The Mist Unabridged

For years I have gotten emails and posts comments asking about the unabridged recording of The Mist.  I have audio tapes and the digital version of Frank Muller reading the Mist.  Turns out, for some reason that recording is  no longer in print.  That means that for years the only way to hear the Mist has been the 3D production.  The only problem is -- the 3D Sound recording just isn't the same as listening to the words themselves build the story.  It's like a radio play.  Super cool -- but just not the same.

I noticed today that audible has released an unabridged recording of Skeleton Crew.  And in the batch is The Mist.  It's not the Frank Muller recording, but it is The Mist unabridged.  Exciting stuff!

www.audible.com

A Possible Inspiration for The Mist?

by Chris Calderon

I don't know what influenced Stephen King to write his much liked novella The Mist.  By his own word, the idea almost seemed to spring whole in his mind while he was out shopping one day and wondered what would happen if a pterodactyl were suddenly to come flying over the food aisles.

However that hasn't stopped some from speculating.  For instance, an earlier entry in Wikipedia once noted "The Mist bears resemblance to the earlier H.F. Arnold short story "Night Wire," in which a radio operator details how a malevolent mist falls over a city, containing creatures that consume townspeople "piecemeal."  The page also contains a link to a copy of the Arnold story.

Whether or not there is any truth to those speculations, I don't know.  This is just something I ran across from someone I don't know and is probably just a wild guess on their part in the first place.  That said, even for a wild guess, I have to admit, it's pretty entertaining.

As it happens, the H.F. Arnold story was anthologized as part of a YouTube audio series called Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, a series of narrated (sometimes dramatized) short stories in a similar vein to those quasi-camp fire stories from the golden age of the audiobook era.  Watch and listen to Arnold's story in the clip below, and judge for yourself whether or not King may have subconsciously remembered such a story from his past.  Even if such an idea is unlikely, I have to admit, the Arnold story still makes for a very entertaining October read.

Stephen King Video Games

Doesn't it seem like there should be more games based on Stephen King books?  I'm still waiting for someone to give me an edition of THE  STAND Civ 5.  Really, no one has wanted to drive Christine?  Think about it -- it would be a lot more fun than Pole Position.  Actually, a lot of things were better than that game.

Here is a list of video games based on King's work.  I am not including Discordia.  If you know of others, tell me in the comments section (or email me).

1985: THE MIST:

Was a text adventure game.  Remember Zork?

1989: THE RUNNINGMAN

The Running man was released as a Commodore 64 game.  It also inspired a game called "Smash TV."

1992: THE DARK HALF:

www.giantbomb.com gives us this review of The Dark Half video game:

The Dark Half is a point and click story based adventure game based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. It was released in 1992 by Capstone and even though many consider it to be a terrible game, it is highly sought after and considered a cult hit.

The Dark Half was developed by Symtus and published in 1992 by Capstone. It is a ScummVM-esque point and click adventure game that is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Although the mechanics of the game are very similar to many adventure games released around the same time from LucasArts, it is possible to die / be arrested in the game, bringing your adventure to an eary finish. 

The game itself is a poor reflection of the novel and is riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies. Even with these inherent flaws, The Dark Half remains a cult classic, a title that is still highly sought after even this long after it's debut. The ease of getting a "Game Over" screen is such that it's vital to save often and in different files, which is a turn off for many gamers with games such as Monkey Island setting the benchmark of a "deathless" game.

1994: The Lawnmowerman 

This was a Sega Genesis game. I never got to play it because we were Atari people.  Then Commodore.  

For more, check out David Finniss article at voices.yahoo.com.

Finnis' article covers all of the above games,and also a wallpaper program called F13: "The only thing that I was able to find on my own was a program called F13. It wasn't so much a game as a program that gave you wallpapers for your desktop. There were some mini-games as well as an electronic copy of Everything's Eventual. It received a mixed review at best."

10 King Novels That Should Be Video Games:

I liked this article by Clayton Ofbricks: 10 Stephen King Novels That Should Be Video Games.  He gives a nice outline of how each game would be played out.

1) The Shawshank Redemption: 3rd Person Stealth Action 

2) The Stand: Post Turn Based Strategy 

3) The Green Mile: Construction and Management Simulation 

4) Misery: Tower Defense 

5) The Dark Tower: Action RPG 

6) Christine: Extreme Driving Sim 

7) Rose Red: Survival Horror 

8) Pet Sematary: FPS 

9) Salem’s Lot: Sandbox 

10) Cujo: Trivia

Or. . . you could just play The Sims 3 Supernatural!  Or, Naughty Bear.

