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DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 3, No. 49 |
 HORROR Writers and the Movies |
 The late AALIYAH in QUEEN of the DAMNED |
King, Rice, Koontz:
They've had their moments
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
It took nearly a century of "Frankenstein" movies before anybody ever really tried to tell the same classic story Mary Shelley wrote. And, as we should have expected, Kenneth Branagh's 1994 "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" wasn't real popular with moviegoers who kept waiting for Boris Karloff or Peter Cushing to show up.
No, the sorry truth is the movies haven't paid a great deal of respect to the masters of the horror novel over the years--and the non-reading public often knows those famous stories mainly from the movies made from them.
It has upset some authors so much that they've gone and done crazy things as a result. Like, for instance, William Peter Blatty, whose bestseller "The Exorcist" became a classic horror movie in 1973. Blatty accepted some compromises with that first first, but he really felt crucified by the abysmal sequel, "Exorcist II: The Heretic." So, he directed his own sequel, "The Exorcist III," in 1990 and discovered he could get awesomely bad reviews, too.
Today's novelists ought to be much more sophisticated about movie and TV adaptations of their works since selling movie rights is the ambition of every literary agent in America. But some are relaxed about what Hollywood does to their work and others aren't.
The most-filmed horror novelist of his time is undoubtedly Stephen King, with more than 30 film or TV versions of his books and short stories since "Carrie" in 1976. By now, one would think he'd have learned to take the money and run. Actually, he has, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get pushed out of shape about it now and then.
For instance, King was thrilled that the great Stanley Kubrick decided to make a film of his "The Shining" in 1980, but was less thrilled at the final result, which left out some of his favorite things, like the animal-shaped hedges that come to life, and the complete subtext of the novel, which was King's way of showing what it's like to live with an alcoholic father.
Result: King later wrote his own adaptation of "The Shining," which was done to his satisfaction by ABC as a television miniseries.
Overall, I'd say King has fared fairly well with the screen adaptations of his work. Brian DePalma's "Carrie" was very good and collected lots of Oscar nominations. Rob Reiner's "Misery" was an excellent version of King's novel and earned a Best Actress Oscar for Kathy Bates. Reiner's "Stand By Me," adapted from King's novella "The Body," also was an excellent film.
I'm also fond of Tobe Hooper's "Salem's Lot," done for CBS as a TV miniseries; "Cujo," the exciting 1983 film by Lewis Teague; "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), Frank Darabont's film of a non-horror novella; "The Green Mile," Darabont's 1999 film; "Dolores Claiborne," Taylor Hackford's 1995 film, and a few others.
So, all in all, I'd say King's screen record certainly is better than any of his contemporaries. Some of the bum movies made from his stuff wasn't all the filmmakers' fault either.
Another mighty presence on the bestseller lists has been Anne Rice, whose "Vampire Chronicles" or "Witches" series might have been a couple of great TV miniseries franchises, if networks weren't quite so timid about doing them right. So far, only her "Interview with the Vampire," "The Vampire Lestat" and "Queen of the Damned" have been filmed, the latter two combined into one poorly-received movie called "Queen of the Damned" (2002).
I was disappointed with the movie version of "Interview with the Vampire," which I thought was a bright and original novel. Most of the criticism levelled at the 1994 Neil Jordan film had to do with casting Tom Cruise as Lestat. He wasn't my idea of Lestat, either, but I think Cruise is a hard-working actor who was convincing in the part. In fact, I think the modest box office response might have been a lot more modest if Cruise had been left out of the picture.
As for "Queen of the Damned," I agree with most of the critics who thought it was a sort of giant vampire music video--Lestat becomes a rock star in the Gothic mold--but I still found lots to enjoy in it. Stuart Townsend worked for me as Lestat and the sexy, electric Aaliyah, who was killed in an accident right after finishing the film, had one great sequence as the ancient vampiress Akasha where she struts her way through a vampire disco, incinerating insolent young vampires by the score.
The other great horror novelist of the era is Dean C. Koontz, who has been filmed a lot more times than you'd think, but almost universally badly. Fortunately, the book that's my favorite of all his works, "Intensity," was turned into a two-part movie by the Fox network that I still consider the scariest horror movie ever done on television.
Perhaps the biggest problem with adapting Koontz is that the really great filmmakers of his time haven't been attracted to his books the way they've come to Stephen King's works. In the hands of uninspired hacks, the Koontz novels can come off laughable because of his fanciful plots. Great filmmakers can take something like King's "The Green Mile," which borders on the absurd, and see the great artistic vision within, but Koontz hasn't been so lucky.
Case in point: Koontz adapted his own "Phantoms" for the 1998 film, but director Joe Chappelle really muffed it, even with such talents as Ben Affleck and Peter O'Toole on hand. Some of Koontz' scarier novels remain unfilmed, so maybe somebody will figure him out one of these days and start making up for lost time.
Kenneth Branagh? Where
are you, man? You did it for Mary Shelley. Now others need your
help.
© 2002 by Ron Miller.
The Ron Miller caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo
of Aaliyah is from the "Queen of the Damned" DVD from
Warner Bros. Home Video.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
teaches classes in mystery and related topics at Whatcom Community
College and Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
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