In Progress: 'Salem's Lot

Hey we're on book number two: 'Salem's Lot! This post is a slow-roll live blog, a place to dump some running thoughts on the book as I work through it. As I prefacing the same post about Carrie, this may be spoiler-intensive in places. I'll keep updating this one post as I go, since there is no need for 20+ "in progress" posts.

July 25 (page 65): I started in a couple days ago. This Roy Lichtenstein-esque cover seems to be part of a re-issue series that went as far as The Shining. I haven't seen any covers in this style after that one. If you have a particularly old (or even new?) edition, you may want to find this one for it's valuable "author's note" from 1999. I'm not sure if 1975 readers were supposed to be unaware of the vampire nature of the book, but that potential spoiler has been long-blown both by this introduction and the packaging of this version. So far, outside of the prologue, it seems quaint enough, almost Winesburg, Ohio, but in 1970's economically-challenged Maine. If I were to hazard a guess, the mysterious man and boy pair from the prologue are Ben Mears and a yet-to-be-introduced character, but I could be wrong. Also, the prologue is in the near future and the main part of the book smack-dab in the present (1975) day. I caught one sly reference to Carrie in the mention of the town of Chamberlain (four years before its destruction!). However, this book, King promises in his introduction, makes Carrie look "fey". On the other hand, in the same introduction, he notes this book shows its age: an honest-to-God milkman (and not one of those hipster-yuppie throwback businesses), and the ability to find newspapers from Maine throughout the country. Oh, Internet, how you changed everything! At this point, I've gotten a hearty introduction to Susan and Ben and right now I'm meeting about a hundred assorted characters that populate the town. A couple of "off" things have happened, but no blood or guts to report. It's high noon in the chapter "The Lot (I)" -- let's finish the rest of the day and see what happens.

July 27 (page 110): Other than a dead dog and a kidnapped (murdered?) child, nothing out of the ordinary to report! Actually, I'm still wondering how wise I'd be the what's going on if I didn't know this novel dealt in vampires. Barlow and Straker? Just a couple old gay men wanting to start an antiques business. Dead dog? Cruel twist of fate. Giant box of sideboard? Just sideboard. If I had no background on this book, I would probably just see all of this as the portrait of an odd, small town in Maine.

July 31 (page 256): It took around half the book, but the forces of evil are now on the march and there is no mistake that something seriously diabolical is happening to the town. My hunches that Barlow was out and about were finally confirmed, although he seems to be more about dazzling the town's down-and-out than outright killing them. I had forgotten how many characters were introduced in the chapter "The Lot (I)" and now they are all started to reappear, almost as if ready-made cannon fodder for the bad guys to exploit. They're like sheep.

August 2 (page 320): Gadzooks, half the town has turned, that is if you believe that good-for-nothing Straker. As I plow through the second half, I'm getting confirmations of things like Barlow being a vampire and Straker his "friend" for lack of a better word. On the other hand, I wasn't prepared to say goodbye to Susan so suddenly. However, it is clear now that Mark is joining Ben as co-protagonist, while Susan's character has been marginalized. This also almost entirely confirms that Ben and Mark were the unnamed characters of the prologue (that, and I accidentally read the final chapter heading - please don't do that).

August 5 (page 409): Well, the cliche librarian is dead. Or, rather, Undead. Susan, too. Stephen King's theology (via Father Callahan) is a little wacky. He incorrectly states St. Paul was crucified upside down to so that he would face the earth instead of heaven. (It was actually Peter, by his request; Paul was a Roman citizen and was beheaded.) It's just a tiny quibble in an otherwise intense vampire hunt, where Barlow manages to keep one step ahead of the hunters. Not bad for a guy who has to sleep all day.

Cell in (and out of!) theaters this month

I've taken more note of what Stephen King movie adaptations are coming out since starting this project. Unfortunately, as I am already well aware, they can't all be winners. Although there is already buzz for the upcoming Dark Tower movies starting next year, Cell (based on the 2006 novel) hit theaters in limited release this month, and I'm pretty sure is already gone. However, you can watch it on demand if so inclined. I hope that if you do end up watching it, you get to watch it for free, because, with a 0% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes, you'll get exactly what you pay for!

I can safely say it is a relief that this one is a long way off for this project. Perhaps critical consensus will have shifted by the time I get around to it...but I doubt it.

Movie: Carrie (2002)

Well, I think I'm just about done - for life - with Carrie movies, and in fine form, I saved the worst for last. Filmed 26 years after the first one (and eleven before the theatrical do-over), the overarching question throughout the movie is "Why???"

