Firestarter, The Movie

The Hunt

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I finished Firestarter a couple months ago and decided to watch the movie. Turns out, getting a hold of this would become a small - albeit stupid - personal quest. "I'm not going to Amazon this," I told my wife. It was a major motion picture, big budget and heavy promotion; I shouldn't have to turn to the internet to dig up a copy. Besides, I didn't want to wait on the United States mail.

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Hollywood Video, which was going out of business, didn't have a copy. Neither did other local video stores. Walmart didn't have it. "Oh!" One clerk said after looking it up, "we don't carry that, and we won't." Why? "It's out of print." My eyes widened. really? Out of print! Our family headed out for vacation, and I reluctantly admitted I'd have to give in and buy it off the internet. However, I found a used bookstore in Hemet California which had a massive DVD section.

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Lost In translation

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I really liked the book. Firestarter the movie is a very faithful rendition of this story. Scene for scene I could point to where they were in the book. The chase scene at the beginning, the farm, the Shop, even the horses were all there. However, something doesn't connect here.

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You know, you can buy a translation of the Bible that is a literal "word for word" translation into English, but a Greek or Hebrew scholar will tell you something is still lost in translation. That's what happens here: Something is lost in translation.

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John Carpenter said just that. Carpenter had considered directing the film. He told Fear magazine (quoted in Creepshows), "The problem with King's novels are that sometimes they're a bit funky. The plot doesn't translate to the movies that well. Fire starter was one project that I was involved with for a while. I thought that one could have been good because there you have a very clear understanding of what's happening. Unfortunately it didn't work out in the end." p.38

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What happened?

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Specifically, the acting and scenes feel wooden. I said to my wife, "It feels like a soap opera." George C. Scott's performance is dry, lifeless. he is not a convincing Indian, either. Drew Berrymore portrays an overly emotional Charlie; where the book gave us a kid who was very much in charge.

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When the farmer takes Charlie and Andy to his farm we are introduced to his wife. Only, she doesn't come across to me as the farmers wife. She's just a lady dressed up in the right gear, but she doesn't feel like she belongs. That seems to run throughout the movie. People are playing roles, but they don't feel like they belong. From The Shop to lead characters, it isn't smooth.

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Some of the horror from the book was cut. For instance, suicide by garbage disposal was missing. I note this only because King used that slice of horror right at a point the book was starting to sag a little. It beefed up the middle of the book. By cutting that detail, the scenes of captivity at The Shop just drag on.

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King said about the movie, "The parts were all there, but the total was somehow much less than the sum of those parts." (Creepshows, p.39)

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Tony Magistrale has an interesting chapter in his book Hollywood's Stephen King. In a chapter about the Lost Children, he discusses the real lead character in firestarter is John Rainbird. If that is the case, I don't think George C. Scott's performance pulled it off.

Movie: Dolores Claiborne

If it weren't for the book, this would be a very good movie. Seriously. Now, I'm not a Stephen King purist. In fact, I think in many cases updates to King's work have served to strengthen his stories. This is particularly true of Tommyknockers mini-series, and King's rewrite of The Gunslinger. If I had not read the novel Dolores Claiborne several times, I would probably like this move very much -- because it tells a compelling story. However, I am left disappointed because this isn't the story Stephen King gave us.
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While the movie contains several priceless scenes that come straight from the movie, it is laced with an unnecessary darkness and tension. The movie is not told from Dolores' point of view, but from Selena's.
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I think what made this such a strong novel was Dolores' voice. The entire thing was told in flashbacks while she was giving testimony to the police. It was a natural setting for these flashbacks and ran in one continuous dialogue. I thought it was brilliant. In fact, it's one of my favorite King novels. King never broke in to Dolores' rant. She told the whole thing, from beginning to end. It is so well written, it seems as if it isn't a Stephen King novel at all, but was actually pinned by a woman named Dolores Claiborne. But to be certain, what makes the story work is her narrative -- her voice -- her point of view.
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Revenge Is Supposed To Be Sweet
Now, let me be blunt: I don't want to deal with the affects of abuse from Selena's end. I don't even want to think about it! The scars, the pain, the emotions -- they are not things I want to reflect on for entertainment. However, switch the story back to the way King had it; from Dolores' point of view. If someone touched my daughter in an inappropriate way -- I think I could do great harm to them. So when Dolores sends her hubby falling down a well, in the novel we are all screaming: "YES! YES! YES!" But in the movie, the moment's hysterical joy at seeing Dolores get her revenge is broken by Selena's sarcasm.
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The revenge in Dolores Claiborne is just as sweet, if not sweeter, as it was in Dolan's Cadillac. The premise is brilliant: What if a woman who really committed a murder was accused of the wrong murder? I like it. I think I like the movie, even though it is not as strong as it could be. The element added is unnecessary, and grim. Selena as an adult does not progress the story, she just darkens it.
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Kathy Bates is at her best in this movie. She is very much what I imagined when reading the novel.
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However:
Stephen Jones has this quote in his book Creepshows from Starburst #206, "The best psychological thriller Alfred Hitchcock never made, Dolores Claiborne is the latest sparkling example of a Stephen King novel being lavished with care and emerging another clear winner ahead of his third rate horror pack." p.97