Ending The Mist Goes On

In an article titled, "The Mist, Love It Or Hate It," Lilja's Library posted a link to aintitcool news.  The article at aintitcool was a passionate defense of the ending of Frank Darabont's The Mist.  I loved it!  Totally disagree -- but enjoyed every bit of Quint's impassioned defense of dark endings.

The aintitcool article argues that not only are dark endings cool, but they are important for all movies because they add a layer of uncertainty to every movie watching experience.

Quint boils the issue of the Mist and the ending to this:

"So why does The Mist get singled out for its ending? I think people are a hundred times more comfortable with the idea of a big bad monster killing a person than the good guy having to pull the trigger."

I think he's right.  Really right.  And then he swings a home run,

"It would have been awful if a tentacle had come out of the gray clouds surrounding that car and yanked little Nathan Gamble out the window, sucking him into the mist for good, but people would have forgiven that. What many folks can't forgive is that Tom Jane's David Drayton is the one to kill his son."

Is this a nerd debate?  I suspected if you asked most people, they'd say, NO!  This is serious stuff.  But in truth -- it's a minor argument over a few seconds of film.  In big the scheme of things, doe sit really matter?  YES!  . . . oh, wait, my wife tells me she's never worried once about the end of The Mist.  Event though she saw it.  Not once since did she give a lot of thought to it.  Sigh.  Maybe it is a nerd debate; but it's an interesting one.

It's About Character

But let me be clear why it doesn't work for me.  It's that we are asked at the end of the movie to believe something about Drayton's character never presented to us in the rest of the film.  Let's just say, the guy at the end of the film isn't a guy I'd feel comfortable falling asleep in his car.  Throughout the film, Drayton is shown as stoic, strong, logical and ready to fight.  But when actually confronted by the monsters -- he doesn't fight, he kills his kid.  Grown men -- good guys -- don't kill little kids.  That's a pretty straight forward statement -- and it's true.  I'm not comfortable with a movie ending that tries to make the murder of a child A-OK; even cool.  I wonder if people who think this is a great ending have kids.  Of course, father's do kill their children.  And we as a society have agreed we're not cool with that.

Can you think of another scenario where it's okay for a father to kill his child?  Maybe a rapist breaks into the house, is about to rape his daughter -- so he shoots his daughter to save her from the rapist.  Doesn't work, does it?  Why?  Because you think, "why doesn't he just shoot the bad guy?"  Which make us wonder, why doesn't Drayton have any fight in him?  Why did he leave with no real plan to take on the enemy?  Wait -- But what if there's a lot of rapist after the father's girl, and he only has one bullet?  Would it be okay then to say, "You don't get my daughter!" and shoot her?  No.

Of course, The Mist offers a level of despair somewhere beyond the situations I suggested.  Because things look utterly hopeless to Drayton.  Drayton's decision at the end of the movie is a response to his own fear and hopelessness.  But he went out into the mist ready to fight and survive.  So all of his survival instincts wash away in an instant?

I'll just say that for me, the ending doesn't work because it's not the character we were presented with throughout the movie.

What I Like

My disagreement with Quint doesn't mean I didn't take his point.  In fact, I do have a new respect for the ending of The Mist; I see it through new eyes.  I don't agree, but I appreciate the perspective.  And I agree, dark endings are important.  I just want them to be -- logical.

In fact, I'm embarrassed (but not overly read faced!) to admit that Quint spots something I totally missed.  Remember Melissa McBride, who ran into the Mist to get home to her kids?  Quint writes:

Then there's the reveal that they were moments away from being saved. I'd say most who don't like the ending think it's because of this timing, but I'm not so sure. Their salvation was only moments away, but the real knife twist is when we see Melissa McBride and her family being transported past a completely broken Drayton.

What?  Of course everyone else saw it and got it -- but my entire focus was on what just happened, not on what was happening on screen.  No matter how many times I've seen that ending, I missed it!  Quint explains why that particular detail is so unnerving:

You see, he played it safe from the beginning. He did everything logically, thought through his options, and still this awful -- happened to him, yet she was reckless and ran into the mist to get home to her kids, danger be damned. She made it, her family made it, but calm, cool and collected David Drayton did not.

