A lot of people would swear that there wasn't a curse at all, but that there was a malevolent spirit in that Porsche--a spirit that had been there all along. Or the car itself might have been evil, similarly to the Chrysler Fury in Stephen King's Christine.It turns out that James Dean's car, a 1955 Porsche Spyder, has quite the haunted history. Was King aware of this and basing Christine on the spooky legacy of Dean's Spyder?
Famed car designer and Dean’s personal automobile customizer, George Barris, stated the vehicle gave, “weird feelings of impending doom.” Actress Malia Nurmi, better known as Vampyra, is reported to have been horrified by the car and begged him to get rid of it. Dean was frequently warned against driving the vehicle, but chose to ignore the words of friends and business acquaintances.Wikipedia offers the following encounter with actor Alec Guinness (of Star Wars fame),
When Dean introduced himself to British actor Alec Guinness outside the Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood, he asked him to take a look at his brand new Porsche Spyder. Guinness thought the car appeared 'sinister' and told Dean: "If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week."The encounter with Guiness took place September 23, 1955. Seven days after that conversation, September 23, 1955, Dean died in a terrible car wreck on the way to race his Spyder. It was a head-on collision that was the result of Dean driving too fast. (September 30,1955)
The wreckage was purchased and taken to a garage where, on arrival, the broken heap of metal slipped from the trailer and broke a mechanic’s leg.
The engine and drive train were each purchased by one of two doctors. The two physicians were friends and racers themselves. The first placed the engine in his racing car while the other installed the drive train in his vehicle. They raced their newly renovated cars together on October 2, 1956. The doctor who used the engine hit a tree and died instantly. The other was seriously injured when he went too fast into a curve and his car rolled.
Two of the Spyder’s tires remained in good condition and were sold. The purchaser returned them the next week and claimed they both blew, at the same time, while he was driving and he went in a ditch. Two souvenir thieves attempted to take parts from the wreckage and both were injured. One thief had a more serious injury when trying to reach inside the vehicle. A shard of metal gashed his arm open lengthwise.
It became clear the vehicle, and its parts, would not be used for driving again. It went on display with the California Department of Transportation. The vehicle showed the dangers of racing and driving recklessly. It was carried throughout the country, but the “bad luck,” started after only two exhibitions.
The third exhibition was in Fresno, California. While the car was being stored in a garage, the building went up in flames. The entire structure, and all equipment, was consumed and scorched in the fire. Except the Spyder, it survived with only minor paint damage.
Later when the car was on display at a high school, misfortune hit again, a high school student was injured when the bolts holding the displayed wreckage broke. There are conflicting reports as to what happened to the student. One report states his legs were crushed, while the other claims his hip was broken.
As if that weren’t enough, the vehicle soon found itself in the middle of tragedy again. While being transported via truck, the driver lost control of his automobile. He was thrown from the vehicle, but survived, until the Spyder fell from its place onto him. He was crushed.WHOA! That makes me think all the more of Christine. So what happened to the Spyder? It disappeared! When being shipped from Miami to LA, it just disappeared! Wright says, " When the boxcar arrived and was opened, the crate was there, but no car. No one knows what happened to infamous automobile."
2000, The Green Mile (complete novel)
2001, Dreamcatcher
2002, Blach House
2002, From A Buick 8
2003, The Gunslinger Revised
2003, The Wolves Of The Calla
2003, The Song of Susannah
2004, The Dark Tower
2005, The Colorado Kid
2006, Cell
2006, Lisey's Story
2008, Duma Key
2009, Under The Dome
2010, Full Dark, No Stars
2011, 11/22/63
"""An Eerie Hidden Object Collection
Includes 4 Games: Dead Diary, Time Lies, Curse of the Witch Crow, and the Flying Dutchman.
Dead Diary - Help solve a series of grisly murders and put an end to Dr. Fraud’s twisted experiments.
Time Lies Track down evil Dr. Fraud to end his terrible crimes and free the souls of the victims and put an end to their nightmares!
PLUS Bonus Games:
- Curse of the Witch Crow
- The Flying Dutchman"""
- Release Date: March 9, 2012
- Platform:PC Games
The group supports legislation calling for greater background checks on gun owners, a ban on the size of magazines that can be sold and a strengthening of the prohibition of the sale of guns to those judged to be mentally ill.The Guardian also notes:
It said in a statement on its website that it had received a "substantial donation" from King and his wife (and fellow author) Tabitha King, and that the couple backed its support of gun control legislation.
