Tag: Stephen King

Movie Review: PET SEMATARY – The 2nd attempt to film Stephen King’s best novel makes a lot of changes, but few of them work.

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie Reviews9 Comments

I am a child of the 80s, and just like whichever decade your teen years were set, that is the era that defined me.  Part of that period in my life was where my affinity for the horror genre evolved, with the books of Stephen King maybe the largest single element.  Throughout that decade, with no internet to make things easy, I devoured not just his books, but also news of his books.  Each time I went into a book shop with the intent of picking up his newest release, I left in a hurry to get home to crack open the cover.  I remember calling the US telephone operator from my bedroom in Scotland around 1987 or so and actually getting the number of King’s Bangor mansion, but there was never an answer each time I called.  All this is to tell you that I was a big fan of King, to preface the review of 2019’s Pet Sematary.

Continue reading “Movie Review: PET SEMATARY – The 2nd attempt to film Stephen King’s best novel makes a lot of changes, but few of them work.” →

Movie Review: 1922 – Based on a Stephen King novella, this movie has good production values, but is smothered by terrible pacing

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie ReviewsLeave a comment

As someone who used to be a huge Stephen King fan, and is currently going through a kind of King renaissance thanks to Audible, I’m finding both why I liked King so much in my teens, and why I didn’t as I grew older: in terms of premise and plot I like King just fine, but when it comes to characters and exposition, his prose gets drowned, submerged as if wearing concrete shoes.  1922, a Netflix-released adaptation of the story in King’s Full Dark, No Stars collection feels pretty similar, but this time it’s the pace at which the story unfolds.

Continue reading “Movie Review: 1922 – Based on a Stephen King novella, this movie has good production values, but is smothered by terrible pacing” →

Movie Review: THE DARK TOWER – you don’t have to be a King fan to be offended by this horrendous adaptation or McConaughey’s insultingly bad performance.

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie Reviews4 Comments

I have no personal stake in The Dark Tower, I should say.  After trying numerous attempts to read The Gunslinger, book 1 of Stephen King’s magnum opus, I finally threw my hands up in defeat and gave up.  Not that I didn’t like King’s work at the time – quite the opposite, in fact.  In the mid to late 80s, I was a yuge fan of his work, and read his stuff voraciously, sometimes palpably impatient waiting for the books to finally be released in Scotland.  I still consider Pet Sematary one of my all time favourite books.  But when I tried to read The Dark Tower, it just didn’t feel like a Stephen King book.  A little later, me and Uncle Stevie just kind of drifted apart.  His work in the early 90s left me feeling unimpressed, so I stopped reading., and never got around to thinking of picking up the series again.

Continue reading “Movie Review: THE DARK TOWER – you don’t have to be a King fan to be offended by this horrendous adaptation or McConaughey’s insultingly bad performance.” →

Movie Review: IT – Very enjoyable adaptation of Stephen King’s iconic novel, but Super 8 and Stranger Things have stolen its mojo.

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie Reviews8 Comments

I read Stephen King’s seminal novel It as soon as the paperback dropped in Scotland, which would be around 1987.  I’d been on a voracious King kick ever since discovering his work in 1980, following the BBC broadcast of the Salem’s Lot miniseries.  King’s work was the perfect reading material for my teenage years, and with the exception of The Dark Tower series (which I’ve still never read), I consumed his books like fire engulfs dry wood.  I have a strong memory of being excited when I read of the then-upcoming novel.  Even the title – It – was evocative to me.  I was already well versed in the works of HP Lovecraft by the time I was 16, and the title, this one, simple little word, was something that Lovecraft would have used.  Oddly enough, as excited as I was to finally read the book, very few memories of actually reading it have remained (and I haven’t read it since), so my review of It, the 2017 movie, is probably going to sound ignorant to some of you.  🙂

Continue reading “Movie Review: IT – Very enjoyable adaptation of Stephen King’s iconic novel, but Super 8 and Stranger Things have stolen its mojo.” →

Movie Review: CELL

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie ReviewsLeave a comment

cell

Just like 28 Days Later, Cell is a zombie movie without being a zombie movie.  In the former, a fast-moving plague devastates the Earth, turning the afflicted into fast moving rage-monsters that might as well be zombies.  In the latter, a mysterious cellphone signal scrambles the brains of users, turning them at first into fast moving rage-monsters before then turning them into some kind of braindead hivemind somethings that just kind of walk around in groups.  I guess.

Continue reading “Movie Review: CELL” →