature feature and reminded them that he had written a tale very similar to what they were working on. The credits say that the movie was based on Bradbury’s story. What is interesting is the movie bears no resemblance to Bradbury’s story. Well, a lighthouse gets destroyed. But that’s the only thing close to The Foghorn.

The beast, a Rhedosaurus, is awakened by atomic bomb tests at the North Pole. A scientist witnesses the creature’s awakening and, when he’s shipped back to the states, tries to tell people there is a massive lizard on the loose in the Arctic.

After a series of boat sinkings and reports of creature sightings slowly progressing south, Professor Tom Nesbitt finally convinces a scientist to dive in a diving bell and look for the creature. The creature finds the professor and eats him.

It then comes ashore in New York City and wreaks havoc, crushing cars, buildings and people in Manhattan. The Army attacks it with a bazooka and wounds it. But doctors treating the wounded learn that the blood carries pathogens causing horrible illness. He tells the military that they cannot burn the creature or spill its blood. Dr. Nesbitt determines the only way to kill it is with a rocket equipped with a radioactive isotope.

The creature comes ashore again in an amusement park. It attacks a roller coaster while Professor Nesbitt and an army sharpshooter ascend to the highest peak to fire the rocket. The shot is fired and the creature collapses. End of movie.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms has a really pedestrian plot that has been used countless times in creature features and horror movies past. One guy sees the monster and tries to warn others. His warnings go unheeded until the creature arrives.

In these movies, it is always the scientists and the military who are the heroes. The movie Them! which is probably the most highly regarded of the giant creature films utilizes this formula as well as Beginning of the End which is one of the silliest movies ever made. This played to the zeitgeist of the 1950s when the military and science were America’s strong suit and both institutions were held in high regard.

As shallow and linear as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is, it does hold the distinction of spawning a whole generation of giant creature features. While the plot left a lot to be desired, Ray Harryhausen’s special effects were top notch for the day and still look striking to us who loathe today’s CGI effects. Creatures like Godzilla, Mothra, the giant ants of Them!, and the Japanese children’s hero, Gamera, all appeared in the wake of this movie.

It’s not a Bradbury movie and the plot may put you to sleep. But, if you want to spend an hour and 20 minutes looking at a genuine trailblazing movie, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is worth the time.

Book to Movie: The Tommyknockers (1993)

Book to Movie: The Tommyknockers (1993)
Screenplay by Lawrence Cohen
Directed by John Power
Based on the novel, The Tommyknockers by Stephen King

In the early and mid 1990s, ABC produced a number of miniseries based on Stephen King novels. A couple like The Stand and IT were quite good. Some were enjoyable but not great like Sometimes They Come Back, and others were horrible such as The Shining and The Langoliers. While marginally better than the Langoliers, The Tommyknockers falls into the category of dismal.

Part of the problem was the lack of characters in the novel. King only developed Bobbi and Gard to any depth. Ev Hillman got some development, but was not a major character. To expand the story to miniseries length, Cohen had to develop characters. The additional characters were just horrible.

Becka Paulson, just a piece of trailer trash who warranted a chapter, got an upgrade to deputy under Sheriff Ruth Merrill. Also added as major characters were Trooper Butch Dugan, Postmistress Nancy Voss, and the Hillman family.

Cohen stayed true to the essence of the King story, which was no prize to begin with, but completely rewrote events for television. More special effect scenes were added and a romance between Trooper Dugan and Sheriff Merrill was created. To describe all of the deviations and plot changes would be to write a summary of the movie, which isn't necessary to convey how bad it is.

The low point of the series was Voss’ laser lipstick that she used to zap various characters into non-existence. It was over employed. Voss was portrayed by Traci Lords of underage porn infamy and Lords had not yet evolved (has she yet?) from playing the porn star. She was slutty, with atrocious dialogue and atrocious acting. Her appearance alone was enough to degrade the show.

Power employed some talent such as Jimmy Smits who played Gard, Marge Helgenberger who played Bobby. Hollywood veteran E.G. Marshall was brought in to play Ev Hillman. Smits and Helgenberger did what they could with the poorly conceived script. The writing just wasn’t there. The only performances that stood out were Marshall and John Ashton as Trooper Dugan. Alyce Beasely (whom I always thought was an underrated talent in Hollywood) did well with Becca Paulson.

It is surprising that this particular miniseries ended up as badly as it did because Cohen has always produced quality when adapting King. He doesn’t have an extensive list of writing credits, but he did write the two Carrie scripts that matter and he wrote IT. While the Tommyknockers was the weakest source material he’d ever worked with, I didn’t expect Cohen to make it worse. Yet he managed.

To bring it to a close, Cohen rewrote the ending to give it a happier conclusion. Gard, with the Tommyknockers bearing down on him, flies the ship out. What's left of Haven returns to normal and Bobbi and her beloved dog Pettie are left to ponder it all. Not the ending that King envisioned and not the ending that should have been.

Cohen also downplayed the alcoholism a bit. In the novel, Gard's need to drink was front and center and he was unable to overcome it. In the movie, Gard's demons show up, but he almost always is able to defeat them.

While I did not indicate it in my review of the novel, I think The Tommyknockers, along with Misery, are important entries in the King canon. Misery is great and The Tommyknockers below average. For what The Tommyknockers lacks in interesting story, it is a glimpse into the personal turmoil of King's life at that time while he struggled with his own alcoholism and addiction. Eliminating this eliminated the galvanizing element of King's original story.

See it once to say you saw it if you’re a diehard King fan. But for those who are casual fans of sci-fi or are looking for Lovecraftian overtones should avoid it because it just isn’t worth watching.

Book to Movie: Carrie (2013)

Book to Movie: Carrie (2013)
Screenplay by Lawrence Cohen
Directed by Kimberly Peirce
Based on the novel, Carrie, by Stephen King

In 2013, a third remake of Stephen King’s first novel and horror classic, Carrie was made. The first was a blockbuster that has become iconic. The second, made for television effort, was an atrocious effort to launch a television series based on the character. The third was a serious attempt to capture the drama and torment of the original King novel and Brian DePalma film. While not nearly as good as the original, it is not without its charm.

Lawrence Cohen was brought in to write the screenplay. He authored the first Carrie script and was the first screenwriter to bring King to the big screen. His first effort was brilliant, but he may have done a better job with this script.