"We are grateful for the generous support of Mr and Mrs King at this pivotal moment in our efforts to establish common-sense gun regulations in Maine," said Larry Gilbert, former mayor of Lewiston, former federal marshal and co-chair of the Coalition for a Safer Maine.
In Stephen King's Thinner, we meet a successful defense attorney who is winning in every facet of his life except for his battle of the bulge. He gets every client off even if they don't deserve it. Eventually though he learns that there are consequences to his behavior when a gypsy curse's him with the word, "thinner." Soon he finds weight loss success that knows no boundaries. I chose this film because it brings to life the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for!" A weight loss journey is not just about wanting to be thinner, although it can often feel that way. Thinner is a great reminder to keep an eye on the big picture.
As excitement continues to rise for the anticipated horror remake of "Carrie," Empire released a new UK poster for the gruesome flick this morning (April 24).
"Okay, let’s say you didn’t know and you thought maybe Carrie would go home, pin her mom to the ceiling, pack her bags and walk off in the glow of the burning high school, muttering “Sucks to be y’all.” The credits roll. She gets a job in a call center for DirecTV and enrolls in community college, then:
(This is where you pick your adventure.)
1.) Gimme some ropeCheck out the rest of the suggested alternate endings HERE.
Tie me to dream…
Carrie is seated next to her friend, Britta, when a smarmy thirty-something disbarred lawyer hits on Britta. She shoots him down, and then makes a play for Carrie. She telepathically squeezes body parts on the guy until he sounds like Minnie Mouse and then asks him if he wants to join their study group. He nods, she releases her grip, and he weeps in gratitude as she stipulates that he do their homework and provide cheat sheets to the tests for the rest of the semester.
“We’ve been publishing limited editions in the 500-to-2,000 copy range since 1992, and the market has stayed fairly strong even when the economy hasn’t been chugging along,” says Brian James Freeman, the managing editor. “We have witnessed other presses come and go over the years, but we have a strong base of collectors who have seen us through good times and bad.”
Smythe's article can be found www.guardian.co.ukSmythe writes,
What made a book Bachman rather than King? Was erring closer to King's usual output here some deep-level subconscious version of self-sabotage? Of wanting to be found out? Of wanting to be able to claim these books as his own again?Smythe notes that King had previously done a nice job with unlikeable protagonists, including Carrie and Jack Torrance, but Smythe can't find anything redeemable about that Halleck --and that "makes reading the novel relatively tough."
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“We are thrilled that Stephen and Owen King are supporting the work of PEN,” said Charlie Foran, President, PEN Canada. “The evening promises to be a rare glimpse of an intimate father-son conversation about life and art.”
Stephen King will present his new novel, Doctor Sleep, which returns to the characters and the territory of his first best-selling hardcover novel, The Shining, including the now middle-aged Dan Torrance. Owen King will present his debut novel, Double Feature, which explores the creative life and the complicated relationship between a B-movie actor and his filmmaking son.FULL ARTICLE IS HERE: pencanada.ca
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A TV adaptation of the author's sci-fi/horror tale Under the Dome is currently in production in Wilmington, North Carolina, and apparently, the CBS show's crew neglected to inform an elementary school a few hundred yards away from their set that they were filming a scene that involved a fake gunfight!
So when shots rang out, the nearby students and teachers enjoying recess close-by after their lunch feared for the worse, rushed everyone back inside, and a deputy on duty at the school put the entire student body in lockdown for 20 minutes, until they realized it was a false alarm!The full article is at perezhilton.com
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The challenge of the made-up films was to make sure that they made sense in their respective milieus - i.e. B-movies or indies or avant garde or mainstream or whatever. It was definitely fun, though, and probably the part of the novel where I was most able to let my imagination run wild. (Much of the pleasure, from my standpoint, is that they're just brief descriptions. Actually drawing stuff out - i.e. turning a story into prose - is what makes writing fiction so agonizing!) (thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.comHere's the announcement from Cemetery Dance:
A fitting venue for the horror film genre, the Stanley Hotel enjoys its reputation for being the inspiration for Stephen King's book The Shining and the location for the TV mini series based on the book. And, the historic hotel is rumored to be haunted since its opening in 1909. Visitors flock to the iconic hotel six miles from Rocky Mountain National Park to take the haunted tours, learn of its fascinating history, dine at its gourmet restaurant, and enjoy its old world charm in overnight stays.
