Secret Window

Year 2, Day 302 - 10/29/10 - Movie #668

BEFORE: This is my last film based on a Stephen King story - for now, anyway. Of course there were highs and lows, and a number of very prominent directors - Kubrick, Rob Reiner, David Cronenberg, George Romero, and John Carpenter. I probably should have mentioned them each at the time, but I haven't been in the habit of name-checking directors - maybe that's a mistake on my part. And I didn't get to "Cujo", "Needful Things", "Salem's Lot", "Pet Sematary", and several others - so I guess I'm leaving the door open, but before next Halloween I'm hoping to have hit the 1,000 movie mark and be on some form of hiatus.

Tonight's film also focuses on an author as the central character - and once Shock-Tober is over, I'm going to pick up that thread again, at least for a few days.

THE PLOT: A writer is accused for plagiarism by a strange man, who then starts haunting him for "justice."

AFTER: There are a great many things in common between last night's film and tonight's film - both films showcase a troubled yet successful author, who is tormented by a stranger that seems to be killing people who are close to him. But in a way they're like reflections of each other, since in last night's film it SEEMED like a Jekyll-and-Hyde situation, some kind of split personality in the main character, but the reality (if you can call it that...) turned out to be something quite different.

There's a certain arrogance to a twist ending - when done well, it might force you to re-evaluate the parts of the movie that preceded it. But too much of a twist often seems like a giant "F-You" to the audience. I'm dancing around the big reveal here, because I like to at least TRY to maintain a spoiler-free zone.

But if the main character here, Mort Rainey, starts to develop a SIXTH SENSE about the PSYCHO that's stalking him, it might make him want to FIGHT back with a CLUB. Damn, is that too obvious?

Divorce, infidelity, writer's block - what causes a man to snap? I guess take your pick - throw in alcoholism, trying to quit smoking, and being in a cabin out in the woods, and there's no shortage of triggers. But does it all add up in the end? I'm not so sure. You always here about the guy on the news who loses it and kills twelve people, and his neighbors say things like "He was a nice guy, kept to himself, didn't make much noise..." Once, just once, that's all I ask, I want to see someone being interviewed on the news saying, "Yeah, that guy was just wound way too tight...we all figured he'd kill a bunch of people some day, and we just tried to stay out of his way."

NITPICK POINT #1 - When presented with an accusation of plagiarism, Mort compares a story side-by-side with his own. Wouldn't he be familiar with a story that he wrote himself? Shouldn't he be able to instantly recognize the similarity to his own story, or at least to his writing style? Why the need to break it down, sentence by sentence? If the prose is so good, why isn't it memorable?

NITPICK POINT #2 - Mort very prominently picks up a UPS package at the local post office - which is impossible, according to the policies of both the UPS and the USPS. In fact, a postal worker even comments how this is both unusual, and against the rules. So why write it into the script, only to point out its implausibility? Why not have the package shipped via Express Mail, or have him pick it up at the UPS Store?

They say March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb. This October came in like Jack Nicholson, and is going out like Johnny Depp...

Also starring Timothy Hutton (carrying over from last night, nice...), John Turturro (last seen in "Clockers"), Maria Bello (last seen in "Thank You for Smoking"), Charles S. Dutton (last seen in "Q&A"), and Len Cariou (last seen in "About Schmidt") as tonight's ineffectual small-town sheriff.

RATING: 6 out of 10 screwdrivers

SPOOK-O-METER: 8 out of 10. Scary to think what troubles lurk in the hearts of men...

The Dark Half

Year 2, Day 301 - 10/28/10 - Movie #667

BEFORE: I'm getting a late start tonight, since "It" went into overtime and had to be finished the following day - plus I got a chance to go see the Pee-Wee Herman show on Broadway, then went out for a bit of food after. Stephen King week is winding down, but there are still a couple more films that focus on writers and the creative process.

THE PLOT: A writer's fictional alter-ego wants to take over his life...at any price.

AFTER: At first this seems like a typical Jekyll & Hyde story - a writer, Thad Beaumont, who publishes stories under two names (much like a certain Stephen King/Richard Bachman) is suspected in a string of murders - and his alibis don't seem to add up. The simplest explanation would seem to be a split personality (again, not schizophrenia, that's different...) where the dominant entity experiences blackouts, while the "dark" personality commits the crimes.