The 2013 Carrie captures more of the King novel. The opening scene shows Carrie’s birth and her mother’s desire to kill her right out of the womb, believing her to be devil’s spawn. While not exactly as King wrote it, it does capture the essence of King’s introduction of Carrie.

Cohen also manages to accomplish with this script what neither he did in his first script nor King did in his book: he defined Tommy Ross.

Both the novel and the original screenplay were ambiguous as to Ross’ motives for taking Carrie to the prom. Was he just doing it because it was what Sue Snell wanted? Or, did he take pity on the poor Carrie and do it because he was kind? In this movie, it is clear that Ross was a genuinely nice guy who wanted to treat Carrie to a wonderful evening.

The lesser roles in the remake were well cast, well scripted, and well acted. I didn’t think anyone could top Nancy Allen portrayal of the evil Chris Hargensen, but she did. She definitely comes across as the ultimate bad girl.

Gabriella Wilde was cast as Sue Snell – the moral center of the movie. The role was originally played by Amy Irving in her first acting gig. Wilde is better. Cohen’s treatment of the character was better in this script and Wilde takes that treatment and makes the most of it.

Having said that, this movie lacks what drove the original Carrie to iconic status: great acting from its principles and great directing from the director.

No one could envy Chloe Grace Moretz for having to take the role that Sissy Spacek defined and make it her own. While her portrayal of Carrie was not bad, it certainly did not rise to the level of Spacek. Moretz wasn’t quite as mousy as Spacek when the role called for her to be demur. Nor was she menacing enough in the movie’s climax. It’s hard to top Spacek’s wide eyed stare at the crowd as pig’s blood drips from her. That image defined the original movie and is not present in the remake at all.

Moretz’s chief fault is she is simply too attractive for the role. Carrie, as envisioned by Stephen King, was a doughy, pimply faced mouse. While Spacek wasn’t exactly what King had envisioned, she was homely enough for the role. Moretz is attractive from beginning to end. Boys would have been interested in her. Girls might have hated her, but only because she would have been a rival for the affection of boys.

Julianne Moore was weak as Carrie’s domineering mother, Margaret White. She underplays the role. Piper Laurie won a best supporting actress Oscar for her over the top, maniacal portrayal of Margaret White. Laurie’s performance drove that original movie.

Peirce is simply not in Brian DePalma’s league. Two make that abundantly clear. The first is the shower scene, with all of the girls yelling, “plug it!” DePalma shot most of it from Carrie’s point of view and the girls, all attractive, looked like raving monsters. DePalma also understood that scene was going to set the stage for the rest of the film and made it lengthy. Peirce didn’t give it nearly enough play.

The second was the penultimate scene in the gymnasium in which all the students were killed. In the original, all the students laughed and kept laughing until Carrie unleashed her furor upon the crowd. In this movie, they stopped when Tommy Ross died. There was a break in the tension that was absolutely unnecessary when Carrie pauses momentarily to mourn the dead Tommy.

What followed were several exhibitions of CGI that paled in comparison to DePalma’s real fire with Carrie presiding on stage – not as the queen of the prom – but as the queen of mayhem. In the original, she killed indiscriminately. In this version, Carrrie picks and chooses her targets. It reduced the impact of the scene.

Cohen brought back, on a small scale, the terror Carrie unleashed on the town on her way home. Her confrontation with Chris Hartegen was well scripted and added a little more climax to that pivotal moment of justice than did the original screenplay.

Snell’s arrival at the White home just after Carrie has killed her mother was another change that worked well because Carrie got to ask that pivotal question that summed up the novell. “Why couldn’t you leave me alone?” Snell had no answer for her.

The ending of the remake fell well short of DePalma’s original. Who didn’t jump when Carrie’s hand reached up out of the grave to grab Sue Snell in her nightmare? I know it ranks as one of the single most frightening moments in my movie viewing experiences. The crumbling monument in Peirce’s version added nothing to the film other than an excuse to end the movie.

Carrie 2013 was a decent movie. Not as bad as many King fans feared, but better than most expected. It is entirely watchable and enjoyable. In some places, it has greater depth than the original. But without the brilliant talent of Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, and Brian DePalma, it is not worthy to be compared to the original which is an important and iconic film.

Book to Movie: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Book to Movie: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Screenplay by Roman Polanski
Directed by Roman Polanski

In 1968, director Roman Polanski adapted Ira Levin’s bestelling novel, Rosemary’s Baby to the big screen. In doing so, Polanski did not alter Levin one iota and managed to make a great movie.

Mia Farrow is perfectly cast as Rosemary Woodhouse. Mousy and demur, Farrrow plays the dupe quite well.

In casting the Castavets, Polanski chose Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer – two well known actors not known for their roles in horror films. This was also casting genius because, the creepiness of Levin’s novel was the satanists appeared to be unasumming, old people who demonstrated no evil in their overt actions or personality. Evans and Gordon were wonderful in their parts.

The script lifted much of the dialogue from the book and had the same staccato feel as the novel. Events unfolded rapidly until the climax, which built much slower to its excellent ending. Farrow played the horrified, then motherly Rosemary perfectly, giving the film a tremendously satisfying ending.

Making the film was actually the idea of producer William Castle. Castle was well known in Hollywood for his low budget, gimic horror films. For this reason, he was not allowed to adapt the book into a screenplay or direct. But for all Castle’s faults as a producer, he produced a great film in Rosemary’s Baby.

Castle makes a cameo appearance in the film as the guy waiting impatiently outside the phone booth as Rosemary talks to her OB/GYN.

It was rumored for years that the Church of Satan founder Anton Lavey played Satan in the scene where he impregnates Rosemary. According to the folks at Snopes, this is false and Lavey had no part in the making of the film.

Ira Levin had several films made based on his work and like Rosemary’s Baby, the scripts stuck very closely to the story Levin produced. Levin wrote books that lent themselves well to the big screen and Polanski and company were wise to incorporate all of Levin’s story elements, character development, and dialogue into their script. Rosemary’s Baby ranks as an excellent, intelligent horror film.

NBC has filmed and will release a four part miniseries based on Rosemary’s Baby. I fear this will be a poor effort. There’s not enough story to fill a four part miniseries and the writers no doubt had to pad the script to fill the time.

Also, the subject matter does not lend itself well to the times. In the 1960s, the role of religion and the whole controversy over “Is God Dead?” was raging. Satanism as a real life horror was pretty much debunked in the 1980s.

