Monday, July 28, 2014
The Collection
Carrie Finished, Carrie Watched, a Few Words on the Nature of Horror and Then on to The Lot
I finished up the novel Carrie at the end of last week, officially reaching the first goal of 'Scott Reads Stephen King' which was, appropriately: read the first book. SPOILERS: I really loved the ending, the way Carrie almost mercifily did away with her mother by slowing her heart (a moment that was not represented in either of the film versions) and also Sue's mental connection to Carrie as Carrie slipped away (something that probably couldn't have been put in the films). These moments really made the whole book worth the read, being as there were no surprises coming plot-wise. So, one down, over fifty to go.
After I finished the book, I watched the new film version of Carrie. It was about what I expected. There was definitely a few things from the book that were included in this version that I appreciated (Carrie's birth, the raining of stones), but overall I found it to be like a lot of 'horror' that has come out of the Hollywood chute in the last few years. (And I know there's a lot of different kinds of horror going on at the moment, I'm just going to address the category that this new Carrie flick falls into.)
Some recent 'Horror' has become almost an escapist fantasy that bears no resemblance to the messy horror that actually scares people. The Twilight-espue re-imagining of vampires and the subsequent change in style of horror seems to have redefined the genre in a way that I (personally) am not super into. It is evident in the Carrie remake as much as it shows it's dirty face in schlock like Vampire Diaries or even True Blood.
These productions are slick looking junk with pretty people all wandering around in a high school girl's wet dream, making each other hot. I'm not afraid of a world where the digital photography is so pretty. It looks more like The Secret Garden than Texas Chainsaw. I'm not afraid for my characters living in this world because I know that it's just a movie and I can't ever escape that fact.
Likewise, the actors playing these characters, with their chiseled abs and bleach white smiles conjure absolutely no sympathy or worry as they strut through their scenes. Even that girl from Kick Ass seems too sure of herself in the role of Carrie White. I don't really care about the characters these actors are creating because they aren't realistic people, so I'm damn sure not afraid for them. Nobody actually looks like that.
I guess that the audience for modern horror has fundamentally changed. Maybe you can't make kids jump in their seats anymore, but it just doesn't seem like people are even trying. The things that made old school horror scary all had to do with avoiding predictability. The horror movies that get remembered create an environment where anything might happen. That's why messy movies like Texas Chainsaw get remembered. It's because that world is ugly. The people in it are real and confused and vulnerable to the terror that awaits them. And when the horror comes, the anticipation that has built in the audience's mind is suddenly and brutally realized. Leatherface smacks you with a hammer. Boom! We expected something bad, were afraid that it was coming, and it's still horrible. And it's horrible because it's happening to a person that very easily could have been us.
Likewise, this holds true with a little cleaner flick like Nightmare on Elm St. It's scary because we care about the people in the film (except maybe Tina) and we realize that there is no escaping Freddy. Everyone has to sleep. That could be US! We know that something bad is coming, that's really why we're here, and when Tina gets cut open and starts to swing around in mid air, we have been ushered by the filmmakers into being afraid for our new friends in the movie and for ourselves.
These new films and tv show have moved away from all of that. The environment created here is very nearly one that make the viewer say, "Man, I wish I WAS Carrie/Bella/Whatever-Other-Bull-Crap-Character-Is-'In-Danger'." And it's because these characters, for whatever supernatural force might be after them, still live in Kardashian-land. It's a world filled with non-stop pilates instructors, hunky dudes, swimming pools and mountain hikes with sparkly vampires during the day. It's not scary. I would totally take a windshield to the face to live in that world. And then, when the scares come, it's all just CG bull crap that doesn't seem real anyway. So, unless ILM is lurking after me in the middle of the day, I ain't scared of the events that go down and dust the characters that I have no bond with.
The reason that King's early works are so (actually) scary has to do with the same principals: attachment and anticipation. I've just started 'Salem's Lot and he's already gone to work on just those two things. The prologue reveals that The Lot has been obliterated. Something bad has happened there. Anticipation. Then, we go right into character development. I'm already behind the poor, flawed Ben and his rapidly growing group of fellow townspeople. I'm worrying about them because Mr. King is good at causing me to do so. Just like I worried about the Coreys in Lost Boys or John Harker in Dracula. Because I identify with them, I care about them, and I know that something bad is on the horizon for them and I'm not totally sure they'll make it through.
