Summer of Stephen
Title: Firestarter
Release Date: 1984 Length: 1 hour 54 minutes Start Date: August 6, 2018 End Date: August 6, 2018 Director: Mark L. Lester Starring: Drew Barrymore, David Keith, Martin Sheen I originally watched Firestarter several years ago when I first read the book, but of course I rewatched it for my Summer of Stephen challenge. This time around I expected to be disappointed by what would likely be special effects that were stuck in the 80s and the casual racism found in most older movies that include any minority characters. The racism was more in the casting than the script, as they decided to have the very caucasian George C. Scott portray the Native American character John Rainbird, but that’s a rant for another time. The special effects, on the other hand, actually aren’t terrible. Because I like to know everything about everything, I decided to do a little research into just how they managed to make it look like little Drew Barrymore was setting people and buildings on fire. Well, it turns out they were using real fire. According to the film’s IMDB page, they had no choice but to actually set things on fire since CGI didn’t exist yet. Instead, they used “real fire, remote-controlled prosthetics, wires, gas lines, and stunt people.” Actors who had to burned by little Barrymore’s fire power would wear ASBESTOS-LINED PADDING inside their costumes to keep the fire from getting through to their skin. (Yes, I feel that the all-caps was necessary. Can we have someone do a check on all of the people who had FIRE-COVERED ASBESTOS against their skin back in the 80s and see if they’re okay now or if they’ve all developed really weird forms of cancer? Because I think that would make an interesting study.) Anyway… The big climatic burn-it-all-to-the-ground scene toward the end was filmed on a soundstage, which was disappointing to learn. I was hoping they’d actually burned down a huge compound out in the middle of nowhere. But, it turns out that they couldn’t film any of the night scenes outside, because Drew Barrymore was only 8; therefore, she wasn’t allowed to film for more than a certain number of hours a day, and keeping her on set overnight to film wasn’t an option. However, the film’s IMDB page tells us that they sort of found a way around this by using “a dwarf lookalike as a double for her.” The 80s were certainly a different time, weren’t they, folks? Now that I’ve finished nerding out about special effects, I want to say a little bit about the acting in Firestarter. Drew Barrymore is great. I’ve always loved Drew Barrymore and she never fails to impress me, especially considering how young she is in so many of her movies. Martin Sheen also tends to carry any scene he’s in. What can I say? The man plays a convincing villain. (And this is his second time doing so for a King adaptation, as he also played the corrupt politician in The Dead Zone.) All of the other performances are pretty average, with George C. Scott standing out a little as he doesn’t hesitate to chew the scenery to the point of gluttony in several of his scenes. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t hate this movie upon rewatching. Sure, it’s far from the best Stephen King adaptation, but it’s not terrible. And it’s a pretty faithful adaptation, which is why it’s so surprising that King has said before that it’s one of the worst films made from one of his books. (And that’s saying something when you remember that The Running Man film exists. But that’s a blog post for another day.) The Firestarter book is definitely better than the movie, but in my opinion, the film is also worth checking out. If for no other reason than you get to watch little Drew Barrymore set people on fire.
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Title: Children of the Corn
Release Date: 1984 Length: 1 hour 32 minutes Start Date: July 10, 2018 End Date: July 10, 2018 Director: Fritz Keirsch Starring: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, John Franklin, Courtney Gains Let me start by saying that I absolutely did not want to watch this movie. I’m a big chicken when it comes to horror movies and I live in a state where you can find a cornfield every couple miles. So in all honesty, I considered just skipping this one. But finally, making sure to wait for full daylight when other people were home, I decided to suck it up and watch Children of the Corn. Y’all. This movie is not scary. In fact, it’s kind of hilarious. Linda Hamilton does her best, and the movie gives her character way more to do than the short story does, but even she can’t save this movie. Hamilton’s character puts up a good fight, but Peter Horton’s character is almost too stupid to live, always going with the worst option when presented with two choices. (This is especially troubling when you remember that he’s supposed to be a doctor.) But the true stars of Children of the Corn are, of course, the children. Most specifically, John Franklin and Courtney Gains who play Isaac and Malachai, respectively. Coming in at maybe 4’11”, Isaac is the leader of the children and screeches lectures at anyone who disagrees with him like he’s some kind of ultra-Puritan Ben Shapiro. It’s impossible to take him seriously and the only thing about him that actually creeped me out was the realization that he later went on to play a leprechaun on an episode of Kids, Incorporated where he sang a duet with Stacy Ferguson (a.k.a. Fergie) in what was one of my favorite performances on that show. Malachai, while miles above Isaac in height, falls below him in the hierarchy the children have developed. He acts as Isaac’s errand boy, until his darker urges eventually win out and he stops taking orders and starts taking lives. (I think that sounded cooler in my head than it did out loud.) Eventually, Malachai decides to sacrifice Isaac, which you’d think would solve all of his problems, but instead results in Isaac’s resurrection and newfound bloodlust toward Malachai, who unsurprisingly doesn’t make it to the end of the movie. Because it was the 80s, I’m willing to forgive a lot of lame special effects, but I feel it’s necessary to address the source of evil in the movie: He Who Walks Behind the Rows. In the short story, just the mention of HWWBtR is enough to enhance the sense of dread the reader feels. But the movie decided it was necessary to make it an actual slithering monster that looks like it was a reject from an early draft of Tremors. Even if the rest of the movie had managed to be terrifying, this thing would have ruined it by being looking so ridiculous. Honestly, they should have stuck with Isaac and Malachai as the villains and just made them more evil. It would have been way more effective. So, as you can probably tell, this wasn’t one of my favorites. I went into it expecting to be terrified, and I came out of it wondering how anyone ever managed to find Children of the Corn even a little bit scary. Title: Christine
Release Date: 1983 Length: 1 hour 49 minutes Start Date: August 5, 2018 End Date: August 5, 2018 Director: John Carpenter Starring: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul When I saw that the film version of Christine was directed by John Carpenter, I immediately assumed it would be significantly scarier than the book. This assumption was made purely from the fact that Carpenter’s Halloween scared the ever-loving hell out of me. (I can’t handle masks. It’s a whole thing.) Christine, however, carried none of Carpenter’s signature horror and even managed to lose most of what made the book unsettling. One of my main issues with this movie was the way Keith Gordon played Arnie Cunningham. In the book, the effect Christine has on Arnie is subtle and slowly works its way into his personality until he becomes almost unrecognizable to his parents and friends. In the movie, the change is almost instantaneous. He leaves behind his nerdy affability and turns into a super-douche within moments of being handed the keys to his new car. This makes it hard to believe that Dennis would have continued hanging out with him or that Leigh would have wanted to date him in the first place. The relationship that eventually develops between Dennis and Leigh was also pretty unbelievable as they share so little screen time before they’re suddenly so into each other that they’re both willing to betray Arnie in order to be together. In the book, they grow closer when Leigh frequently visits Dennis in the hospital, but we lose all of that in the movie. So instead we’re told about their attraction to each other rather than shown. The scenes of Christine chasing down and murdering Arnie’s enemies were all shot pretty well. I mean, this movie was obviously made in the 80s, but Carpenter worked well with what he had. And considering how long the book is, the film moves the action along quickly enough to bring everything to a close at just under two hours. While this does cause it to lose some of the subtlety in the book, it keeps enough of the important stuff that people who don’t feel like reading through all of the build-up in the first half of the novel can choose to just watch the movie without missing much. |
Jacinta M. CarterProfessional Book Nerd Archives
July 2019
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