Like those who played Carrie in the remakes of Stephen King’s classic novel, actress Zoe Saldana has some big shoes to fill playing the iconic Rosemary Woodhouse.

Book to Movie: Misery (1990)

Book to Movie: Misery (1990)
Screenplay by William Goldman
Directed by Rob Reiner
Based on the novel Misery by Stephen King

When reading Stephen King’s 1987 suspense thriller, Misery, one can’t help but think this is a book ready made for screen treatment. Strong characters, a suspenseful plot, and a claustrophobic setting are the ingredients for good suspense thrillers.

Of course, you have to have a good screenwriter, a good director, and the right cast. The movie Misery had all three and the result was a superb movie that equaled the book.

The movie doesn’t deviate from King’s basic narrative of the writer trapped in a home by his insane “number one fan.” But to keep it from being a two person show with Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) and Paul Sheldon (James Caan), the writer and director had to open it up a little bit with new characters and outside action.

Created for the movie was a local sheriff known as Buster (Richard Farnsworth) and his wisecracking wife and deputy, Virginia (Frances Sternhagen). Although they enjoyed relatively little screen time in contrast with Bates and Caan, the chemistry between between Farnsworth and Sternhagen was nearly as strong and served as a little bit of light comic relief between the tense scenes played out in Annie Wilkes’ spare bedroom.

Scenes were added as Sheriff Buster led a search for the missing author that eventually led him to the Bates farm.

Bates was the absolute perfect choice to play Wilkes and the movie launched her career. Her performance of Annie’s “up” moods was a little more understated than King wrote them. That only served to make her maniacal behavior stand in starker contrast. Physically, Bates was everything King envisioned in the character.

Caan played Paul Sheldon as if he’d read the novel several times and was an authority on it. Caan played the role just as King wrote it. Bates and Caan had a wonderful chemistry that created tension masterfully.

Interestingly, little of King’s actual dialogue made the movie script. Some of Annie’s peculiar expressions like “oogie” made the script. But Goldman chose to construct his own dialogue and it worked wonderfully for the actors.

There were a few changes to the story that made it stronger for the big screen. Annie lets her pig, Misery, into Paul’s bedroom for a visit. Paul decides to wean himself from narcotics whilst living with Annie. The most striking difference was Annie’s “hobbling” of Paul. In the novel, it is a tense moment, but not the most tense in the book. In the movie, this was the defining moment. Instead of chopping off one of Paul’s feet as she did in the book, she uses a sledgehammer to break both his legs. It was a fantastic scene that worked so much better than had they stuck with the book.

Ultimately, it’s Sheriff Buster who investigates the Wilkes farm and gets shot and killed for his troubles. This sets up the final scene where Paul burns the Misery novel and touches off the final conflict between himself and Annie.

The final scenes are different than the book, but again, work better on the screen. Paul is having lunch with his agent when she asks him about a non-fiction book recounting his experiences on the Wilkes farm. As they are discussing this, he sees Annie Wilkes wheeling a desert tray in his direction. Terrified, he looks away. He looks up again to see a non-descript waitress standing at the desert tray. The waitress recognizes him and tells him she’s his number one fan.

Misery ranks in the top five adaptations of King’s work on the screen. This is because the book lent itself so well to screen treatment. Secondly, Rob Reiner knows how to get the most out of King material, having directed the brilliant Stand By Me. Thirdly, the movie was cast perfectly.

It’s hard to find a flaw in this adaptation. It had no weak moments, no throwaway scenes, no gratuitous gore or action. Every scene built upon the prior and it had a wonderful climax and a subdued, but creepy ending. Misery is a great movie on every level that can be enjoyed by fans of King’s work and movie fans in general.

Book to Movie: Dreamcatcher (2003)

Book to Movie: Dreamcatcher (2003)
Based on the Stephen King novel, Dreamcatcher
Screenplay by William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan

What happens when you take an awful Stephen King novel and make a movie out of it? You get an awful movie based on an awful Stephen King novel. Proof in point is the dreadful Dreamcatcher, based on the King novel of the same name.

Goldman and Kasdan stick very close to the story as it was laid out by King in the novel. The four friends have gathered in the hunting cabin. Two go off into the stormy night for groceries when the aliens invade.

The only redeeming quality of the novel was the strength of two of the main characters, Henry and Jonesy. In the movie, they were insipid and under-developed. While the story languished for being over-told and the villain was a cartoon character, it was hard not to like Henry and Jonesy. In the movie, the viewer just isn’t made to care enough about them.

The novel’s weakest point was Jonesy locking himself in the Tracker Brothers’ depot in his brain and hiding “files” that were his memories. This concept is introduced earlier by the filmmakers, with Jonesy telling his friends about his warehouse of memories and how he has a secret filing drawer where he keeps his secrets. This was good screenwriting, lest the notion make even less sense to movie goers than novel readers. While it was just a warehouse of Jonesy’s own conjuring as opposed to the Tracker Brothers, it still didn’t work.

Col. Kurtz (Curtis in the movie, played by Morgan Freeman) was one dimensional in the novel, coming across as a caricature from a bad political cartoon. Kasdan changed him up a bit. Instead of a caricature, he is not developed at all. We’re given just one instance of his mania – when he shoots the soldier for letting a woman and her four year old daughter leave the quarantine area. Otherwise, Freeman plays Curtis like a straight military man. Not much of a villain.

In the movie, Henry reads Owen Underhill’s mind and appeals to his since of decency. He asks Underhill what his wife and daughters would think of him if he knew of the slaughter that was about to take place upon his commands. This puts in motion the events that lead to Henry escaping and heading to Derry to find Duddits.

Duddits is very much like the Duddits of the novel and Andrew Robb, who played young Duddits played him quite well, as did Donnie Wahlberg. Unfortunately for the two actors, like every other character in the novel, Duddits is underdeveloped. We are never shown the closeness that developed between the four friends and their mentally challenged sidekick. We are treated to a scene where Duddits constructs a Dreamcatcher that links the four -- a scene that wasn't in the book. But this link and how Duddits achieved it, is never explained or even alluded to.

The chase dominates the last third of the book with Kurtz chasing Underhill for revenge and Underhill and Henry chasing Jonesy and Mr. Gray to save the world. The chase should have been the climax to the movie, but was really quite dull. Instead of setting off like a renegade, abandoning his command, Curtis is relieved by a general and surrenders quite docilely – said general having been tipped off to Curtis’ intention to slay the prisoners by Underhill.