The trigger seems to be an obsessive fan, who figures out the author's pen-name alter ego, and threatens to expose him. But that seems too easy, too explainable - and the movie then chooses to go in directions that defy all rational logic and sensible explanation.

So the next best theory is, it's got something to do with the tumor/undeveloped fetus that was removed from Beaumont's head when he was a small boy - and sparrows, and a staged funeral, and some cryptic messages...arrgh, what's the connection?

In the end it felt like this was a movie that couldn't decide what it wanted to be - the rules got changed so many times, and each time it pushed the film off on a different vector, which contradicted the ones that had gone before it. By the end I couldn't tell you what was real and what wasn't, what had happened and what hadn't.

Starring Timothy Hutton (last seen in "The Falcon and the Snowman"), Amy Madigan (last seen in "Gone Baby Gone"), Michael Rooker (last seen in "The 6th Day"), Robert Joy (last seen in "Fallen"), and Tom Mardirosian (last seen in "Lady in the Water").

RATING: 4 out of 10 typewriters

SPOOK-O-METER: 5 out of 10 - a couple of gruesome murders, and serial killers are always scary - but not if they're not real, right?

It

Year 2, Day 300 - 10/27/10 - Movie #666

BEFORE: Oh, I've been agonizing over this one, ever since realizing, months ago, that movie #666, the most evil number of all, the number of the Beast, would fall in the month of October in Year 2. I wanted to find a movie that best represented pure evil - the most obvious choice was "The Omen", since Damien, the Antichrist, had the 666 birthmark - but when I blocked out the schedule, that film series fit better in mid-October, not late October. That left the Stephen King chain for the end of the month - but which film based on a Stephen King story would be most appropriate? The best choice there was "Needful Things", since I believe that Satan is an actual character in that film - great, except I don't have a copy of that film. So I'm bending the rules to allow in another TV movie - but one that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid - at least the parts that I saw through my hands, as I covered my eyes...

THE PLOT: In 1960, seven outcast kids known as "The Loser Club" fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. 30 years later, they are called back to fight the same clown again.

AFTER: When you're a kid with an active imagination, as I was, anything can be scary - a dark basement, a shower drain, a janitor's closet - and yes, overly friendly clowns. While I've never really had a fear of clowns - but Pennywise from this film could change that. This film features many other things beside clowns that represent basic fears - fear of the dark, fear of bullies, fear of spiders, even fear of commitment... I regretted seeing "Poltergeist" as a teenager, because it sort of used the same scattershot approach, and I ended up with fears of trees, fears of sitting too close to the TV, fears of Indian burial grounds, and fears of tearing my face off while looking into the mirror. (Thanks a lot, "Poltergeist"...)

Pennywise is a demon that seems to alternate between scaring people with their greatest fears, and appearing as things that seem very inviting - like, a clown with a balloon. What kid doesn't like balloons, and the promise of circus fun - rides, attractions, candy, etc. I've always felt that if the devil exists, he won't appear to you in a red leotard, with horns and a forked tail - no, he'll look like your best friend, or maybe a really hot chick. Seduction leads to corruption, which leads to ruin...the suggestion is that Pennywise has managed to seduce and corrupt almost the entire town of Derry, Maine.

This film is long (3 hours, which I assume was stretched into 4 hours with commercials, airing on TV over 2 nights) and split into two parts - one told in flashback, as 7 kids meet, band together (it's almost similar in tone to "Stand By Me" in places) and then battle Pennywise, who they assume is behind the numerous murders of the town's children. The famous adult actors don't do much in Part 1 except for answering the phone, and looking terrified as they each recall their childhood experiences - which are neatly arranged in sequence to give us the whole back-story (thankfully the old friends were contacted in the proper order so we wouldn't get confused).