Maximum Overdrive

Good news / bad news -- Hollywood Video is going out of business. Of course, I don't rent from Hollywood Video, so for me it's goodnews/goodnews. They're selling the entire stock. So right now I have King movies all piled up. Summer is usually the time I buy a bunch of King movies, and so cheap DVDs are great. And, guess what they had. . . Maximum Overdrive. We're several days into the sale now, and no one has bought this. Hummm, I wonder why!

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My daughters and I watched this tonight. So, here is our review:

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The characters in this film are certainly not on their way to a Mensa convention. In fact, does anyone in this film have an IQ over 75?

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HITCHCOCK!

According to Creepshows by Stephen Jones (my favorite book on Stephen King movies), King said that the inspiration for the story came from Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film The Birds. So, you get it, right? Birds go crazy and attack people -- machines go crazy and attack people. Subtle. In Stephen King Goes To Hollywood, another cool book, Jeff Conner says, "Like The Birds and Romero's Dead films, the storyline concerns those few plucky survivors; that group of disparate people thrown together in this trying time of fantastical crisis. yes, mayhem ensues." p.119

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Truth is, this isn't a very good film. I know that you're shocked. King said that a reviewer in New York gave it zero stars.

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But I like it. Here's why, in no particular order.

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1. This is so bad, it sinks to the level of Ed Wood bad. Which is a wonderful kind of bad to sink to. Not just any Ed Wood cross-dressing kind of bad. But the lofty position of Plan 9 From Outer Space kind of bad. So bad, it's good. After I wrote that, I read this quote from King in Creepshows, "There was a long period during post production when I thought I had made a worthy successor to Plan 9 from Outer Space." Creepshows, p.46

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2. It's not boring. Lots of action. My kids particularly liked it when the guy sprayed himself in the face with the gas hose. Brilliant. Remind me that when hiding from rogue cars, it is always a good idea to take refuge near a gas station.

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3. Lots of car chases and things blow up. Man food. Better yet, the woman in the cafe yelling at the sky is just great. You really need to see this film -- just for her.

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4. I like the green sky. What is this "comet" made of -- alien farts?

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5. How many movies start with the director getting told he's an a-hole? And, this is no ordinary director, it's the King of horror himself.

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6. No matter what you think of the movie, the AC/DC sound track is well done. My friend actually said that he wore his copy of the sound track out. I wonder if anyone wore their DVD's out.

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7. Listening to Yeardley Smith play a bride on her honeymoon is great. She screams more than Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds. Of course, you know Yeardley Smith as the voice of Lisa Simpson.

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8. It's nice to peak in at the world of 1986. Very 80's film. I knew cars had changed, but I was unaware that gas pumps had changed so much.

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9. I wish I had seen this as a kid, then I would have had a story to go with all those toy trucks I crashed up -- other than "Crush-Up-Derby."

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10. It's like an evil episode of the Twilight Zone. Jeff Conner says in Stephen King Goes To Hollywood, "The Trucks story is a Twilight Zone kind of affair, pitting Mankind against suddenly sentient, and pissed off, semi-trucks; sort of a Night of the Living Big Rigs deal." p.119

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DVD QUESTIONS:

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Where is the directors commentary? I know King is a busy man, but this classic would be just great with his voice talking over it.

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Where is the "directors cut"? When the movie was rated by the MPAA, it was originally given an "X" for excessive violence. (that would be an NC-17 these days) To get it down to an "R", King chopped a couple of gore scenes.

Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING

The Shining, 1980

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Funny factual error: There is no way that the huge pile of the Torrance's luggage (as seen when they first arrive at the Overlook) would fit in a VW Bug. (From imdb)

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Deleted Scene: Roger Ebert reports, Near the end of the film, on a frigid night, Jack chases Danny into the labyrinth on the hotel grounds. His son escapes, and Jack, already wounded by a baseball bat, staggers, falls and is seen the next day, dead, his face frozen into a ghastly grin. He is looking up at us from under lowered brows, in an angle Kubrick uses again and again in his work. Here is the deletion, reported by the critic Tim Dirks: "A two-minute explanatory epilogue was cut shortly after the film's premiere. It was a hospital scene with Wendy talking to the hotel manager; she is told that searchers were unable to locate her husband's body. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060618/REVIEWS08/606180302

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Personal Notes:

Watching Kubrick's The Shining tonight (uh. . . after church) -- and I find myself surprised at how much I like this. I've seen it several times, but usually find myself disappointed it's not more like the book. ut tonight I find myself noticing things that are really spooky -- thng's I've missed in previous viewings.