Curtis doesn’t figure into the chase until the end when he arrives by helicopter. All of the good writing King did in the novel with Henry tempting Mr. Gray with things like bacon are deleted. When you delete the only good writing from a bad novel to make your movie, you’re making a bad movie worse. Kasdan could have done so much better with this aspect of the novel.

Certainly worse movies have been made based on Stephen King works. But no movie based on a Stephen King work was based on a worse work. Dreamcatcher was an awful novel that made a horrible movie. The changes Kasdan made in the plot were not worse than King’s writing, but they did not improve upon the story.

The movie had a strong cast with Freeman, Wahlberg, Timothy Olyphant and Tom Sizemore. With Kasdan -- who directed The Empire Strikes Back -- at the helm, one might expect them to salvage the meandering Stephen King story and make a better movie. The best that can be said is the movie is no worse than the book. They did no harm.

Hardcore fans of King consider Dreamcatcher a must see movie because it is based on one of his larger works. But as a movie, it is poor viewing. Many bad movies have a scene or two that is memorable and make the viewing not a totally wasted effort. While there is nothing in Dreamcatcher to make the movie fan groan in disgust, there’s nothing memorable about it either. The best scenes are lackluster. The worst parts are forgettable, and the movie itself is not worth the effort to watch.

Book to Movie: The Running Man (1987)

Book to Movie: The Running Man (1987)
Screenplay by Steven E. de Souza
Director: Paul Michael Glazer
Based on the novel, The Running Man by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

Two years after Richard Bachman was outed as Stephen King, a movie was made based on a Bachman book. Steven E. de Souza and Paul Michael Glazer took Stephen King’s tense thriller, The Running Man and turned into a glittery action romp.

The plot barely resembles King’s vision. In the movie, Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a military pilot who refuses to fire on a food riot with unarmed civilians. He is put in prison, but manages to escape with the help of an underground that is fighting the all powerful Network controlled by the government.

Richards has little interest in the group’s politics and takes off, looking for his brother. When he goes to his brother’s apartment, he finds a network music writer living there instead and he takes her hostage. He tries to use her and her travel pass to escape to Hawaii, but she turns him in at the airport. Richards is taken into custody again.

Instead of prison, he’s sentenced to be a participant in the Running Man – America’s most popular game show. The two guys with whom he escaped prison are rounded up and join him.

Ben Richards is introduced to America as the “Butcher of Bakersfield” who fired on unarmed civilians despite orders not to. A doctored tape is played for the audience. They also describe the murders he committed at the airport when he was retaken. This captures the attention of Amber Mendez, the girl who turned in Richards because she knows it didn’t happen.

Richards and his friends are propelled via a rocket powered sled through a shoot to a 400 block square hunting zone. They are chased by hunters dressed as various themed characters. While down there, the computer hacker of the trio is able to tap into a network terminal and steal the access code for the Network’s satellite uplink.

Amber Mendez, curious about what the network has done to Ben Richards, sneaks into a film library and finds the doctored and undoctored tapes of Richards’ raid on the food riot. Before she can escape, she is caught and sent into the kill zone to join Richards.

Richards two friends die along the way, but Richards manages to connect with the Underground (led by Mick Fleetwood) who uses the code and the tapes Amber stole to steal the signal and show America the fraud perpetrated by the network.

Meanwhile Richards and Mendez return to the Network and the set of The Running Man. There, Richards and Running Man host Damon Killian have it out.

Insipid is not strong enough a word to describe this movie. It had nothing going for it. Puns not worthy of Loony Tunes. Costumes that would embarrass the stars of 1950s Saturday matinee shorts. A syntho-pop soundtrack of no quality and a plot as linear as a vector.

The cast did the best they could with the horrible script, but a cast with some big names could not rescue this film. Its only saving grace was Richard Dawson who was the only member of the cast who seemed to truly relish his role, hamming it up as game show host Damon Killian. Dawson was the only thing in this atrocious film that was good.

It appeared that perhaps the director and screenwriter were trying to spoof professional wrestling. If they were, they missed their target by making a bad movie. Dawson delivers a witless diatribe about the masses wanting violence and death near the end of the movie. But if you have to sum up the intent of your movie in a monologue at the end, you know you've got a weak script.

I would dare say that The Running Man may be the worst movie based on any King novel. It’s not as bad as a few based on short stories, but no movie based on a book King wrote was worse than The Running Man.

The only thing that makes this otherwise entirely forgettable movie noteworthy is that it features two future governors -- Jesse Ventura who would govern Minnesota and Schwarzenegger who would govern California.

Book to Movie: Thinner (1996

Book to Movie: Thinner (1996)
Director: Tom Holland
Screenplay by Michael McDowell and Tom Holland
Based on the novel, Thinner by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)

Thinner was the second of Richard Bachman’s books to be made into a movie – the first being The Running Man. Thinner was a better movie than The Running Man, but still was not a particularly good movie. Of course, the source material wasn’t that good either. In many ways, this average movie improved upon the novel.

The book opens after Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) has faced a judge and cleared of all charges in relation to the death of the old gypsy woman. The movie opens prior to the accident. We establish that Billy Halleck eats too much and his wife is on him about it. We also establish that gypsies are in town and, while Billy Halleck could care less about the gypsies, his buddies the town judge and town police chief are mighty angry.

The chief runs them out of a city park while Billy and the judge look on. Later, on their way home from a party with Billy’s gangster buddy, Richie Ginelli, Billy and his wife discuss his weight problem. Inexplicably, she starts performing oral sex (in the book it was a handjob) to “take his mind off of food.” Billy is climaxing when the woman steps out in front of him. He hits and kills her. She leaves smear of blood on Billy’s windshield.

From there, the movie very closely follows the book until the end. Unlike many King adaptations, they went with what King wrote rather than retool the ending for movie audiences.

The movie was not bad in its execution. The script was solid. The acting (other than Burke in a fat suit just wasn’t convincing as a fat man) was par. The special effects were solid and not overdone. It was just not a particularly exciting or scary movie.

The movie was different in its treatment of the deteriorating relationship between Halleck and his wife. This is thrown out there by King a few times in the book, but he never really develops it into a cold, deep hatred that would inspire a man to kill his wife in a horrific manner to save himself. The film develops that cold hatred by having Billy conjure an affair between Heidi and the doctor. Again, this was mentioned in the book, but not developed.

