Review Time: “Creepshow”

“Creepshow” is a 1982 cult classic horror anthology film directed by George A. Romero (RIP) and written by Stephen King. This is the comic adaptation of the movie with illustrations from Bernie Wrightson (RIP).

Gallery 13 published this graphic novel edition of “Creepshow” in 2017, and it is entertaining for sure. We get to see The Creep, with his hooded decaying face, introduce and close out each story with his classic “heh-heh” laugh.

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I enjoyed the illustrations a whole hell of a lot, and the stories were fun as well. In the end, the movie was just a better medium though. Below, I’ll go into each story a little bit, but my advice: skip the comic and watch the movie. Really, only get this if you want the art because it is something special.

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“Father’s Day”

This is a twisted tale about a family reunion where the members discuss their crazy aunt who killed her just as crazy father seven years ago. The aunt visits her fathers grave every Father’s Day at 4 pm sharp. This year however, daddy decides to dig his way to the surface.

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Zombie dad runs around asking for cake and killing the family members. It’s a great time.

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“It’s Father’s Day and I want my cake!! And I mean to have it!!”

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“The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”

In the film, Stephen King himself played ole Jordy. Jordy, a simple man, lives by himself in the middle of nowhere. One night he sees a meteor crash into his property. He goes to inspect it and gets infected with what looks like grass.

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Jordy has visions of selling the meteor and when snapped back to reality he realized the alien grass is spreading. The itching becomes unbearable for poor Jordy and the grass spreads to cover his entire body. He eventually kills himself and we see his entire house and lawn are now covered in the alien grass.

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“The Crate”

This is my favorite from the anthology. A janitor finds a mysterious crate at a University. He calls one of the professors to come check it out. The janitor and professor open the crate. The janitor reaches his hand inside and gets sucked in by a mysterious beast.

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The professor runs for help and finds a student who also investigates the crate and also gets attacked by the beast. The professor then goes to his co-worker’s house, tells him the story of the crate. Mr. co-worker decides to get a little revenge on his cheating wife and tricks her into checking out the crate. You can probably guess the result for the Missus. After she gets torn up, the professors lock the crate up and sink it.

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“Something To Tide You Over”

We start out seeing a man’s head in the sand… he is buried up to his neck at the beach. This turns out to be a revenge tactic. The man had relations with Richard’s wife. Richard buried the man, Harry, and Becky (the wife) both up to their necks in the sand. He set up television screens and cameras in front of both of their faces, so they could watch each other drown as the tide came in.

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While they watched each other, Richard watched them die from the comfort of his home. After watching them die, Richard takes a shower. While showering, zombie Becky and Harry arrive and bury Richard up to his neck on the beach.

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“They’re Creeping Up On You”

This one gives you the creepy-crawlies for sure. A man living in his spotless apartment begins having trouble with roaches. As he battles the roaches, the city experiences a blackout. During this blackout, the apartment is infested with roaches. When the lights turn back on, there are no more bugs… except for the millions escaping from the dead man’s mouth.

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“Creepshow” was very enjoyable, but I the comic format only served as a good visual, it wasn’t very fun to read. My rating may seem generous based on what I’ve said, but I do like all the stories and the movie is just so awesome. It is a cult classic for a reason and I highly recommend it.

4 out of 5

“The Tommyknockers” and “The Stand” Join the List of Upcoming Stephen King Adaptations

“The Tommyknockers” and “The Stand” are set to hit theaters and TV screens in the coming years, exciting King fans everywhere.

After the announcement that King’s narrative poem “The Bone Church” was going to be a TV show, news of more adaptations were quiet. Enter James Wan, Roy Lee, Larry Sanitsky, Josh Boone and CBS.

On March 29, Wan and Lee announced they were teaming up with Sanitsky to create a movie adaptation for Stephen King’s novel, “The Tommyknockers.”

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“The Tommyknockers” is a 563 page novel released in 1987 about a woman who finds a spaceship buried in her backyard. Through the process of trying to unearth the UFO, an unseen gas is emitted and begins to possess and change the inhabitants of Haven, Maine.

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The novel has heavy themes surrounding addiction and often feels disorganized. King said he wrote the novel with bloody tissues hanging from his nose due to too much cocaine use.

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I enjoyed it though, in all its jumbled weirdness. It was a fun, unique and overall a great novel that also carried heavy themes of redemption. I gave it a 4 out of 5 and have it ranked 46 out of 63.

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James Wan, known for his work on “The Conjuring” films, and Roy Lee who helped produce the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s “IT,” have joined Larry Sanitsky who worked on the first adaptation of “The Tommyknockers” which hit TV screens everywhere in 1993. The trio plan to turn the novel into a movie.

The first attempt at an adaptation was hindered by the television platform. Hopefully with Sanitsky’s past experience with “The Tommyknockers” material, Wan’s success in the horror genre, and Lee’s success with King’s material, the trio can give us the worthy adaptation “The Tommyknockers” deserves.

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In other, bigger news (yes, bigger), another, much more important King novel, is also being adapted.

One day after the “Tommyknockers” announcement, word of a new adaptation for King’s epic novel “The Stand” hit constant readers in the face.

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OMG WHO’S PUMPED?!?! I KNOW I AM!!!

“The Stand” was reportedly picked up by CBS’s streaming service, All Access, for a 10-hour series. Josh Boone, whose past work includes “The Fault in Our Stars” and the upcoming X-Men horror, “The New Mutants,” has been attached to the project since 2014, and is still slated to direct the series.