That's a great insight.  Of course, I didn't have that reaction, because I didn't  pick up on the fact that the lady at the end is the same lady who ran into the mist.  I was still thinking about Drayton's handy work with his gun.

Check out the article at aintitcool -- I liked it a lot.aintitcool.com

The Mist -- There Is Hope!

I'm excited about this. . .

Kevin Karstens, a graphic illustrator, who shared with me that he also prefers King's version of the Mist and in particular, our strong dislike for the movies ending.  Kevin wrote,

I had looked forward to a film adaption for over 20 years, and was thrilled to hear they were doing one (and by Frank Darabont, no less)...until I started hearing, 'they changed the ending'....and I personally REALLY did NOT care for the 'new version'...so I did something baout it, and you might find it interesting...

What he did was recut  the movie, creating a fan film titled, "The Mist, The Novella Cut."  Great title!

The movie's webpage does a great job explaining exactly what was done:

 'The Mist-The Novella Cut' is a fan edit of the Frank Darabont/Stephen King film 'The Mist' which was released to theaters in 2007. 

It is in no way meant to disparage the wonderful work created by Mr. Darabont and his brilliant team of filmmakers, it is simply a version of the film meant to more closely adhere to the original text from the Stephen King novella upon which the movie was based. As the original story is my all time favorite King tale, I wanted a version that reflected the source material as closely as possible, especially the original, ambiguous finale...so I created this fan edit for fun. 

Certain scenes have been cut, others added from the DELETED SCENES found on the DVD release, as they mirrored actual sequences from the source material. Chapter 'headings' have been added in areas to reflect the feel of a novella, and the ending now pays homage to the 'Hartford/hope' finale originally seen in King's original text. 

This is from a conversation between Kevin Quigley and I.  Kevin is the overseer of charnelhouse, a Stephen King website.

Talk Stephen King: The novella left the story open ended. The movie, however, chose an ending scene that was rather controversial. King said he liked it. I hate it. Which of us is right?

Kevin Quigley: King and I often disagree about movies.  The ending of The Mist is atrocious.  It’s going for shock value and succeeding at that, but it doesn’t do much for the film itself.  It’s a complete shift in tone and intent, one that feels incongruous with the rest of the movie.  (talkstephenking interview with Kevin Quigley) 

Wait a minute, you may be saying -- is  the ending to the Mist really that bad? Allison Weaver wrote an article earlier this year titled, "Which Movies Have the Most Terrible Endings?"  She wrote, "Did anyone actually enjoy the ending of 'The Mist'? I don't believe it's possible. Who could be happy after watching the main character give up, shoot his own son, and then head off in search of the perfect way to kill himself? Honestly, though, even if it ended there, it would've been more acceptable than what really happened. Instead, he discovered that he and the rest of his family and friends could have survived the entire ordeal if they had just waited a few moments longer. Oops! Tough break."  My heart cries, "YESSSSSSSS!" (in best Darth Vader noooo voice)

Also of interest to this discussion is Blake Hennon's LA Times article, "‘The Mist’: Frank Darabont, Thomas Jane on ‘angry, bleak’ ending."  (herocomplex.latimes.com)  Hennon quoted Darabont,

“I was really getting something off my chest here,” Darabont said. “So if you hated the ending, I apologize for the two hours of your life I took. … This is an angry cry from the heart from a humanist who is really pretty pissed off about the fact that all the reasonable people seem to be marginalized, ground under the heel of the extremists.”

The good news is that I didn't lose two hours of my life.  The movie is great -- until characters  who had been making solid decisions began acting irrationally.

A producer once offered Darabont a 30 million dollar budget for The mist IF he would change the ending.  Darabont asked, “What ending would you like me to have?  What is your suggestion?”  The answer: I don’t know!  Darabont explained, "This is the ending I’ve been thinking about for 30 years now.  He didn’t have a suggestion."

To be clear  -- It’s okay for the main characters to die – just not that way.  Let them drive away and get eaten by a big dino-monster.  That’s fine.  But a father cannot do that to his child – not a good one.  It messes up the movie for re-watch.  To me, the ending makes the David Drayton unlikable.  As you watch again, you are thinking, “I can’t like this guy, he’s got a major character flaw.”  He does what Mother Carmody wanted to do but failed.  He does it with different intentions.  Simply put, a good reason not to blow a kids brains out when a situation looks really really really bad – is because there might be a miracle.  Not only does David Drayton carry out a incredibly painful act, but the movie rubs our face in it by showing the mist getting blown away by the army.