In Part 2, the adults return to Derry to decide if they need to battle the evil clown again. Bear in mind that at the time, these were mainly "TV Actors" who were trying to stretch beyond sitcoms like "Three's Company" and "WKRP in Cincinnati" and light dramas like "The Waltons". However, they weren't always up to the task - the kid actors seemed capable of doing more heavy lifting - unless the goal was to show how deadpan and unexciting these kids grew up to be, perhaps haunted by their scary pasts?

No, the implications seem to be that the kids who left town became quite successful in their chosen professions - one's a stand-up comic, one's a fashion designer, one's an architect, and one's even a horror writer, something of an analog for Stephen King himself (he's the author of a book called "The Glowing", an obvious nod to "The Shining"). Which is great for me, because last night's film was a King story about a writer, and so is tomorrow's movie...

Unfortunately, nostalgia and abject terror do NOT go together like peanut butter and chocolate. The reminiscing seemed a bit forced - hey, let's forget about the demon for a minute and catch up on old times! Umm, like that time we fought the demon? Oh, yeah - and we're back to that. Also, it takes the grown-ups WAY to long to all straggle into town, get themselves organized, and decide what to do - which we all know is coming anyway. But I guess they had to fill two hours of prime time on the second night.

The casting of the young actors to match the old ones is mostly spot-on - I loved when they all recognized each other for the first time in 30 years, and they had to pretend like they didn't know right away who was who - oh, right, you were the black kid! Silly me...

Starring Tim Curry (I don't care about the billing, he's the real star of this film), Richard Thomas (last seen in "Wonder Boys"), John Ritter (last seen in "Noises Off"), Tim Reid, Annette O'Toole, Harry Anderson, Richard Masur (criminally underused here), Dennis Christopher, Olivia Hussey (last seen in "Death on the Nile") and the kids: Seth Green (last seen in "Be Cool"), Emily Perkins (last seen in "Ginger Snaps"), and Jonathan Brandis.

RATING: 7 out of 10 (points off for bad acting, bad pacing, and piss-poor special effects in the finale)

SPOOK-O-METER: 10 out of 10. Whatever you're afraid of, you'll probably find it in this movie. The scenes with Pennywise are all devious mind-f*cks that really hit home. This is as scary as I want it to get - OK, I'm sleeping with the lights on now, can Halloween season be over now?

Misery

Year 2, Day 299 - 10/26/10 - Movie #665

BEFORE: In this week's Stephen King spotlight, it's nice that the movies sort of arranged themselves into neat segments - curses, car accidents, and films about writing. Tonight an author gets into a car accident, so for me it's bridging two topics. Again, this is a film written years before King's own car accident...

THE PLOT: A famous novelist is "rescued" from a car crash by an obsessed fan.

AFTER: Forget the car accident - it seems like Mr. King, famous author, looked deep into his own psyche and wrote a story about his own greatest fear - an obsessive, demented fan. I happen to work in a small corner of the entertainment industry, and I can confirm (through observation, not experience...) that there are groupies in every segment. Obviously actor groupies, rock groupies, but also probably writer and director groupies as well. Heck, there are probably doctor, lawyer and fireman groupies, for all I know.

I've also met my share of mentally unbalanced people over the years, but that's another story...

On another note, I just spent three days in upstate New York, and while that's not the same as spending time in a remote, snowed-in cabin in Colorado, it was still more rustic than I'm used to. It's funny, I grew up in the suburbs outside Boston, but I couldn't wait to leave for the big city - now I visit small towns to relax, and I find them quite charming.

Of course, I wasn't injured and being held against my will. One comedian, I think Brett Butler, once said - city people will kill you, but country folk will KEEP you.

Yep, things move a little slower in a small town - which is why the town sheriff decides to track down the missing author by...reading all of his books? Huh? He might be starving and freezing to death, and you head to the bookstore? As opposed to, say, conducting a door-to-door search, or you know, asking around to see if anyone has seen anything suspicious...great job, sheriff! How long until you get around to some good old-fashioned legwork - weeks? Months?

Still, it's a gripping tale, very suspenseful - and it's essentially a guidebook for dealing with irrational people. How do you string them along until you can plan an escape route? And it's got one of the most gripping climaxes in the history of ever, so it's probably the winner of the week.

