1408

The book: Stephen King's 1408 first appeared in his non-fiction book On Writing as an example of how a book develops from first to second draft. King decided to expand it into a short story, which was then published in the collection Everything's Eventual (2003) along with 13 other stories. Before that, it appeared in an audio book called Blood and Smoke (1999).

The movie: 1408 came out in 2007. The screenplay was written by Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. The movie was directed by Mikael Håfström and starred John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.

Plot/character differences: The basic idea of "horror writer who believes in nothing enters haunted hotel room" is the same in both, but the details are very different. The story in the book is pretty short and relies mainly on atmosphere; there isn't a lot of plot there, and the part where Mike stays in the room is quite short. We don't find out much about his life either before or after entering the room. In the movie, Mike's life story is explored in more detail, and it also affects his hallucinations in the room. The plot about the dead daughter and estranged wife only exists in the movie, just like the father in an institution and the first "serious" book he wrote. There are two alternate endings, neither of which is exactly the same as in the book. In the short story, Mike escapes the room but is left with burns, traumas and health problems, including a complete inability to write. In the movie, however, Mike either dies in the room (director's cut) or escapes to write a book about his experiences (theatrical version).

Besides adding the ex-wife, daughter and father, there aren't too many character differences. The agent is expanded into a much more interesting character, and the timid but earnest hotel manager is changed into a very confident and pretty ominous one. The main focus, however, remains on the character of Mike Enslin who stays pretty true to the book's description.

Author opinion: The script was sent to Stephen King for approval before making the movie, and he okayed it. That's all I know about it. Apparently the filmmakers are King fans, and John Cusack praised him as a genius at writing characters.

My opinion:
This may not be the most faithful King adaptation in terms of plot and characters, but it is one of the most faithful adaptations of the mood of a story. The film 1408 left me with the same dreary feeling as the short story; both stayed in my mind for a while, and both are somehow fundamentally depressing, yet also fascinating.

I saw the movie first, and my initial reaction to the short story was amazement at how different the stories were. The original is quite short and concise, and doesn't give a very long account of Mike's stay in the room. The movie focuses almost exclusively on his time in the room and only gives a short, not-in-the-book interlude where Mike visits another "haunted" hotel and talks about his lack of faith in a book signing.

What bugs me is that the movie doesn't share the book's subtlety. The vaguely menacing air of the room is almost ruined with full-on scares and special effects. There are lots of things that never took place in the book: "No one's lasted more than an hour." The clock radio. The woman with the hammer. Mike seeing himself on the other side of the street (which I liked, actually). The rest of the building disappearing completely. And on and on. Yet some of the most efficient scares in the book - for example, Mike's cut-off head appearing in one of the paintings or the menu with changing courses - are not used. The paintings do turn scary, but somehow it's not executed as well as I'd like; I would have preferred to see the haunting painting with yellowy fruit that was so important in the book. The paintings in the book weren't intrinsically scary, but they had a haunting air about them, something that didn't really come across in the movie, as the paintings were mundane and something you'd normally see in a hotel room. Some great visual opportunities have been lost. Some of the book elements are oddly placed, like the phrase about wolves eating Mike's brother. The effect is not half as strong as it is in the short story, because there's no context to support it.

The acting is superb, not always a given in a Stephen King movie. Mike Enslin is rendered well by John Cusack, and I actually found myself liking him. I rarely like horror movie characters, because they tend to be idiots who go into dangerous places after many warnings and get themselves killed. In this case, however, it seemed to make sense. Mike Enslin has been to too many scary places. He doesn't believe in ghosts. He has no reason to fear room 1408 any more than any other room he's been to. This was well argumented in the book, and it's well argumented in the movie.

1408 the movie isn't a masterpiece, but it's a decent adaptation of a good story. I hope we'll also get to see an adaptation of my favorite story in the same book, Everything's Eventual.

The Shining, Part 2: King's Version

The book: see previous post.

The movie: Stephen King wanted to make a more faithful adaptation of her own novel, and ended up writing this three-part miniseries. Directed by Mick Garris, Stephen King's The Shining came out in 1997. The leading roles were taken over by Steven Weber, Rebecca DeMornay and Courtland Meade. It's an adaptation and not a remake of Kubrick's version, but the comparisons are inevitable, so I'm going to keep making them.