"I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project because I’m sort of a nice guy," King tells Entertainment Weekly. "When I was a kid, my mother said, ‘Stephen if you were a girl, you’d always be pregnant.’ I have a tendency to let people develop things. I’m always curious to see what will happen. But you know what? I would be just as happy if it didn’t happen."www.dreadcentral.com
LANG ELLIOTT, PRESIDENT & CEO OF SUNN CLASSIC PICTURES, INC., ANNOUNCED THAT SUNN PLANS TO PRODUCE THE REMAKE OF “CUJO” THIS YEAR REPRESENTING THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY SINCE SUNN PRODUCED AND DISTRIBUTED THE ORIGINAL “CUJO” MOTION PICTURE IN 1983, BASED UPON STEPHEN KING’S NOVEL. (www.sunnclassicpicturesinc)
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What's worse: The unnecessary sequel? The unnecessary remake? May I submit that in fact the unnecessary prequel does the job of both, simultaneously adding to a story that didn't need adding to, just as a sequel does, and managing to oddly reinvent the world of the original, just like a bad remake would. Look no further for an example than the ultimate terrible prequels, Star Wars I-III, which were not only bad movies in their own right but, boy, did they do a number on the original trilogy. A bad prequel can wreak a lot of havoc. And so when we hear news that the whispered-about prequel to The Shining is chugging along, with Warner Bros. hiring a writer, it bears taking a moment to yell: NoYES! That summed it up well. I did not enjoy the Star Wars prequels at all. I watched a documentary called "The People v. George Lucas" in which some fans said Lucas had ruined their lives. Well, the prequels neither ruined my life nor made me love the originals any less. And, in my opinion -- they got better. That is, until Darth Vader cried, "nooooooo!" Really, Darth, really.
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SUNN CLASSIC ANNOUNCES CUJO FOR 2013Of course, the big question is -- why? Cujo was a good book, and a better movie. Could a remake be better than the original? Carrie could justify a remake because the original deviated so far from the book -- though it was great. But Cujo actually made the story better! If Sunn wants to drop money on a Stephen King project, how about CELL, The Sun Dog, From a Buick 8. Or how about a remake of The Runningman.
Lang Elliott, President & CEO of Sunn Classic Pictures, Inc., announced that Sunn plans to produce the remake of “CUJO” this year representing the 30th Anniversary since Sunn produced and distributed the original “CUJO” motion picture in l983, based upon Stephen King’s novel. The l983 version was highly successful at the worldwide box-office and, compared with today’s inflation and higher ticket prices, the box-office would be well over $225 million even without ancillary sales (i.e., DVD, cable, free television, pay-per-view, etc.).
The marriage is built upon a healthy combination of respect and friendly give-and-take. "We have a pact not to argue about drinking, hair and dope," says Tabby, but everything else is fair game.We know now that Tabby would eventually step in and force King to make some hard decisions. Consider this: If she had not stepped in, think how messed up he would have been. So in a way -- all you dark tower freaks -- she saved the Dark Tower.
Both concede that Small World's sales have been boosted by the fact that Tabby is Steve's wife. "I put 10 years into helping his career," she reasons, "so if his name helps me with mine, I think it's legitimate."When the article was written (and I think this is still true) the King's saw writing very differently.
But Tabby says that "writing is only the frosting on my cake. I'm whole without it." For Steve it is different. "If I weren't writing," he admits, "I might be like that guy in the Texas tower. Writing is what God put me on earth to do."By the way, we know that during the time that this article was written, King was working hard on a book called Cannibals.
Burnette: You've mentioned in other interviews that the novel was to some degree sparked by the desire to explore the life of someone who'd become famous for something they didn't want to be famous for (not unlike Internet celebrities like the "Star Wars kid"). The end result is a very empathetic novel, in which we see and experience from Sam's vantage point what it would be like to have that sort of thing happen. Did your ideas about that sort of fame and celebrity change or evolve at all during the writing of the novel, or did you wind up at essentially the place you expected to wind up?
Owen King: In a lot of ways, the reason I wrote the book was to figure out how I felt about that weird, upside down brand of fame. With that in mind, I'm leery of spelling out my conclusions. I don't want to step on anyone's interpretation. I should say, though, that, ultimately, the novel keys on Sam as a character. It's not so much about how I feel about that weird, upside down brand of fame, and more about how he feels about it - and how his feelings change.