Curious what kind of reviews the recut of The Mist is getting?  Here are a few:

Original Runtime : 126 min
New Runtime : 1 hr 45 min
Amount of time Cut/Added : CUT: Approx 10 min ADDED: Approx 5 min

More about the changes, the website explains:

The added sequences were from the DELETED SCENES which can be found on the DVD release of 'The Mist'. These specific portions mirrored sequences from the book (Mr. Norton speaking with Stephanie before he, David & Billy leave for town, conversations in the store and so on)...also, the entire ending seen in theaters has been dropped and replaced with new scenes that reflect the original, haunting and more ambiguous 'Hartford/hope' angle found in the original text. 

Check out the website at: http://kkarstens.wix.com 

the MIST on Google Maps

Hey, check out the shortlist.com article, "Horror Movie Locations On Google Maps."  Interesting to see where  things were filmed. And YIKES -- the poltergeist house is in Southern California.  Actually, most of these are in California.

Included is The Mist with these notes:

• Location: Tom's Market, Vivian, Louisiana
• Known for: The supermarket where a variety of nightmarish creatures attack

Also mentioned are: 

The Omen, All Saints Church in Fulham, London

Rosemary's Baby, The Dakota, New York

Halloween, 1530 N. Orange Grove, Los Angeles

Poltergeist, 4267 Roxbury Street, Simi Valley, California

Scream 2, The Rialto, South Pasadena, California  (I've been there)

Drag Me To Hell, 1031 Everett Street, Echo Park, California

The Fog, Point Reyes lighthouse, Marin County, California

The Birds, 17110 Bodega Lane, Bodega, California

Shaun of the Dead, Monson Road at Balborough St, London

(thanks Fans Of Stephen King)

Skeleton Crew First Edition

I found two copies of Skeleton Crew at a local used bookstore the other day.   Different boards and covers.  One cover wrap did not include the price and the copyright page did not have a number line.  Both clear indications it is a later edition.  However, the second copy had both.

Is  it "worth"  something?  I dunno.  Probably not  much.  I paid $1.99 for it.  But a find like that makes me pretty happy.  It appears to go on ebay for $15+.  I also have a British first edition of this book.  (I'm not sure why I bought a British edition of that particular book, except that I thought the cover cool.)

My favorite story in Skeleton Crew is by far The Mist.  The book as a whole remains among my favorite of King's short story collections.  As Kevin Quigley pointed out,

"Skeleton Crew is a frustrating instance, because a perfectly terrific version of Skeleton Crew on audio simply doesn’t exist anymore.  The collection Skeleton Crew: Selections is the only version available on audio, which is insane.  Sure, the narrators are fine – King reads “The Raft,” and it’s awesome – but there are only four stories.  Why let the terrific Frank Muller version rot in purgatory?" (interview with Kevin Quigley on THE MIST, at talkstephenking.blogspot.com)

David Drayton, Dew Struzan and The Mist

In the film adaptation of The Mist,Thomas Jane plays David Drayton.  But there's a story behind the character.  Frank Darabont gave some added texture to the story by making Drayton an artist.  But not any artist!  He's Drew Struzan.

Drew who?  You might not recognize the name Drew Struzan, but you'd recognize his art.  He drew the posters for Blade Runner, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, ET, Harry Potter, The Walking Dead -- and something like 150 movie posters.  Sometimes his poster was better than the movie!

You  might recognize his work from a few Stephen King movies including The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

The Shawshank Redemption

Frank Darabont says about Struzan's work on the Shawshank Redemption that he is very collaborative.  "When we did the Shawshank art, there was definitely some conversation with him about what the elements should be," Darabont said.  "He took images that had been becoming iconic during the decade since (the book) had been released."


Now how does that connect to The Mist and David Drayton?

This is from the May 22, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Times:

Frank Darabont is such a fan, he not only has tapped Struzan for pieces for "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile," he has also made him a basis for Thomas Jane's lead character in last year's "The Mist." (Several of Struzan's originals were featured on-screen as set dressing.) 