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Why is Jack crazy?
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The slow breakdown of the family is lost, since Nicholson begins the story pretty insane. But, then, Shelly Duvall spends most of the movie whining at a very high pitch. I think she's the one who's pretty insane -- or perhaps the cause of Jack's insanity. Find myself thinking: Could this lady seem a little more out of control? A little more needy? Could she possibly lose it just one more time?
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Shelly with the basebal bat is pretty scary. She is backing away from jack -- UP a stair case -- lamely batting at him to keep him away. This can only end well, right?
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Watching Shelly act crazy in every scene makes me think that maybe none of this is going on in Jack's head. . . maybe she's the one hallucinating.
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Novel verses Movie -- A Hopeless Comparrison:
What's frustrating is how illogical some of this is. Since Kubrick doesn't believe in ghosts, it's all happening in Jack's head. But the ghosts know things Jack doesn't seem to know. . . so is the place haunted, or is Jack just crazy? If Jack is just crazy, how does he know Danny is using his ability to contact the outside? And if the ghosts are in Jack's head, why does Wendy see them? And Danny?
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Let's say up front, this movie bears very little resemblance to the Novel. The novel IS logical, since it is very upfront atht this is not just about Jack going crazy -- the Overlook is actually haunted. Ah-ha! With that premise, everything works!
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Creepshows author Stephen Jones explains why the novel and movie are so different: "Kubrick and Johnson attempted to craft a script that would avoid any comparison with the then-current glut of supernatural films flooding the boxoffice. 'The problem was to extract the essential plot and to re-invent the sections of the story that were weak,' Kubric told Ciment. The director believed that the virtues of the book lay 'almost entirely in the plot' and the two collaborators made a list o the scenes they thought should be included, which they shuffled around until Kubrick approved of the order." --Creepshows, p.19-20
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Those who truly love the novel are doomed to be disappointed. Note the emotion the novel stirs in fans like Kev Quigley at charnelhouse have to say about the novel: "Many of King's later novels -- IT, Misery, Pet Sematary, Dolores Claiborne, and The Dark Tower series as a whole in particular -- have been significant achievements in both King's oevre and in the modern literary world collectively, but The Shining is where King reached his pinnacle of terror. Not even the dark Pet Sematary could match the sheer force of the horrors, both real and spiritual, of King's masterpeice The Shining. If you've never tried King before, and want to know if all the hype is true, start here. You won't be disappointed." http://charnelhouse.tripod.com/shining.html
Now. . . with passion like that (and he's right) there is no way a movie can produce that kind of emotion.
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What I like:

• The camera sweeping over the trees as the car works through the mountain. Massive landscape, spooky music.
• The music is definately unnerving.
• Scatman Crothers as Dick Hollorann. (He won a best supporting actor for this role). Of course, Roger Ebert revealed that Kubrick had Crothers repeat one scene 160 times.
• Danny riding his Big Wheel through the hotel -- the sound effect o sielnce as he goes over carpet, then the grinding over wood then silence again. Kinda cool.
• The hedge maze is cool. Esp. that Jack can see Danny and Wendy in the maze! Perhas Danny isn't the only one who "Shines"
• The hollow sound as jack plays handball in an empty hotel lobby.
• The two ghost girls inviting Danny to play with them "for ever and ever and ever" while quick shots of their bloody dead bodies flash. Truly scary.
• Jack saying to Danny, "I wish we could stay here forever and ever and ever."
• Jack telling Wendy taht he dreamed he killed Wendy and Danny and cut them into little pieces.
• Jacks entry into room 237 is tense. (But it's supposed to be room 217) The sound of a beating heart is pretty scary. Then as he sees the woman, old and dead and rotted. . . that steady heartbeat just doesn't let up. Pretty good! (Not as good as King wrote it, but I'm trying to stay off that horse)
• "I'm not gonna hurt you, I'm just gonna bash your brains in." -- Jack.
• Funny: I really like Danny walking through his mothers room in a transe croaking: "Redrum." A kid with a knife is definately scary.
• Jack with an axe. "Wendy, I home!" As in Ricky Ricardo saying, "Lucy, I'm home." And then, "Here's Johnny!" Nice! Of course, you have to remember Johnny Carson to really get it.
• The tongues like chanting as Wendy goes up the steps and sees people in the hotel is freaky.

What's Not Scary

One final thought. Though I like this movie a lot, it fails to produce any real deep fear. It is unnerving on some psycological level -- Kubrick is a master at getting you off balance -- but it's not scary.

In a good horror film, forces are at work that could threaten any of us. But in the Shining, ultimately it's not about a haunted hotel that any of us might visit -- it's just about Jack's craziness. So it turns into little more than a new version of the cut-em-up and chase film. But Danny is not threatened by ghosts or any evil deeper than that which is rooted in Jack himself.

Oh yeah. . . nice of them to keep the lights on in the hedge maze all winter, just in case someone wants to take a stroll through a snow filled hedge maze!