"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption": First off there is no "the" in this title. You have simply watched the movie too many times. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie again, as the last time I saw the whole thing was in the theater when it was a brand new release. I feel like the tone is the same, but some events may have been moved around to make the narrative flow better. Most of this story is a ninety page manuscript smuggled out of prison up the narrator Red's posterior. I have no idea how that is possible, but I'm pretty sure it smelled wonderful."Apt Pupil": This is the longest story of the four and since I've heard the movie was mediocre, I was afraid this was going to be a slog. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised. No, there is nothing "pleasant" about this story. It involves Nazis and is telling we the readers that even 30 years after World War II, it is a poisonous ideology. What starts as a little harmless blackmail by a hyper-privileged 13 year old causes an old man fleeing his past to revert back into it, dragging the kid down with him. There are no heroes here. I went back and forth over who of the two was the worse. In the end the corruption gets everywhere, like radioactivity. Sharp readers will notice a brief connection to "Shawshank" that has no real impact on the story. I'm wondering if the others have any linkage.
"The Body": After a brief jaunt out to Los Angeles, we come back to Maine. The only connection I found between this story and the others is a few references to the Shawshank prison. In fact, this story has a stronger connection with Cujo of all things, thanks to being a proper Castle Rock story. Probably the biggest takeaway from the story is how closely the movie followed it. Some things are a little more fleshed out and a few other things are moved around, but it's really close. The bittersweet nostalgia fills every page and it really makes the readers think fondly of that time, even if they weren't alive, or nowhere near the area. However this is Stephen King, so it has its own fair share of creative cursing, purple prose, and gore. Like its fellow collection stories though it is not horror.
"The Breathing Method": Now we leave Maine once more, this time for New York City. This is really two stories in one. Maybe King was still trying to get some of the Dark Tower story structures out of his system. The "outer" story is the more clever of the two, about a man finding a home away from home with a lot of strange stuff in it, and mysteries abound. It is not a horror story. However, this strange place is built around storytelling, so the "inner" story that makes up the bulk of the tale is straight up horror. In fact, King acknowledges this is the great exception to the non-horror tone of the collection. I can see why this one didn't get the movie treatment. It's not that it is a bad story, but it would be hard to convincingly adapt.
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