Struzan's website says, "The Mist: The movie begins with David Drayton, the main character, hand painting a movie poster for an upcoming film. He is a poster artist. A collection of his other original works, including posters from The Thing, Shawshank Redemption, Pan's Labyrinth, Green Mile and other paintings actually by drew can be seen in his studio. He is painting a picture known immediately to Stephen King fans to be for his The Dark Tower. This is the original painting created for the film."

Dark Tower, The (The Mist)
Medium: Acrylic paints and colored pencils on gessoed board
www.drewstruzan.com/illustrated

A documentary about Struzan appeared at ComicCon.  The documentary includes interviews with Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, Guillermo del Toro, Leonard Maltin and many others.  It is currently on Netflix.

Frank Darabont decorated the set of The Mist with artwork from Struzan's studio.  Further, Struzman gave Thomas Jane tips on how to actually look like a painter so he could, "look authentic" in the film.  "I portrayed Drew," Jane said.  "He wouldn't let me leave until I got it just perfect," Jane commented.  "At the premier of the film, Drew said, 'No, no that wasn't right."  He did everything wrong, Struzman said!  Jane notes that he has  nailed all kinds of difficult roles, but he couldn't play Drew Struzman for thrity seconds.

Stephen King Books That Make Great Bedtime Reading

I know some of you will say "all of them."  But which Stephen King books are actually best to curl up with late at night?  Are there certain books you prefer to read before bed?

My list:
1. Books ABOUT Stephen King.  It's true.  I'm more likely to read books that discuss King's books than I am to actually read a Stephen King book.

2. Short books.  I'm not very daring right before I fall asleep.  So novella's and short stories fall nicely into this category.  Only -- I have a confession.  Don't hate me, okay?  I'm not really a short story guy.  It's an odd relationship.  Some of them are great, but it's difficult to invest time, knowing the relationship won't last.  Novella's are just perfect, though.  Satisfying, without requiring a lot of commitment.

The Mist, The Langoliers, 1922, A Good Marriage, Blockade Billy are a few of my favorites.

3. Books I just can't part with.  I read The Stand day and night because I just couldn't stop.

4. Booklets and paperbacks.  Those little parts of the Green Mile were great bedtime reading.

So what Stephen King books do you prefer before falling asleep?

P.S., I know some of you want that bed.

Interview With Kevin Quigley: What's Up With Frank Muller's Reading Of THE MIST

I am a fan of The Mist.  I think it's a great story.  It's also been adapted many,  many times.  By far, one of the things I've gotten the most  questions about over  the years of blogging is about the Frank Muller reading of the Mist.  Where is it?  Curious myself, I went to the best source I know of, Kevin Quigley.  Quigley is the keeper of the King website Charnel House and a contributor to fearnet.

Okay, let's talk about the Mist and all things Stephen King!

Talk Stephen King: Hey, I’m really excited to talk about the Mist with you. I loved your book, Blood In Your Ears, in which you discuss the audio version of The Mist. What do you think of the story itself?

Kevin Quigley: “The Mist” is one of my favorite King stories.  Quite a lot of King’s novella work stands as his strongest material – see also “Secret Window, Secret Garden,” “Apt Pupil,” “The Body,” “A Good Marriage,” “The Langoliers.”  It’s got the punchiness of a short story but you get character development and multiple show sequences like in a novel.  I also really loved the open ending.  King returned to that stylistic concept later in his career – with From a Buick 8, Cell, and The Colorado Kid – which pissed a lot of people off, for some reason.  I love ambiguity.

TSK: I loved the movie. It seemed to successfully capture the tone of the novella. What did you think of the film?

KQ: Most of the movie is terrific.  You’re right about the tone – it perfectly captures the 50s monster-movie feel, while also delivering on contemporary characters and scares. 

TSK: The novella left the story open ended. The movie, however, chose an ending scene that was rather controversial. King said he liked it. I hate it. Which of us is right?

KQ: King and I often disagree about movies.  The ending of The Mist is atrocious.  It’s going for shock value and succeeding at that, but it doesn’t do much for the film itself.  It’s a complete shift in tone and intent, one that feels incongruous with the rest of the movie. 

TSK: The audio 3D version of the Mist was awesome. It seems to have been commercially successful. Do you think that format will be utilized for King stories again?