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Stephen King first released “The Stand” in 1978 and the novel tallied in at 823 pages. In 1990 he released an uncut edition which was 1152 pages long. I haven’t read the original, I only read the uncut edition, and it is PHENOMENAL. 5 out of 5, and lands at number 3 in my rankings.

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“The Stand” is about a super-flu called Captain Tripps that wipes out almost the entire world population. The novel focuses on the epic battle between good vs evil and how their forces gather and then meet in a wild final showdown.

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“The Stand” is where we are introduced to one of the most, if not THE most famous King villain: Randall Flagg.

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The novel is epic and the original 1994 TV series directed by Mick Garris, starring Molly Ringwald and Gary Sinise, came in at just over six hours and didn’t do the novel justice whatsoever. The series wasn’t horrible by any means, but it wasn’t good either.

Hopefully Boone does better, and I think with four more hours to work with, better technology and most likely a bigger budget; things should definitely go better this time around. *Fingers Crossed*

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So, to recap: read “The Tommyknockers” and “The Stand” BEFORE the adaptations release. They are both great novels, especially “The Stand.” You won’t regret it, and remember: The book is almost always better than the movie!

Stay tuned for updates, and be sure to follow for more news and reviews!

Review Time: “’Salem’s Lot”

I reread Stephen King’s second novel, “’Salem’s Lot,” and I am very glad I did. Here’s my review of my second trip to the Lot:

Talk about a creepy novel. I read “’Salem’s Lot” for the first time four years ago. At the time, it was my 4th King novel. I am on #64 (“Rose Madder”) now, so yeah, it was time to reread King’s classic Vampire tale and wow, am I glad I did.

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“’Salem’s Lot” was the second novel King ever published. Released in 1975, this chilling 439 page novel tells the story of writer Ben Mears returning to his childhood hometown, Jerusalem’s Lot, looking for inspiration for his next novel.

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While there, he learns two strangers have purchased the haunted Marsten House overlooking the town. Strange things start to happen around the Lot; dogs hang from funeral fences, people get sick and others go missing.

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Ben falls in love with Susan Norton, befriends a Doctor: Jimmy Cody, a teacher: Matt Burke, a priest: Father Donald Callahan, and a young boy: Mark Petrie. Together they witness the destruction of their little Maine town and decide to fight back.

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As usual, King’s characters are superb. Ben Mears is an excellent protagonist, and the amazing antagonist combo of Barlow and Straker are cunning and chilling.

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Susan is a strong character although if King rewrote this book today, I’m sure he would do a better job making readers feel attached to her.

Matt Burke is possibly one of the most underrated and underappreciated characters King has ever written.

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Dr. Jimmy Cody turns into a very likable and strong character, but King waited until over halfway through to bring Cody to the novel’s center.

Callahan is awesome. He’s a priest at the local Catholic Church in the Lot, and he ends up being a very brave and awesome character. *Spoiler* Callahan also makes an appearance in another King series. *End Spoiler*

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Mark Petrie is a great character too. King has shown an uncanny ability to write strong younger characters, and Mark was truly the first of many.

King wrote an excellent Vampire tale here, and the slow burn he applies to readers throughout the novel’s entirety is incredible.

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This is probably one of King’s scariest novels to date just by pure creepiness and suspense. You’ll be rocking goosebumps the whole time reading it.

The way King makes his constant readers feel like they are citizens of the town is amazing. He writes from the perspective of the entire Lot at times, giving quick glimpses into everyone’s lives; the good, the bad, the ugly, the innocent, and the sinister.

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“’Salem’s Lot” has been adapted into two, three-hour TV movies. One in 1979 and another in 2004. Neither do the book justice (as expected), but they are both worth watching for different reasons.

The 1979 “’Salem’s Lot” was a very creepy film, a great horror movie itself, but overall a poor adaptation of the novel. The movie eliminated a lot of the characters and changed Matt’s name to Jason *(this pisses me off a lot more than it should, but COME ON why do that?? What is the reasoning for that??)*… sorry, rant over.

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Anyway, the movie also turned Barlow into some weird, bald, blue creature which is just… wrong… creepy… but wrong. This movie gave us an awful Callahan which was lame too.

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Overall the 1979 movie was creepy and definitely captured the atmosphere of the book, but the changes left me disappointed, so I give it a 6 out of 10.

The 2004 “’Salem’s Lot” stuck to the book a lot better than the original. Rob Lowe was an excellent Ben Mears in appearance only, and this movie actually kept Matt’s name (hallelujah). They did, however, change the beginning and ending which both weren’t great in the movie but were in the book (surprise surprise), so why change it you know?

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We got a much better, more true Barlow and Callahan in the 2004 movie, but it was actually pretty boring at times and I never felt bored reading the novel, so there was definitely a disconnect somewhere. Overall it was a decent adaptation but a cheesy and boring film so I gave it a 6 out of 10 also.

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Anyway, back to the important matter here; the incredible novel:

I absolutely loved King’s take on vampires and the slow burn was the perfect way to write it. He even wrote prequel and sequel short stories to “’Salem’s Lot” in his 1977 collection of short stories, “Night Shift.” “Jerusalem’s Lot” tells the tale of the Lot’s haunted past while “One for the Road” tells readers a story only a few months after the events of “’Salem’s Lot.”

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I have “’Salem’s Lot” ranked 7th in my Stephen King rankings, and the reread only solidified that position. This is truly a masterpiece and I highly recommend everyone check it out.

5 out of 5

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