I honestly don't know what motivated this made-for-TV version, the longest and dullest of the three. I might throw out a guess that since The Shining was remade (and, unlike this one, endorsed by King himself), a producer out there somewhere felt it wasn't beyond the pale to give Carrie a TV makeover as well. The main failings of going on this theory is that (1) the "new" Shining was inferior to the Kubrick original, and (2) Stephen King actually loved the original De Palma film, so much so that this one and the 2013 version aren't even listed on his website.

There was the whole matter of making a TV show (I've read many places this was a "backdoor pilot") which never happened, because, well, what exactly comes after this? The Sue Snell Mysteries? A remake of The Rage: Carrie 2? Perhaps the producers saw the opportunity for a special effects upgrade. This was certainly a big motivation for the 2013 film, while this one seemed to lack the budget to offer a credible improvement to the first movie. Right from the opening credits, it feels more like we're going to be settling in for a three-hour version of Law & Order.

Or, perhaps because of the backdoor pilot design, they wanted to tell a new version of a story that, by this time, was well-burned into the popular imagination. For one thing, it sports a very different ending from either the book or the other movies. It also adds a few scenes that contradict the assertions of the book. Carrie is depicted as totally googly for Tommy Ross right from the get-go and fantasizes kissing him right before the bucket-o-blood scene hits. Carrie behaves more like a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character who turns on and off based on external triggers, and it is clear that the non-psychotic Carrie was not aware of what she did while "possessed". And to repeat, the ending is different (spoiler alert...) in that she lives past Prom Night, surviving an attempt by her mother to drown her, although she required some half-assed CPR from Sue Snell. No knives were involved, as in this version Carrie can use her telekinesis to stop her mom's heart. Sue, her brand-new partner in crime, agrees to fake her death and drive her off to Florida, presumably where the next episode of the never-made show would take place?

I do have some nice things to say about this most-maligned Carrie. First off, it's the only one of the three films in which Carrie asks a librarian for assistance rather than wantonly tearing through the stacks. That said, this librarian steered her to some primitive websites, found with some type of proto-Google search engine (which only returned 26 results, all trustworthy, on the keyword search "miracles"). It was also the only one that stayed true to the book in that Sue Snell stayed home during Prom Night, and in general Sue's character seems closest to the book of any of the three movies. Finally, in the true-to-the-book department, Carrie's path of destruction clearly ravaged the whole town of Chamberlain, not just her school and house.

In closing, I think it should be a law that anything filmed in or around Vancouver, typically a budget-saving move, should be stamped under the title card in all caps "FILMED IN VANCOUVER" unless it is actually supposed to take place in Vancouver. While unlike some other TV shows and movies I've seen, it doesn't look obviously Canadian, but these productions seem to attract the same actors over and over. For example Kandyse McClure (Sue Snell) would later appear in Vancouver-based Battlestar Galactica, and Emile de Ravin (Chris Hargensen) and Rena Sofer (Ms. Desjarden) in Once Upon a Time (yep, also Vancouver).

Movie: Carrie (2013)

I'm not holding myself to any rules about the order in which the adaptations are watched, so I jumped over the made-for-TV 2002 Carrie straight to the most recent movie. Generally I'm not a big fan a remakes. And, yes, I do know that many great movies are actually remakes that all-but-erased the legacy of their predecessors (don't take too much stock in the link; that's just an example). However, 1976 Carrie was iconic and particularly beloved by the author. In fact, Stephen King doesn't even list this movie on his official website's list of film adaptations. Since I clearly wasn't blown away by De Palma's version, I feel a little more magnanimous to the remake.

The new Carrie, directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry, Stop-Loss, and that's pretty much it), is somewhat more faithful to the book, but at the same time all but lifts scenes straight from the 1976 film. For example, although filmed in and around Toronto, this version keeps the setting as Maine. Old Carrie didn't bother to disguise the fact that they were filming in California and did not tip its hand as to where it was supposed to take place. Also, the casting was far more age-appropriate in the remake, although Mr. Skin aficionados will be disappointed by the therefore far more modest locker room scene. On the other hand, some things don't change. We picked up right away on the Sue Snell shut out of the dance scene, which allowed her to witness the massacre in both films without dying herself. Also, the Carrie-versus-Mrs. White relationship remains center stage instead of Chris and Billy as it was in the book. Finally, some things were just not as good. The actor who played Tommy Ross was just no William Katt, and in general the old cast was superior if you can get over the whole adults-playing-kids issue. Also, as is deeply problematic of so many movies today, especially the remakes, it is loading with a lot of extra flashy CGI effects. Although I liked how she turns fire hoses into whips at Prom Night, much of the special effects were more spectacle than necessary, resulting in Carrie flexing her powers way more throughout the movie (even before Prom Night).