KQ: Well, there have been other King dramatizations.  There’s one for Misery and Pet Sematary, one for ’Salem’s Lot.  Most are unsuccessful, I think in part because they’re unable to reimagine the work from the ground up.  King’s cinematic sequences in his novels work because he’s terrific at describing scenes with punch, but much of that works on the page, where exposition and imagination holds sway.  It’s the reason why so much of King’s filmed adaptations work less often than they should. 

I also think, though, that a number of King’s more plot- and situation-driven work could benefit. I’d love to hear an adaptation of “The Langoliers,” for instance.  I think “The Breathing Method” would work very well, and maybe “Big Driver” and “The House on Maple Street.”  For novels, I think they could really kill The Regulators. 

TSK: One of the things people ask me about is the Recorded Books 3 tape set read by Frank Muller. In your book, Blood In Your Ears, you pointed out that this was out of print. What exactly does that mean? That seems crazy in the King world! Nothing goes out of print. Is there a copyright problem or something that you know of?

KQ: King’s novels don’t go out of print, but versions sometimes do.  For example, when was the last time you saw a copy of The Dead Zone with the movie cover?  Same with audio books.  Sometimes they make a new version that they deem is “better,” and the old one goes away. 

Skeleton Crew is a frustrating instance, because a perfectly terrific version of Skeleton Crew on audio simply doesn’t exist anymore.  The collection Skeleton Crew: Selections is the only version available on audio, which is insane.  Sure, the narrators are fine – King reads “The Raft,” and it’s awesome – but there are only four stories.  Why let the terrific Frank Muller version rot in purgatory?

TSK: One fan emailed to tell me that Recorded Books told them that they no longer held the copyright, that it had gone to Muller’s estate. Any way to verify that? Do readers actually own the work?

KQ: As far as I can tell, readers do not own the work at all.  From what I understand, the author of the work retains all copyrights to the book.  An audiobook is one way of “copying” the book, so a person can’t replicate the work without permission from the author.  It’s not that different from a publisher doing a limited edition work; the limited edition doesn’t become that publisher’s book just because they manufactured it.

TSK: Do you think that with everything going digital that there is a chance a publisher like Audible might pick it up?

KQ: Well, Audible doesn’t generally publish professional books themselves – they’re more a distributor for established publishers’ audio arms, or publishers like Recorded Books – but they do have a healthy business in amateur recording.  But I get your point, and I hope they’ll do right by Skeleton Crew.  In 2010, there was an audio onslaught of King books that had only previously been available as Library of Congress recordings.  Penguin brought out new, professional recordings of Christine, Firestarter, Cujo, Danse Macabre, The Eyes of the Dragon, It, and all the early Bachman novels except Rage: The Long Walk, Roadwork, and The Running Man.  Soon after, Random House released the mammoth recording of The Stand – over 47 hours! – read by Grover Gardner. 

At current, the only full Stephen King books you can’t get on audio are Pet Sematary and Skeleton Crew.  I am assuming that Sematary is tied up in rights issues, but I don’t know about Skeleton Crew.  And unfortunately, while there are terrific unabridged versions of The Regulators read by Frank Muller and Desperation read by King himself, those were only available to libraries.  The commercial versions – not-bad recordings by Kate Nelligan and Kathy Bates – are fine, but horribly abridged. 

TSK: Have you heard the Muller reading? What did you think?

KQ: I have, and it’s terrific!  As assured and sonorous as his later recordings.

TSK: Any new projects we can be expecting?

KQ: Well, we can reasonably expect new audiobooks of Mr. Mercedes and Revival coming this year, but King has also been pretty liberal with audiobooks of his short stories lately, so we might see more of those popping up.  I’d love to see the unabridged recordings of Desperation and The Regulators, and of course Pet Sematary make it to Audible soon.  I’ve been on a King audio kick lately – The Dark Half, Misery, and Christine in rapid succession – and I want more.

TSK: Okay, some quick fire questions while I have you here. Answer like it’s gunfire. . .

TSK: What did you think of:. . . 

–Carrie remake?  Not bad, but too close to the original.

–Doctor Sleep?  Pretty good, but I was far more involved in the characters than the plot, and wanted more of Danny and Abra than the True Knot.

 –Joyland? One of King’s best books of the last decade.

 –Under The Dome television?  I watched the first half of the season, then lost the thread. That might have more to my schedule than the show, though.