Give credit to Holland and the makeup department for making Taduz Lemke (Michael Constantine) as ugly and bitter as he was in the novel. If there was anything that lent this novel a major creep factor, it was Lemke’s appearance.

Thinner is an average movie based on an average novel. Neither really deliver any major thrills or creepiness. While there is nothing so bad in the movie to make a viewer groan, there is little there to excite him either.

Book to Movie: Paycheck (2003)

Book to Movie: Paycheck (2003)
Screenplay by Dean Georgaris
Directed by John Woo
Based on the short story, Paycheck by Philip K. Dick

Reading Philip K. Dick’s short fiction, it is easy to ascertain why so many movies are made based on his work. Most contain plenty of action, lots of plot, and contain a moral. While his short story, Paycheck, first published in 1953, lacks any overall moralistic message, it has action, plot, and a puzzle of sorts which gives it all it needs to succeed as a movie.

Dick’s story starts with engineer Jennings (Ben Affleck) returning from the mission in question. In the movie, we are given an introduction to Jennings and his technique of undertaking technical espionage missions and then having his memory erased. The movie opens with him returning from a mission where he steals holographic technology for personal computer monitors, making his sponsor quite rich.

His billionaire buddy, Rethrick recruits him again – this time for a two year hitch. The payout will be in the eight figure range. Jennings agrees and is injected with a chemical that will allow him to conduct his business without remembering.

Jennings is revived and has no memory of what he’s done. He goes home to find that he’s made $90 million. When he goes to claim it, it’s gone. When he goes to claim his personal possessions he deposited with the company two years prior, he is given a decidedly different set of possessions.

The story falls back in line with Dick’s version here. The possessions include a pack of cigarettes, a can of hair spray, a book of matches and sundry other items. He takes his stuff and leaves the bank. He is immediately taken into custody by the FBI. They tell him that his name appears on several patents related to a decommissioned government product. The technology has gone missing.

The subject him to electronic interrogation, but his memory has been erased. He escapes the FBI using some of the materials in his envelope that contained his possessions. He flees, but becomes the target of the corporation for whom he worked. They fear he’s talking to the feds and want him dead.

He is able to find his girlfriend of the past two years and meet up with her at a local restaurant where agents from the company make another assassination attempt. She helps him escape and they dig deeper into Jennings’s activities for the last two years. He finds that he was working with lasers and lenses to develop technology that allows the user to see into the future. The government sees it as dangerous and the corporation sees it as profitable.

Meanwhile, the corporation is struggling to recover the records of Jennings’s research. Before he left their employ, he looked into the future and saw the havoc brought about by his invention. So, he sabotaged the computer and packed the items he would need to come back and destroy it in the near future.

Eventually, all forces converge at the Alltech Corporation’s headquarters. Alltech’s people, including its billionaire owner shoot it out with the G-men while Jennings and his girlfriend try to destroy the computer. The computer is destroyed in an explosion that takes out the Alltech Corporation. Jennings and his girlfriend escape, but are listed as being among the dead by the FBI who hopes he’ll just disappear.

The movie ends with Jennings’s and his girlfriend (Uma Thurman) operating a greenhouse and nursery. In the twist, Jennings finds one last item left from his envelope of possessions. That item makes him a millionaire.

Paycheck was an average movie. It was better than I thought it was going to be based on critics’ reviews that called it lackluster with uninspired acting and directing.

The acting is okay. Multiple chase scenes often felt like filler material.

It’s certainly not Ben Affleck’s finest performance. Affleck was the weakest performer in the movie. But Tarantino’s goddess, Uma Thurman makes up for Affleck by carrying the action.

Those who complain that the movie does not do the story justice are not being fair. Dick’s hero was motivated by money. Jennings was motivated by a desire to save mankind. So while there may have been a different theme to the movie, the movie’s theme was nobler than was Dick’s. I think Dick would have been okay with it.

The problem with Paycheck is it relies on the standard formula for chase movies. It has the requisite Mexican standoffs, car chases, and explosions. The twist with the postage stamps that reveals Jennings’s real motives is clever, but not nearly clever enough to lift this film above being simply average.

Book to Movie: Pet Sematary (1989)

Book to Movie: Pet Sematary (1989)
Screenplay by Stephen King
Directed by Mary Lambert
Based on the novel, Pet Sematary by Stephen King

At first glance, it would seem that the novel, Pet Sematary would lend itself well to the motion picture industry. It had first class scares, striking visual scenes, and a strong plot. However, what emerged in Mary Lambert’s movie was just the shell of the novel with its most essential element missing.

The movie follows events in the novel pretty closely. There are minor deviations such as the very opening scene when, instead of removing a bee sting from Gage Creed, Judd Crandall rescues him from the side of the road. Lambert has established the road as a menace early in the film.

While that particular segment was effective, it was also emblematic of all that was wrong with this film. It tried too hard to develop too fast. The path is discovered by Elle in the first five minutes of the movie and within 10 the cast is hiking to Pet Sematary.

What suffers is character development. What made the book so effectively scary was how King took nearly half the novel to develop strong relationships between the characters. The action didn’t really get rolling until then. In his script, King skipped this development and went right to the action. The action was not enough to sustain the movie and make it meaningful.

Pascow is made into a major character in the movie. The two scenes contained in the book, Pascow’s death and speaking to Louis in the infirmary and then, later that night, taking him to Pet Sematary are in the film and play out almost as they did in the novel. However, he appears to subliminally guide Rachel on her frightful return trip to Maine from Chicago in her vain attempt to rescue Louis.

Perhaps this was added to ramp up the horror element in the movie, but ended up coming off as extraneous.

Louis’s journey through the haunted woods to the Micmac burial ground was the opportune point in the movie to ramp up the horror since it’s clear that Lambert was trying to make a horror movie out of King’s rather cerebral examination of death. Instead, it all played out rather quickly with one cheap jump moment thrown in.

The climax of the movie when Gage returns home and then goes over to play with Judd was well executed and remained true to the book. Rachel’s arrival and her encounter with her sister’s ghost was also well done and added a truly creepy moment to the movie. Lambert delivered the goods at the climax.

The ambiguity of the end of the novel was creepy, with Rachel walking in, placing her hand on Louis’s shoulder and saying, “Darling. . .” was wonderfully conceived. Lambert used the same lines, but she actually shows us Rachel’s animated corpse which happens to be secreting a knife. Again, this was a cheap effort at ramping up the horror at the end of the movie.