All told, this wasn't an awful film. I completely understand those who found it unnecessary, but it does remedy a few glaring flaws from the original to bring it more in line with the book. But, as with many adaptations, it just isn't going to outdo its source material. Perhaps those who have never read the book or saw the original movie will find it the most intriguing.

Movie: Carrie (1976)

Not only does Carrie have the honor of being the first Stephen King book, but also the first movie, released just two years after the book, launching a huge line of adaptions of varying quality which I have the honor (?) of exploring during this mad project. Although the movie is generally well regarded even to this day, the original Carrie, in my opinion, is nothing special, but not awful, and gave me plenty to think about.

The movie's first half seems a bit fetish-driven, something director Brian De Palma has taken flack over through his career. The girl's locker room opening scene is like something out of a teenage boy's fantasy: topless towel-fights and everyone totally at ease in their unclad skin moving around one another comfortably. Since even King's narrative was a little skittish around the locker room scene, I was able to accept it for what it was, but it was followed by an awful lot of torso-shots of the girls' gym class in action. In spite of all the goofy camp in the first half of the movie, Carrie was without a doubt sold as a "scary" movie for the time. Bear in mind this is 1976, so the cinematography, fashion, and so forth is clearly dated, as well as audience expectations of what constitutes a scary movie. I recall reading that movies like The Exorcist and Jaws had to have barf bags on hand in the theaters, and it wasn't entirely unexpected if somebody ran out the doors screaming mid-movie. So, unfortunately, when it was time to wreak havoc on the school (and Mrs. White), my jaded modern-day inclination was more toward laughter than fear. I will admit, having read the book and knowing in general what was going to happen, I tensed up a bit during the happy part of Death Prom 1979, wondering how all these poor kids were going to experience their on-screen executions. I can only imagine what somebody who hadn't read the book (or seen the poster or didn't know a thing about the story) would have reacted to the violent turn of the events.

While I watched this for the fact it was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, one must also accept the film as a Brian De Palma creation. De Palma is an uneven director at best, and his worst movies seem to stick in my memory more than the "good" ones. Also, at this time, his name was probably carrying about the same weight as King's, seeing that 'Salem's Lot, novel #2, had only been released the prior year. Although Stephen King wasn't involved in the screenplay (or it would appear any aspect other than writing the novel it's based on), this isn't necessarily a bad thing. King has a history of throwing his support or involvement behind inferior adaptations and questionable projects and his own screenplays aren't particularly stellar. All of this considered, it is possible they could have gone off the rails and done something really different, but the changes from the book are more cosmetic than anything. For example, Sue, Tommy, and Ms. Desjardin (renamed Collins here) seem more genuinely nice to Carrie, and Mrs. White is played up as more of a heartless psychopath. The big change from the book, other than tossing out the unadaptable snippets from fake "sources", is putting the end object of Carrie's rage on her mother. In the book, scheming Chris and Billy are the ultimate baddies, and here Carrie blows them up en route back to her home without much of a second thought. Things that were off about the movie? A few choice bits include the fact that the high school kids, played by adult actors, seemed more like adults pretending they were in high school. I know that casting actual teens would have scuttled the star power of the movie, and probably put the production into questionable legal territory, but it could have been a little bit more believable. And if you really want to feel old, check out current pictures of the actors, who are all in their sixties now.

The ongoing fascination with Carrie lives on with the 2002 TV and 2013 feature film remakes, which I plan to watch. There is a 1999 sequel to this movie called The Rage: Carrie 2, which I have no intention of seeing, but feel free to tell me if I'm being close-minded. But how am I ever supposed to move on?

Finally, for any fans of the TV show The Middle, doesn't John Travolta's Billy look just a little like Charlie McDermott's Axl Heck? Maybe more than a little?

End of Watch - out today!

He's writing them as fast as I can read them! End of Watch, the third book of the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers) comes out today. Look for my review of this book around 2021 or so. I'm still stuck in the mid-1970's!

We've got a title

Since all blog titles should either (1) rhyme, (2) alliterate, or (3) pun, the name of this blog will henceforth be called Under the Tome. Thank you to my friend Randall for the thoughtful suggestion, which was approved unanimously by the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. Now we just need an awesome graphic for the banner. Randall also furnished us with the graphic now used on the banner!

I'm between books right now, but with no less than three film adaptations of Carrie, movie-watching is happening. Stay tuned for the reactions. Ooh, and I just noticed IFC is showing a whole bunch of Stephen King movies in a couple weeks....