TSK: Which is better,  

--Joyland or Doctor Sleep? Joyland!

–Carrie or Carrie 2013?  Original!

 –Doctor Sleep or The Shining? The Shining!

 –Wetware or Blood In Your Ears?  My babies!  I took a little longer with Blood in Your Ears and I like the finished product a little better.

 –Ink in the Veins or Chart Of Darkness? Chart of Darkness. I love Ink in the Veins, but Chart of Darkness was a passion project, AND my first book for Cemetery Dance.

 –Haven or Under The Dome?  Under the Dome!

TSK: Do you have a novel?

 KQ: Yes! Cemetery Dance is releasing I’m On Fire this year as an ebook.  But I also have 18 other novels waiting in the wings.  Most aren’t horror, which is why I’ve had some issue with placing them, but you might be seeing more of them sooner rather than later.  The book I’m working on now is a coming of age story called Roller Disco Saturday Night!

TSK: Thanks Kevin.

KQ: Thanks!

 -- 

Kevin Quigley is author of I'm On Fire, Stephen King Limited, and Roller Disco Saturday Night

Producer and Host of Johnny D's Comedy.  He is a Columnist at FEARnet.com

Stephen King -- Connecting The Dots

I loved Louis  Peitzman's article at BuzzFeed titled, "These Stephen King Connections Will Blow Your Mind."  They did  not blow my mind -- butstill pretty cool.

Here's a snippet, be sure to check  out the entire article at  www.buzzfeed.com

 In The Tommyknockers, mysterious organization The Shop invades Haven to control the alien presence.

11. The Shop is responsible for the Lot Six experiments, which gave Charlie McGee her powers in Firestarter.

12. And The Shop was involved in the Arrowhead Project, which resulted in the titular supernatural disaster of The Mist.

13. The organization is also mentioned in “The Langoliers.”

14. The same evil forces run throughout many Stephen King works. Take Randall Flagg, for example. He’s the major antagonist in The Stand.

15. But he also pursues Roland Deschain in The Dark Tower series. More on that in a bit.

 

16. Randall Flagg gets namechecked in ‘Salem’s Lot.

17. And he may be the demonic entity in the Stephen King short story “Children of the Corn.”

18. But Randall Flagg actually serves The Crimson King, who is another major adversary in The Dark Tower.

Movies With Terrible Endings

I enjoyed the chacha.com article, "Which Movies Have the Most Terrible Endings?"  by Allison Weaver.

Some I agreed with, some I hadn't seen, and some left me going, "WHAT?"

Return of the Jedi was a bad ending?  Actually, there is an explanation, "When I say Return of the Jedi, I'm referring to the re-released version of the film, in which George Lucas felt the need to edit the bejesus out of the movie until the whole thing was a laughable mess."  Ah, got it.

Other offerings include Castaway, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Signs.  I liked the ending of Signs!  A lot.

Also, Weaver listed as a bad ending.  Okay, now they're messin' with Hitch!  What's wrong here?  The Birds was great, and the ending was dark, heavy and wonderfully open.  It's how the Mist should have ended.

Titanic.  Uh, I would love to see an alternate ending to that one.  The boat sails into New York harbor?

And then there is THE MIST.  I hate  this ending.  So, even if I disagree with every other entry in this article, I think this is right on.

Did anyone actually enjoy the ending of 'The Mist'? I don't believe it's possible. Who could be happy after watching the main character give up, shoot his own son, and then head off in search of the perfect way to kill himself? 

Honestly, though, even if it ended there, it would've been more acceptable than what really happened. Instead, he discovered that he and the rest of his family and friends could have survived the entire ordeal if they had just waited a few moments longer. Oops! Tough break. 

What movie endings do you hate?

Darabont: Stephen King has an innate talent

I enjoyed Frank Darabont's interview at independent.co.  About Stephen King, Darabont writes,

Stephen King has an innate talent I’ve adapted several of his books for the screen [The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist] simply because he is one of the all-time great storytellers. He can put characters on a page that engage you in a way that few writers can. It’s a magic trick he has, and I’m not sure how he does it.

I'm currently reading The Mist and noting just how good the movie adaptation was.  When it comes to King's work, Darabont swung three home runs in a row.  He says that the lasting popularity of Shawshank brings a "pleasing level of respect, but nothing opens doors like a film that actually makes a lot of money."