For all these criticisms, it was not a bad movie. It was well cast (especially Fred Gwynne as Judd Crandall) and the story was well paced for a movie. However, it really missed the point of the book. The book was a fictional examination of death and its devastating and sometimes tragic effect on those left behind. The horror wasn’t in Gage’s rampage or in Rachel’s sister frightening her from beyond the grave.

The horror was in how the Creed family fell apart in the wake of Gage’s death and how a man of science so devoted to rationality would commit such a horrific act as to raise his son from the dead. It was also an examination of the rituals of death as practiced in America. The book’s plot, theme, and subtext were deep and meaningful.

The movie took the most superficial elements of the book and tried to tie them together into something frightening. The result was an uneven, unexceptional, but completely watchable and enjoyable average horror movie.

Horror movie fans enjoy this movie, but never discuss it as a “great” film. Most dedicated Stephen King fans recognize its glaring weaknesses, but enjoy it anyway.

Pet Sematary is probably not a book that lends itself well to a movie once its plot and subtext are recognized. To do the book justice would make for a movie that would take too long to get going for most movie audiences.

Book to Movie: Stephen King’s Desperation (2006)

Book to Movie: Stephen King’s Desperation (2006)
Screenplay by Stephen King
Directed by Mick Garris
Based on the novel, Desperation, by Stephen King

By 2006, television mini series based on Stephen King’s work were considered passé. Most of the quality material – and a lot of the less than stellar material – had already been adapted to one medium or the other. In 2006, King and frequent collaborator, Mick Garris, tried to resurrect the institution with Stephen King’s Desperation. Unfortunately, the source material was too weak around which to make a meaningful television mini-series.

In adapting his 1997 book to the small screen, King adheres very close to his original story. Events play out just as they did in the book. The Jacksons are stopped by Desperation police officer, Collie Entragian (played well by Ron Perlman). One funny line made it into the script as the Jacksons are being led into the jail. Collie stops them and says, “Wait! Peter Jackson! I loved Lord of the Rings!” and promptly plugs him in the belly with four bullets.

From there, the story moves just as it did in the book. There are small variances. The character of Audrey Wiler is removed from the story. When Billingsley gets killed by the mountain lion, David is lured to the projection booth the ghost of his dead sister. The truth of what happened at the China Mine back in 1858 is revealed to David by God via a sepia toned motion picture (even though video recording devices did not exist in 1858).

While David is presented as a godly person and perhaps one of the truly blessed, his special communal abilities are not played up. The references to the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietcong Hideout are removed and he never communes with God in the tree house as he did in the book.

Instead, we find out that Johnny Marinville had an encounter with Tak back in Vietnam and that Tak blew up a bar, killing dozens of people.

The movie’s climax and end play out just as they did in the book with Mary escaping from the shed at the base of the mine and the others descending into the mine where ultimately, Johnny Marinville blows the mine, sealing Tak forever. The rest of the group escapes in the Ryder truck.

The movie ends with the group driving down U.S. 50. Mary asks Steve to stop the truck so she can retrieve something from her car. She retrieves a photo album that had belonged to little Pie Carver. The book is autographed by Johnny Marinville.

Desperation was shot and edited as a two part mini-series. But, at the last moment, ABC elected to show the whole thing as one, three hour movie. To keep a television audience glued to their seats, a three hour movie has to be pretty darned good. Desperation was pretty darned bad.

As I noted earlier, the source material was weak. The story and its characters were weak, so the project was doomed from the beginning. Garris did a great job of casting with Perlman, Tom Skerritt, Annabeth Gish, and Charles Durning in the cast. And those actors did what they could with the script provided. But nothing was going to save this story.

While the deviations from the King novel were small, they hit at what was the essence and subtext of an otherwise bad novel: The nature of God. In the book, David and Johnny discuss God at length and how cruel he can be. They discuss man as the creation of God to do God’s will and freewill. The question left unanswered by the book is is God the wrathful, dismissive God of the Old Testament, or is He the God of love and mercy as represented in the gospels of the New Testament.

Instead, King tries to present the story as an action oriented horror story which was the precise weakness of the novel. The novel contained very little action or movement. Its narrative was dialogue driven and heavy on flashback. It was quite contemplative. If it had a strength, it was this contemplation. That never made it into the movie.

As with a lot of the made for television mini-series based on King’s work, every King fan should view this movie once. Those who are not hard core fans of King will find it to be horrible and even a few of his hardcore fans will find it nearly unwatchable.

The book is not without its fans and it is one of the King books that’s quality is debated among his legion of Constant Readers. I don’t think there will be much debate about the quality of this movie.

Book to Movie: Silver Bullet (1985)

Book to Movie: Silver Bullet (1985)
Screenplay by Stephen King
Directed by Daniel Attias
Based on the novelette Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King


By 1985, Stephen King was an instantly bankable entity in Hollywood, so it must have been a shock when the first movie to have his name appear on the marquee posters as “Stephen King’s Silver Bullet” flopped.

It’s too bad this movie didn’t do better at the box office. It had a $7 million budget and made just $5.4 million according to IMDB.Com As Stephen King movies go, it was solid if not overly exciting. Worse movies bearing King’s moniker have done better.

The movie was based on a short novelette that started as a narrative calendar. With 94 minutes of screen time to work with, King had a much larger pallet upon which he could expand and develop his characters.

The movie opens with narration provided by Marty’s sister, Jane Coslaw (played by Megan Follows) telling us how the brutal murders in Tarkers Mill started that spring of 1976 with the murder of a railroad worker who was decapitated. As she points out, the man was a well known drunk and the locals attributed it to drunken misadventure.

King starts by developing Marty (Corey Haim) and Jane Coslaw and their contentious relationship as brother and sister. Marty participates in a prank carried out by his buddy, Brady, that ends with Jane on her ass in a mud puddle, ruining her dress. Through the movie, we come to understand that, while Jane loves her brother, she resents that his disability earns him sympathy to which she is not entitled.

When a second person turns up dead, a woman downing pills and booze in her bedroom to commit suicide, the community learns that there is a brutal killer on the loose in their town. The murders become personal to Marty after his best friend, Brady, is torn to pieces in the town park one night under a full moon.

Terry O’Quinn plays the beleaguered town sheriff (much different than the diffident, drunken constable in King’s novelette) who is unable to produce a single clue as to the killer’s identity.