Plot differences: The miniseries goes over pretty much all events in the book, with some minor scene omissions. The biggest omission, in my opinion, is the flashback to the night when Jack and his friend Al drove over someone - whose body they never found - and this made them seek help for their alcoholism. I thought this was an important event in the book, but for some reason, King has chosen to leave out most of the flashbacks. A more detailed account of why Jack beat up his student is also left out.

A scene is added to the end where we see Danny graduate, and it is revealed that "Tony" is in fact an older version of Danny (even if it's never explained how he went into the past to warn Danny). Danny also sees a vision of his dead father looking at him with pride. It's a bit after-the-fact, considering the book came out 20 years earlier, but since it's written by the original author, I'll give it a pass. It does give the movie a bit of closure and an uplifting ending - perhaps more so than the original ending of the book.

Character differences: Wendy's mother and Jack's student are mentioned, but not fleshed out much, in the miniseries. Again, this isn't much of a loss. I don't recall any other real omissions.

Author opinion: Written by the original author, who also provided a commentary track on the DVD. I haven't listened to it yet, but I might edit this part after I do, if he mentions any disappointments or particular delights in the miniseries.

My opinion:
Like I said in the previous post, I really like the book, and was sad to see how much Kubrick had omitted. But but. Making a literal translation isn't always the best way to make a movie, and I stand by what I said in the Pet Sematary post: King can write books but not movie scripts. This isn't his worst, by any means, and compared to Pet Sematary, it's actually pretty good. But there are certain major flaws. The biggest one is that some things needed to be omitted to make the story fit into a miniseries arc, and I think King made the wrong choices there.

We didn't really need to know so much about the hotel or Denver croquet, or see the janitor blow his nose that many times. The first episode, in particular, suffers from too much focus on the hotel and too little on the family. Things start picking up in episode two, but the pacing is still a bit off. For a series airing once a week, it must have lost a lot of viewers after the first episode, because basically nothing was happening.

Pretty much everything I said about Kubrick's version applies here, only in reverse. We get to know the characters and empathize with them, and that makes the story more relatable. It was nice to see them go to the nearby city before the snow came, shopping and seeing a doctor and stuff, things a normal person would have done in that situation. The Kubrick movie made it seem like they spent the entire time at the hotel, even when it wasn't snowing yet. The family members' reactions to the events seem more realistic here, and the domestic violence and alcoholism are given much more focus. The characters become more alive, more real, than they were in the Kubrick version.

The horror part doesn't work equally well. The realistic, calm family scenes take away from the tension and fear, even after scary stuff starts happening. The visuals are poor and the CGI effects do nothing to scare me. I realize they worked with a much smaller budget, but they could have gone for a classier "less is more" approach and made the low budget look good, and they didn't. The attacking topiary, in particular, looks pathetically unreal - come on, the topiary in the book wasn't that scary anyway. They're made of twigs and leaves! How can they bite you? The depiction of Tony is pretty faithful to the book, but his hovering in the air is a lame visual gimmick. Even the hotel they used as the setting is far from impressive-looking. The camera keeps panning onto the furniture that moves ever-so-slightly by itself, but you can only do that so many times without annoying the viewer, if the furniture never does anything eevil. There's a lack of real scares.

There is one scene I want to praise, however, and that is the lady in the bath tub. Now this was scary with a capital S, much scarier than in Kubrick's film. The teaser scenes with Danny standing at the door, his irresistable urge to go in, and finally meeting the woman in the bath tub, all worked very well to create suspense and horror. The look of madness on the woman's face is so horrifying that I hardly slept at all the night I saw the miniseries. It really got under my skin. The scene where Jack goes back to check if there's something in that room is very scary too. Great work from King and Garris.

The casting, then. Jack Nicholson was too creepy and crazy-seeming; Steven Weber is too non-creepy in the beginning. He gives a surprisingly good madman performance, but his "nice Daddy" scenes are ruined with bad humor. I'm not sure if the one-liners and Elvis impersonations are ad-libbed or in the script, but they bug and serve to drag down the mood of the film. In addition, he acts like he's acting, which probably comes from his sitcom background. He's not awful, though; he's much better than Dale Midkiff in the lead of Pet Sematary. Maybe with different direction, he would have done a really good job. Rebecca DeMornay does a credible Wendy - and leaves a stronger impression than Shelly DuVall's version -, but she, too, is given annoying one-liners.