In 1994, nine years after his death, when his widow was preparing to move, she discovered a box of manuscript in the basement.It contained a number of novels and short stories, more or less finalized. The most complete was a novel called regulators . Claudia took the manuscript to the former editor Richard Bachman , Charles Verrill, who found that the book was a continuation of his previous books. After a few minor changes and with the permission of the widow Bachman (now Claudia Eschelman) Regulators was published in September 1996, and in October of the same year, the novel skin and bones became a Paramount film Pictures. [At the same time that the output Regulators , Stephen King published Desolation novel protanogistes comprising the same, but a different story. Similarly, the book covers are set side by side full artwork.]
A limited edition of Regulators was published by Dutton and each copy has a check signed by Bachman before his death.
She’s proved her worth for years now, and, barring the drug, alcohol and over-spending tendencies that come with being a Hollywood actress, she should have a long and glittering career ahead, with people remembering Carrie as the film that ‘made her’
The scariest horror stories -- the ones by M.R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oliver Onions -- are like this. They develop their horrors out of the people they observe. That happens here, too. Does it ever.THE DEAD ZONE (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
No other King novel has been better filmed (certainly not the recent, dreadful "Cujo"), and Cronenberg, who knows how to handle terror, now also knows how to create three-dimensional, fascinating characters. (writing circa 1983)MISERY (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
The material in "Misery" is so much Stephen King's own that it's a little surprising that a director like Rob Reiner would have been interested in making the film. . . .What he does with "Misery" is essentially simply respectful - he "brings the story to the screen," as the saying goes.THE MIST (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
By the end, when he is asked to forgive them for sending him to the electric chair, the story has so well prepared us that the key scenes play like drama, not metaphor, and that is not an easy thing to achieve.And I think this is a very important quote, since he links King to Dickens. This is something I've been doing for a while. (Stephen King A Mordern Charles Dickens)
Stephen King, sometimes dismissed as merely a best-seller, has in his best novels some of the power of Dickens, who created worlds that enveloped us and populated them with colorful, peculiar, sharply seen characters. King in his strongest work is a storyteller likely to survive as Dickens has, despite the sniffs of the litcrit establishment.SILVER BULLET (rogerebert.suntimes.com) I like the opening line:
Stephen King's "Silver Bullet" is either the worst movie ever made from a Stephen King story, or the funniest. It is either simply bad, or it is an inspired parody of his whole formula, in which quiet American towns are invaded by unspeakable horrors. It's a close call, but I think the movie is intentionally funny.DREAMCATCHER (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
"Dreamcatcher" begins as the intriguing story of friends who share a telepathic gift, and ends as a monster movie of stunning awfulness. What went wrong? How could director Lawrence Kasdan and writer William Goldman be responsible for a film that goes so awesomely wrong?SECRET WINDOW (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
The crazy unreality of the situation has a "Twilight Zone" sort of appeal, and indeed "Cat's Eye" is a superior Twilight-style anthology of three stories that are held together by the adventures of the cat. It's a small, scrappy tabby that survives not only electric shock (actually only special effects, so don't call the ASPCA), but also city traffic, falls from high buildings, one-way tickets to the pound, and a duel to the death with a gremlin who lives behind a little girl's bedroom wall.APT PUPIL (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time, as Stephen King's story evokes the mystery of adolescence, when everything seems to be happening for the very first time.NEEDFUL THINGS (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
"Needful Things" is yet another one of those films based on a Stephen King story that inspires you to wonder why his stories don't make better films. (INDEED!)THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (rogerebert.suntimes.com)
The word "redemption" is in the title for a reason. The movie is based on a story, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King, which is quite unlike most of King's work. The horror here is not of the supernatural kind, but of the sort that flows from the realization than 10, 20, 30 years of a man's life have unreeled in the same unchanging daily prison routine.BAG OF BONES (www.suntimes.com/entertainment)
‘Stephen King’s Bag of Bones” is a bag of something, and it ain’t bones. Based on King’s 1998 thriller (which I trust is better than the two-part miniseries starting Sunday on A&E), “Bag of Bones” boils down to a hokey horror story that relies on cheap tricks — nightmares! sudden bursts of loud music! animal in the attic! — to deliver most of its chills. Worse yet, some of the characters are so cartoonish, they’re more “Scooby-Doo” than Cujo. (OUCH!!!)CHILDREN OF THE CORN (rogerebert.suntimes.com) -- this one is great!
By the end of “Children of the Corn,” the only thing moving behind the rows is the audience, fleeing to the exits. (well said, sir)