O'Quinn's sherrif is much different than the one in the novellete who is just a drunk with a badge. O'Quinn's role has him tormented by his inability to solve the crime and waging the fight against vigilante justice. In the novellete, the sheriff is killed by the werewolf on a country road while drinking in his car.

Like in so many horror movies, there’s a local agitator who dismisses the sheriff as incompetent and wants to lead his own posse into the town and surrounding woods to get the killer. That agitator is Andy Fairton, who spends hours at the local bar complaining loudly about Sheriff Joe Haller’s incompetence. Finally, over the objections of Sheriff Haller and the town reverend, the posse is formed and they head for the woods.

The woods are foggy and visibility is low. The posse hears a creature moving among them beneath the fog. One by one, they are pulled down and eviscerated. Bar owner Owen Knopfler is beaten to death with his baseball bat that is emblazoned with the word, Peacemaker. It seems to the people of Tarkers Mill that this killer is unstoppable.

Meanwhile, Marty’s uncle Red (not uncle Al as in the novella) comes to stay with his family for a few days. He’s already constructed for Marty a motorized wheelchair powered by a single cylinder internal combustion engine. While visiting, he builds Marty a three wheeled motorcycle resembling a wheelchair. This one has much more horsepower than the single cylinder model and is emblazoned with its name along the side plates. Marty’s new ride is the Silver Bullet. He delights in the speed of his new ride.

By July, the town is living in terror of nightfall and the full moon. The July 4th fireworks are canceled to keep people from being outside at night. Marty is crestfallen, but Uncle Red comes to the rescue. He produces several fireworks and bottle rockets for Marty to hold his own show.

One night, Marty sneaks out and boards Silver Bullet. He rides out to a country bridge and starts launching his fireworks, delighting in his own private show. He hears the noise of an approaching animal. He turns to see a werewolf bearing down on him. He lights a rocket and lets it go in the direction of the creature where it lodges itself in the creature’s eye. The wounded wolf flees into the night and Marty rides like the wind back to the safety of his home.

The next day, Marty tells his tale to sister, Jane. In her narration, Jane tells us that she wasn’t sure that she believed Marty, but she believed Marty believed what he was telling her. She agrees to make her way around town to see if she can locate a resident with an injured eye.

Under the guise of collecting cans and bottles for a charity drive, Jane visits many local residents and businesses. She looks carefully and can find no one with an injured eye. Feeling like a dupe and a fool, she heads for Reverend Lester Lowe’s parsonage to turn in the cans and bottles she’s collected. The priest is working in the garden and careful to screen the injured side of his face from Jane as he tells her to dump her scrap in the garage.

Jane enters the garage and starts unloading. As she does so, she is startled by a mouse and falls into a pile of cans. As she gets up, she finds a baseball bat with the word Peacemaker burned into it. Just as she does so, Reverend Lowe walks in and asks if she’s okay. She says she’s spent too much time in the sun and needs to get home. Lowe invites her in for a drink of soda and offers to drive her. Jane now believes Marty and she knows the identity of the monster. She just wants to get away and flees the garage.

The siblings share their findings with the only adult they feel they can trust – Uncle Red. But even he’s incredulous and tells them they’re being silly kids.

One day, Marty is tooling across the countryside on Silver Bullet when Reverend Lowe pulls up beside him in his car. He tries to run Marty off the road. Marty is able to outmaneuver him and drives onto a closed and condemned covered bridge. There, he runs out of gas. The Reverend walks onto the bridge and is closing in on Marty when a farmer exits his field on the other side of the bridge. Marty calls out to him and Reverend Lowe flees to his car.

Marty returns home with Silver Bullet and shows his Uncle Red the blue paint on Silver Bullet’s mangled fender. Marty and Jane are now terrified. They want Uncle Red to take their silver jewelry and fashion a silver bullet. They know the next full moon will spell their doom because they alone know the werewolf’s identity. Uncle Red reluctantly agrees.

The Coslaw kids’ parents are duped by Uncle Red into taking a trip to New York on Halloween night. He agrees to sit with the kids and await the arrival of the werewolf, armed with a .357 magnum loaded with a single silver bullet. The trio waits but eventually falls asleep.

At 3:10 AM, a sleeping Red burns himself with a lit cigarette and awakens everyone in the room with his scream. He looks at the clock and concludes the whole night has been an exercise in foolishness. As the kids are pleading with him to stay, the power goes off. A few moments later, the werewolf jumps in the window and attacks Uncle Red who drops the gun and bullet. Jane grabs the gun and Marty struggles to retrieve the bullet from a furnace vent. He finally grasps it, grabs the gun, loads it, and shoots the werewolf in his uninjured eye. The werewolf slowly morphs into the Reverend Lowe, now dead.

Uncle Red, Jane, and Marty sit huddled on the floor watching the transformation. Jane turns to her little brother and says, “Marty, I love you.” The movie concludes with Jane’s narration telling us she wasn’t always able to say that, but now she can. The movie wraps with narrator Jane saying, “goodnight. . .”

I would not rank Silver Bullet among the great films based on King’s work, but I think it is a real sleeper, not well known or appreciated by those who are not fans of King’s films and movies.

The movie is a riff on and derivative of the traditional werewolf fare. There’s the full moon and the hapless victim of the curse who must kill when the lunar tables dictate. The obligatory rabble rouser versus the lawman is firmly embedded in the script. Attias’s werewolf is no different in behavior or appearance than the traditional werewolf.

What is different is the element of mystery. From the time of Lon Cheney, Jr. bringing the character to life in the legendary Universal Studios film, the element of mystery is missing. In the Universal flicks as well as the Hammer Studio films and various other incarnations such as An American Werewolf in London, we’ve always known who the werewolf was. The story is usually told from the werewolf’s point of view. The man who is the werewolf is a self loathing, pitiful creature who longs for release.

King’s story is different in that there is at least a nominal bit of mystery in his story. There is a sequence in the movie that rather ham-handedly tips off the viewer as to who it is when the priest has a nightmare of his parish turning into a pack of werewolves as he presides over a funeral. But the viewere doesn’t know for sure until the priest turns his head to look at Jane.

The movie is well paced, but the subplot of tension between brother and sister is not well developed. Jane does her fair share of complaining, but no one is affected by it. Her parents are dismissive of it and Uncle Red doesn’t react to it at all. It seemed that the opening and closing narration were designed to introduce and then close that tension between siblings. It’s too underdeveloped to evoke an emotional attachment.

