Summer of Stephen
Title: Cujo
Release Date: 1983 Length: 1 hour 32 minutes Start Date: July 20, 2018 End Date: July 20, 2018 Director: Lewis Teague Starring: Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh Kelly I don’t say this often, so prepare yourselves. I think I actually like the film version of Cujo better than the book. Hear me out. As I said in my post about the novel, King takes way too long to get to the real blood and guts of the story. The movie, on the other hand, doesn’t have time to waste. All of the backstory of Vic’s failing business, Donna’s affair, and Tad’s nightmares gets squished into a quick couple of minutes, and then we get to jump right into all of the dog-related content. Lewis Teague did a great job of building suspense. A huge chunk of the film involves Donna and Tad sitting in a car, waiting for Cujo to either attack or leave. You’d think this would become tedious after awhile, but the opposite proved to be true. Some of these moments were so intense that I had a stomach ache through most of the movie. For the most part, the movie sticks with the book. The very end, though, has a huge change. The saddest part of the book was Donna killing Cujo only to discover that Tad has already died. In the movie, however, Tad is severely dehydrated, but manages to survive after his mother takes out the dog. I did a little researching to figure out why they changed the ending and learned that Stephen King said one of his few writing-related regrets was killing Tad at the end of Cujo. While I usually hate movies that change the endings, the author suggesting the change seems like a pretty good reason for saving a character that was supposed to die. I don’t really have that much to say about this movie because it was so similar to the book. So I guess I’ll end by pointing out that not only is Dee Wallace fantastic in this movie, but she is also originally from Kansas.
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Title: Christine
Publishing Date: 1983 Length: 526 pages Start Date: June 4, 2018 End Date: June 25, 2018 Like many Stephen King novels, Christine is made up of a really good chunk and a somewhat unnecessary chunk. And I use the word “chunk” intentionally, because the copy I read could have done some serious damage if I’d thrown it at someone. The first half fits mostly into the somewhat unnecessary part. The plot buildup is incredibly slow and mostly revolves around Arnie becomes increasingly more obsessed with his 1958 red and white Plymouth Fury, which is named Christine. (According to the book, you always give a car a woman’s name. Well, tell that to my tiny Ford Focus, which I named Hercules Mulligan.) Much of the beginning is narrated by Arnie’s best friend, Dennis, who is one of the most white-bread characters I’ve ever read in a King novel. Dennis is a stereotypical cool kid/good athlete and is kind of generally liked by everyone. This provides excellent juxtaposition between him and Arnie, who is a super-nerd. But when Christine enters the picture, Arnie slowly becomes cool, even managing to snare the girl Dennis likes. The book really starts to take off after Dennis suffers a football-related injury, ends up in the hospital, and is no longer the narrator. Arnie has Christine up and running, despite the horrendous condition she was in when he bought her. Suddenly, the bullies who’ve tormented Arnie throughout high school and ending up dead, usually killed in car accidents where red paint flecks are left behind. Of course Arnie becomes the number one suspect, but every time the police try to check out Christine, she’s in pristine condition with not a speck of paint missing. Throughout the second half of the book, Christine takes out anyone who’s ever done Arnie wrong, and Arnie turns into more and more of a jerk. Finally, now out of the hospital, Dennis hooks up with Arnie’s girlfriend and they devise a plan to take out Christine. This being a Stephen King book, they are successful, but the book ends with you wondering if Christine just might be coming back for more revenge. If this book had started a couple hundred pages in, it would have been much better. While I sometimes like a slow-burn book, when it comes to horror or action, I prefer to just jump right into it. The way Christine is structured, by the time the car actually starts killing people, you don’t even care enough about any of the characters for it to matter whether or not they survive. Really, Christine was the most interesting character in the whole book and she probably had the least amount of on-the-page time. I also don’t think they ever give a reason for how Christine became a murder car, and that bothers me. I want more of her backstory. While the book isn’t bad, if you don’t want to dedicate a lot of time to this story, then just go straight to the movie. |
Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
July 2019
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