Starring James Caan (last seen in "Get Smart"), Kathy Bates (last seen in "About Schmidt"), Richard Farnsworth (last seen in "The Two Jakes"), Frances Sternhagen (last seen in "Bright Lights, Big City"), and Lauren Bacall (last seen in "To Have and Have Not"). And a quick cameo from J.T. Walsh (last seen in "Hoffa").

RATING: 7 out of 10 typewriter ribbons (funny, we never see him change the ribbon...)

SPOOK-O-METER: 8 out of 10. When a creepy fan has got you tied to the bed, that's just about one of the scariest situations imaginable...

Maximum Overdrive

Year 2, Day 298 - 10/25/10 - Movie #664

BEFORE: This plot seems like an extension of "Christine" - another case of motor vehicles coming to life and killing humans...

THE PLOT: A group of people try to survive when machines start to come alive and become homicidal.

AFTER: I know it's not designed to rival Shakespeare or anything, but still, there's not much plot to this movie. Problem arises, people find a way to deal with the problem - oh, and there's about an hour of movie in between those two things, which is how long it takes for people to figure out just what the heck is going on.

The first part is pretty gruesome - when the earth passes through the tail of a comet (again, playing fast and loose with astronomy since most comets aren't larger than planet Earth), the machines gain sentience, or at least the ability to turn themselves on and damage people. We see the aftermath - people dead from car crashes, hair-dryer accidents, etc.

Humanity is represented here by a number of people, mostly the staff and visitors at a truck stop, who hole up indoors, surrounded by patrolling trucks. Conveniently, the owner of the truck stop happens to also be a black-market arms dealer, so the humans do have the ability to fight back and blow stuff up.

It's an interesting concept, people being forced to rely on (relatively) low-tech solutions to battle their higher-tech machine-based overlords. Hey, it worked for the Ewoks in "Return of the Jedi", didn't it? However, I don't think the idea was fully explored - and having the humans broker a deal with the trucks to trade diesel fuel for their lives seems like something of a cop-out.

Stephen King directed, and appears in a cameo as a man insulted by an ATM at the start of the film. He's at least a better actor than the female lead, Laura Harrington - there's something wrong with the delivery of her lines that makes her sound like the way deaf people talk.

One question - how come we never see the cars come to life - why does it only seem to be trucks? Are cars not as "smart" as trucks, or just not as cinematic?

Starring Emilio Estevez (last seen in "Mission: Impossible"), Pat Hingle (last seen in "The Falcon and the Snowman"), Yeardley Smith (more famous for voicing Lisa Simpson), Frankie Faison (last seen in "Manhunter") and cameos from Giancarlo Esposito (last seen in "Ali") and Marla Maples.

RATING: 3 out of 10 rocket launchers

SPOOK-O-METER: 5 out of 10, for some grisly deaths and bloody truck assaults.

Christine

Year 2, Day 297 - 10/24/10 - Movie #663

BEFORE: Back home in Queens, we did a lot of driving today, back from lunch in Saratoga. So a film about a car is very appropriate.

THE PLOT: A nerdish boy buys a strange car with a evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.

AFTER: Essentially, this seems to be an almost identical plot to "Carrie" - an awkward teenager gets picked on by bullies, then gets his/her revenge - the main difference is that this time, the instrument of revenge is a 1958 Plymouth Fury.

The car in question has a killer personality, and is able to repair itself, which seems handy - but how exactly did it get possessed in the first place? We're led to believe that it somehow contains the spirit of a previous owner, but we also see the car on the assembly line, and it kills a few auto-workers, and that's before the car has any owner at all - so how does it happen?

I understand several subplots from the book were left out of the movie - here we're just supposed to assume that the car is "born" evil, rather than possessed? I think it's more correct to say that the car's new owner, Arnie, gets possessed by the spirit of the car.

Starring Keith Gordon (last seen in "Jaws 2", apparently), John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul (last seen in "Spy Hard"), Robert Prosky (last seen in "Hoffa"), and Harry Dean Stanton (last seen in "Man Trouble").

RATING: 4 out of 10 school lockers

SPOOK-O-METER: 6 out of 10. A demonic car, one that kills, is a great idea - way to take the commonplace and put an evil twist on it.