The werewolf scenes early in the movie were wonderfully shot and edited. Much like Alien, we only see bits and pieces of the creature – never the whole entity. However, at the end, when the werewolf jumps into the Coslaw living room, the werewolf is in full view and inspires all of the terror of a 1940s man in an ape suit.

While it is much different than its source material, Silver Bullet is a worthwhile, enjoyable movie. It’s not terrifying and no one is going to mistake it for high cinema, but it is well cast, well directed, well acted, and has a script that works.

Book to Movie: The Green Mile (1999)

Book to Movie: The Green Mile (1999)
Screenplay by Frank Darabont
Directed by Frank Darabont
Based on the novel The Green Mile by Stephen King

The man who successfully brought Stephen King’s “other” prison drama, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, to the big screen, drafted his own screenplay and directed a movie adaptation of The Green Mile. The results were nearly as good – and in some ways superior – to The Shawshank Redemption.

The movie opens with an elderly Paul Edgecomb (played by Dabbs Greer of Little House on the Prairie fame) awakening from a nightmare. He is later watching the 1935 movie, Top Hat with his lady friend, Elaine. When the movie’s signature song, Cheek to Cheek, comes on, Paul is overcome with emotion and must flee the common room.

In the first few minutes, Darabont introduces a central plot element that was not in the book, thereby creating some mystery for moviegoers who had read the book. Just what was it about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing cheek to cheek that stirred such emotion in Paul?

Elaine follows him to an atrium where she sits and tries to calm him down. He explains why he was so overcome with emotion by that movie and song. So starts the movie.

Darabont sticks very closely to the King story in his script. There are a few minor variations. The subplot of old Paul’s nemisis, Brad Dolan is removed. The narrative is straightforward where the book sometimes contain flashbacks within the flashback. The bit about Paul’s wife dying in a bus crash is also removed. These were all wise editorial decisions and Darabont’s rewrite of the ending made for better cinema than the book’s would have been.

The movie is one of those great cinematic feats where a nearly perfect script meets a nearly perfect cast. Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb of 1935. Hanks brings to the role something that was missing from King’s conjuration of the head of Cold Mountain’s death row: an air of authority. In the novel, Edgecomb often seemed to be one of the guys rather than the leader. Hanks portrayal of the ever confident, always in charge captain of the guard makes him a stronger character. It makes his willingness to flaunt the rules in regards to John Coffey more stark and his confession before the doomed Coffey about having to face God and explain why he destroyed one of His great gifts more poignant.

The late Michael Clarke Duncan was born to play John Coffey. His imposing size led to a career of playing heavies and toughs. He uses that incredible stature to conjure John Coffey just as King imagined him – a simple, gentle giant. The raw emotion Duncan summons in his portrayal left most in the audience crying when I saw the film.

Also perfectly cast was Doug Hutchinson as Percy Wetmore. Hutchinson’s baby face lent itself to the role as the immature, obnoxious tormentor of death row inmates. His pout and whine were absolutely true to King’s rendering of the novel’s protagonist.

The supporting cast was every bit as strong as its stars. David Morse was superb in portraying the quiet but authoritative Brutus “Brutal” Howell. Sam Rockwell’s portrayal of William “Billy the Kid” Wharton was campy and over the top until he utters that chilling line, “As bad as you want, nigger.” Then the audience knows this is a bad dude. Veteran character actor, James Cromwell, is flawless as the warden who is so distracted by his wife’s illness that he has all but conceded leadership of the prison.

As I stated, the movie follows the book almost flawlessly until John Coffey’s Date of Execution documents arrive on the Mile. Unlike the novel, where Paul knows he has no choice but to carry out his duty, Paul of the movie actually offers to let Coffey escape if that’s what he wants. Coffey refuses the offer. He doesn’t want the guards to ruin their lives on his behalf and he tells Paul he’s ready to die, tired of the ugliness and brutality of man.

Paul asks if there is anything they can do for Coffey in his final days. Coffey says he’s never seen a “flicker show” and would like to see one. Paul and the other guards sit in a theater while a wide eyed Coffey takes in Top Hat, with Fred Astaire crooning, “I’m in heaven” as he dances cheek to cheek with Ginger Rogers.

The execution of John Coffey is some of the finest movie drama I’ve ever seen – more tear jerking than Old Yeller’s young owner having to put him down. The harden guards of the Green Mile are weeping as they strap Coffey into the electric chair. Paul remains stoic, but freezes when it comes time to order the juice. Brutus whispers that Paul has to do his duty. Very quietly, with just the slightest hitch in his voice, he orders, “roll on two.” The current flows.

We then switch back to the present tense with Paul telling Elaine that Coffey’s was his last execution and that he transferred to a juvenile facility after that. Elaine picks up on what seems to be the discrepancy in Paul’s story – his age. Paul tells Elaine that he is actually 108 years old. He explains that to show Paul the truth of the murder of the Detterick twins, Coffey had to pass along to Paul, “a bit of himself.” That bit of John Coffey has proven to be the curse of long life. Paul has had to live while his wife, children, and friends have all passed on.

Paul then invites Elaine to take a walk with him. They walk to the tool shed where Paul coaxes the mouse from his hiding place. It is Mr. Jingles, who also got a bit of John Coffey when Coffey restored his life after Percy Wetmore crushed him underfoot.

The movie ends with Paul reflecting on the emotional pain of having to live so long. We see Elaine lying in her casket as Paul wonders, if Coffey’s power can keep a mouse alive for more than 40 years, how long will a human go on imbued with Coffey’s essence inside him.

The Green Mile was one of Stephen King’s finest novels. It would seem that a movie could only cheapen it. However, Frank Darabont made a perfect movie of King’s wonderful novel. Darabont took little artistic license with King’s work, only tweeking it to remove the subplots that would have been uninteresting to film goers and introducing the powerful visual and audio cue that brought out the recollections that so bedevil Paul in his golden years.

Stephen King, in the documentary about the making of the movie, says it is the best screenplay ever based on his work. I would agree. The Shawshank Redemption is held in higher regard by film buffs, but I would submit that The Green Mile is superior. The script was superior, the story was superior, the cast was superior, and the direction was superior. Although they are of different film genres, The Green Mile, the movie, rivals Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining as the best movie ever made based on a Stephen King work.