The biggest problem is Danny. Courtland Meade's performance leaves a lot to be desired. He overacts in almost every scene; I realize he's a child and it's a very difficult role to get right, but surely they could have found a better child actor for the role. Danny's central role in the story is somewhat ruined by Meade's acting, which is a shame. This is one clear shortcoming compared to the Kubrick version, where Danny Lloyd does a surprisingly good job in the role.

Also: "Kissing, kissing" - "That's what I've been missing". What the hell was that? It's not in the book, it makes no sense, it's a very lame way to show closeness between father and son. One of King's weaknesses as a script writer is adding corny little things like that. Those scenes take away from the credibility of the characters.

The miniseries has its moments, but as usual, the original book is the best way to get to the characters and the story.

The Shining, Part 1: Kubrick's Version

Book: The Shining (1977) is Stephen King's third novel, and according to Wikipedia, the one that established him as a popular author.

Movie: Stanley Kubrick's The Shining came out in 1980. The screenplay was written by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson. Starring Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall and Danny Lloyd, the movie became an instant classic and is still hailed as one of the best horror movies of all time. #57 on imdb's top 250.

Plot differences: The end credits hail King's The Shining as a "masterpiece of modern horror", which is slightly strange, considering how little of it was used in the screenplay. The movie skips quickly through the beginning, leaving out the entire backstory about Jack beating up a student, losing his job, running someone over with his car and denouncing alcohol. The story becomes sort of "normal man becomes haunted by evil hotel", while in the book, it seems to go deeper than that, into Jack's own demons that he hasn't dealt with. Jack's fascination with the hotel is there to some extent, but the "I'll write a book about the Overlook Hotel" plot is left out. The history of the hotel is not discussed in detail in the movie, which makes the terror of the evil room seem kind of random.

The ending is also changed, albeit not as much. In the end of the movie, Wendy and Danny escape through the mace, which doesn't exist in the book. Jack, after chasing them, freezes to death with a mad grin on his face. In the book, the hotel blows up, and while Wendy and Danny escape, Jack is left inside and dies with the hotel. In the movie, Jack kills Dick Hallorann rather abruptly, but in the book he lives and saves Wendy and Danny.

Character differences: Jack's friend Al, who got him the job, is not in the movie. Their past as drinking buddies turned AA buddies has been left out, which takes away some of the nuance in Jack's character too. A much stranger difference is that the hotel's general manager, Mr Ullman, is a very unlikeable character in the book. He's pompous and petty, rude to his staff and only seems to care about the hotel. He doesn't want to give Jack the job and almost fires him mid-way through the book. In the movie, he's a likeable, polite man who's only happy to give Jack this job. His warnings about the previous caretaker's death seem to be made with concern for Jack, not just the reputation of his hotel. I'm not sure why Kubrick chose to do it this way, and it takes away some of the tension Jack feels in the book. Wendy's nagging, superior mother and Jack's student who cost him his job are also left out of the movie, but this feels like a far less meaningful omission, as they only appeared in flashbacks in the book.

Author opinion: King was disappointed in Kubrick's take, because so few of the events and elements in the book were in the movie. He went on to make his own miniseries of the book, which I will discuss in the next post.

My opinion:
This is one case where I have a lot of respect for the book and the movie, even if they're good for very different reasons. The Shining is probably one of King's best novels. It's what he does best: describing a male author who struggles with his own demons while fighting a supernatural evil. Of course, the setting is pretty silly - who would take their child in the middle of nowhere when the father is an alcoholic and has rage issues? Pet Sematary had the "build a fence" issue, and this book has a similar glaring problem: don't go there and you'll be spared. But the characters are strong, and the story works on many levels. One of King's strong suits is inner dialogue, and in this book, the inner dialogue of the characters meshes constantly with the dark powers in the hotel trying to overtake their minds.

This is also one of Kubrick's best movies. He's in his own element, offering us horror through skillful visuals. The hotel set is magnificent: large, oppressive and with long hallways. Kubrick's use of colors, especially red, is an effective way of creating suspense in a horror film. I liked the subtle visual ideas: the disappearing/reappearing twins, the tricycle Danny rides through the long hallways, and particularly the mace, which I thought to be much more imposing than the attacking topiary in the book. Less is more, and this movie has achieved many scary scenes with relatively little special effects. The one thing I found a little lame is the blood gushing into the hotel hallway. It sort of loses meaning because it comes up three or so times throughout the movie; fake blood is the oldest trick in the book and not all that scary to a modern viewer. But it still manages to be somehow stylish. The "Red rum" scene where Danny goes into a trance is very effective and particularyl well acted by Danny Lloyd.

The big problem with the movie, however, is that Kubrick has basically thrown away most of the story. The setting and some of the key scenes are there, but that's about it. It doesn't ruin the movie - a part of making a good adaptation is having your own voice about it - but I do think some of the story would have deserved to be there. I'm talking particularly about the alcoholism, violence issues and marital problems. It's a long movie, but it feels a bit hurried due to the lack of character development and dialogue; they go into the hotel, it shows its scary side, the end. In a horror movie, there will be a lot of gasping and screaming. To make it seem real, you need to know the characters and relate to them. In this respect, Kubrick's movie falls slightly flat.

Another misgiving is the casting of the main character. Jack Nicholson is a good actor, but as Jack Torrance, he's pretty creepy from the start. His smile doesn't seem genuine, and he doesn't seem like a nice Dad. I think Jack Torrance needs to be a kind, likeable character whose darker side is only slowly revelead to the audience. I also agree with King that Nicholson's role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest might serve as a hint that the character will go crazy. In the book, I liked Jack Torrance. In the movie, I dislike him and have no sympathy for him.

I'm still not sure about the way they did Tony. In the book, Danny has visions of a young man named Tony who shows him scary things. In the movie, Tony speaks through Danny's mouth and pinky finger. It's a way of making Tony seem like a child's imaginary friend - until he starts showing Danny scary stuff. As such, this is effective - supernatural encounters explained away with a child's imagination are one of the constant themes in horror films, and usually it works well. However, the stuff Tony showed in the book was much more varied than just the frights of the hotel; Danny could read his parents' and others' thoughts and communicate telepathically. Some of that is in the movie: Dick Hallorann and Danny communicate telepathically, and Danny can also hear his parents arguing sometimes. But there don't seem to be any instances where he directly hears his parents' thoughts, and I thought this was a loss. One of the most touching things in the book for me was when Danny could hear scary words in his parents' heads - DIVORCE and SUICIDE - without really understanding what they entail. His confusion over the parents' marriage is pretty much left out of the movie altogether.

The movie is more visual than verbal, and the omission of much of the dialogue and backstory makes it Kubrick's story rather than King's. However, it amplifies the horror in some scenes; while the book is story-scare-story-scare, the movie is at times scare-scare-scare, which is probably what made it popular in the first place. Both the book and movie work well on their own levels, but because of all the omissions mentioned above, I much prefer the book.

Pet Sematary

Book: One of Stephen King's most popular novels, Pet Sematary came out in 1983. It relates the story of doctor Louis Creed and his family that faces a young son's death - a son Louis later revives at an ancient Indian burial ground.

Movie: Also titled Pet Sematary, and came out in 1989. Stephen King wrote the screenplay himself; the director of the movie was Mary Lambert. Starring Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby.

Plot differences: The basic plot is the exact same as in the book. However, minor differences include the omission of Norma Crandall and her death, which is replaced with the suicide of babysitter Missy Dandrige, and more appearances by the ghost of Victor Pascow.

Character differences: Norma Crandall, Jud's wife, is completely omitted from the movie. Steve Masterton, a friend of Louis', has a reduced role. Missy Dandrige, who is only mentioned in passing in the novel, has a wider role and a completely different, hypochondriac personality.

Author opinion: Stephen King was probably happy with this, since he wrote it himself. He was tired of seeing his films adapted by others, and wanted to have a say in the matter.

My opinion:
Stephen King cannot write movie scripts, end of story. I haven't seen one TV movie, miniseries or feature film written by King that was any good. He's good at writing horror novels; Pet Sematary is one of his best books, and the concept of an unnatural child coming back from the dead is carried out well in the novel. However, he completely butchers his own concept in the movie.

Firstly, the dead speak in the novel. They say horrifying things about living people, telling them their sins and the bad things others think of them. Gage, the dead little boy, tells Jud Crandall that his wife cheated on him and laughed at him with all of his friends. This is unnatural and disgusting coming from a child, and it makes Gage scary. But what does he do in the movie? He talks in a childish voice, asks people to come play with him, grimaces with a knife in his hand. Zelda and Victor Pascow are at least scary in the movie, but Gage is just childish.

From the Wikipedia entry:

In addition, the movie glosses over the concept of the Wendigo in the forest, and completely skips over the implication that there is a singular, specific intelligence which guides the resurrected creatures and speaks through them.

Now, the idea of a specific intelligence behind the evil is much scarier than what happens in the movie. Jud Crandall relates the story of young Billy, who was resurrected by his father, but like Gage, he is much scarier in the book than in the movie. In the book, he speaks terrible things to people and knows all about them. In the movie, he shouts, "Love death! Hate living!" Ehh?

Secondly, the omission of Norma Crandall is very weird. Her death in the book gives a feel of natural death, dying from old age, as opposed to Gage's unexpected and terrifying death. King doesn't seem to realize that this is necessary to ground the story somewhat in the reality of death.

Thirdly, the dialogue is so cheesy. It's very difficult to buy a horror movie where the dialogue constantly takes your focus away from "oo, creepy" and back to "hee, kitschy". The scenes in the book have been transformed into unbelievably corny movie moments. The beginning is a good example. I'm going to quote my own recap of the movie:

Ellie runs off somewhere, and Rachel and Louis walk up to the house. "So...?" says Louis cornily, expecting a positive response, even if Louis in the book felt nervous and anxious about Rachel's response. I think Dale Midkiff is trying to portray "nervous and anxious", but comes up with "hey, look what I got you, don't you just love it?" Ridiculous soap opera music swells up as Rachel declares, "It's gorgeous!!" with the overdramatic tone usually reserved for messages like "I'm pregnant!" They hug and Louis laughs.

I assure you I'm not exaggerating here. It really is that bad. In the book, Louis is so tired of his family that he's contemplating just taking off without them and driving into the sunset all by himself. But in the movie, it's all "Look what I got you honey". I don't know why King chose to write the movie like this, but it's very difficult to buy.

The fourth glaring problem has nothing to do with King or his script. The acting is just really bad. Dale Midkiff is horrible as Louis Creed, a role that would demand some depth from an actor. You need to embrace not only joy and "family man" qualities, but also grief, fear, and being more or less possessed by an evil force that wants you to revive your loved ones. Dale Midkiff gives us *blank stare* through most of it. That doesn't cut it. Fred Gwynne is good as Jud Crandall, but everyone else pretty much hams their way through it. There's the scene of Gage's death, which should be tragic - but what does Dale Midkiff do? He shouts "NNOOOOOOOOO!!!" in the corniest, longest possible way. And they show still pictures during it. Of Gage as a baby. What the fuck was that? Was it Stephen King or Mary Lambert that decided this was a good idea? It totally ruins the tragedy of the moment. The subsequent grief is fast-forwarded over, it seems, and we jump straight to the horror part. That also takes away some of the power of the story.

I did find the film scary at times. The horror scenes mostly still work, and Zelda is really terrifying, as she should be. However, with some of the deeper levels of the book taken away, some of the horror is also lost. The film is helplessly 80's, helplessly time-stamped and kitschy, and very difficult to take seriously. Which is a shame, because I do think it's a good book. Sadly, there was also a low-quality sequel with different characters, directed by Mary Lambert, but this time written by Richard Outten. I haven't seen the sequel, but it has a 3.9 rating on imdb.com (the first movie has 6.1), which says a lot.

I'm intrigued about the new version someone's making for next year. The details are in imdb pro, which I'm not willing to pay for, but it's there for those of you with a membership. Let's hope they got it right this time!