After I finished the book, I watched the new film version of Carrie. It was about what I expected. There was definitely a few things from the book that were included in this version that I appreciated (Carrie's birth, the raining of stones), but overall I found it to be like a lot of 'horror' that has come out of the Hollywood chute in the last few years. (And I know there's a lot of different kinds of horror going on at the moment, I'm just going to address the category that this new Carrie flick falls into.)
Some recent 'Horror' has become almost an escapist fantasy that bears no resemblance to the messy horror that actually scares people. The Twilight-espue re-imagining of vampires and the subsequent change in style of horror seems to have redefined the genre in a way that I (personally) am not super into. It is evident in the Carrie remake as much as it shows it's dirty face in schlock like Vampire Diaries or even True Blood.
These productions are slick looking junk with pretty people all wandering around in a high school girl's wet dream, making each other hot. I'm not afraid of a world where the digital photography is so pretty. It looks more like The Secret Garden than Texas Chainsaw. I'm not afraid for my characters living in this world because I know that it's just a movie and I can't ever escape that fact.
Likewise, the actors playing these characters, with their chiseled abs and bleach white smiles conjure absolutely no sympathy or worry as they strut through their scenes. Even that girl from Kick Ass seems too sure of herself in the role of Carrie White. I don't really care about the characters these actors are creating because they aren't realistic people, so I'm damn sure not afraid for them. Nobody actually looks like that.
I guess that the audience for modern horror has fundamentally changed. Maybe you can't make kids jump in their seats anymore, but it just doesn't seem like people are even trying. The things that made old school horror scary all had to do with avoiding predictability. The horror movies that get remembered create an environment where anything might happen. That's why messy movies like Texas Chainsaw get remembered. It's because that world is ugly. The people in it are real and confused and vulnerable to the terror that awaits them. And when the horror comes, the anticipation that has built in the audience's mind is suddenly and brutally realized. Leatherface smacks you with a hammer. Boom! We expected something bad, were afraid that it was coming, and it's still horrible. And it's horrible because it's happening to a person that very easily could have been us.
Likewise, this holds true with a little cleaner flick like Nightmare on Elm St. It's scary because we care about the people in the film (except maybe Tina) and we realize that there is no escaping Freddy. Everyone has to sleep. That could be US! We know that something bad is coming, that's really why we're here, and when Tina gets cut open and starts to swing around in mid air, we have been ushered by the filmmakers into being afraid for our new friends in the movie and for ourselves.
These new films and tv show have moved away from all of that. The environment created here is very nearly one that make the viewer say, "Man, I wish I WAS Carrie/Bella/Whatever-Other-Bull-Crap-Character-Is-'In-Danger'." And it's because these characters, for whatever supernatural force might be after them, still live in Kardashian-land. It's a world filled with non-stop pilates instructors, hunky dudes, swimming pools and mountain hikes with sparkly vampires during the day. It's not scary. I would totally take a windshield to the face to live in that world. And then, when the scares come, it's all just CG bull crap that doesn't seem real anyway. So, unless ILM is lurking after me in the middle of the day, I ain't scared of the events that go down and dust the characters that I have no bond with.
The reason that King's early works are so (actually) scary has to do with the same principals: attachment and anticipation. I've just started 'Salem's Lot and he's already gone to work on just those two things. The prologue reveals that The Lot has been obliterated. Something bad has happened there. Anticipation. Then, we go right into character development. I'm already behind the poor, flawed Ben and his rapidly growing group of fellow townspeople. I'm worrying about them because Mr. King is good at causing me to do so. Just like I worried about the Coreys in Lost Boys or John Harker in Dracula. Because I identify with them, I care about them, and I know that something bad is on the horizon for them and I'm not totally sure they'll make it through.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
'Burning' through Carrie (pun intended)
So, I'm starting from the beginning, and I have to say that I'm super glad that I have. Carrie is a great read. I've seen the classic film a couple of times, but never dove into the book that made King a household name. I'm super into it. I've burned through it in two days. I've got about 30 pages left, but I'll probably finish that up tonight and be on to 'Salem's Lot tomorrow.
I've read a lot of King's later works, from his post master-of-horror days, and it's interesting to now go back to the beginning. There is definitely more effort behind Carrie. I can tell that King wasn't as sure of his talents, he was looking to prove his storytelling ability. There's more style and flash here than in his later works. It's not necessarily a good or bad thing, it just is. I can tell he was hungry when he wrote this bad boy, and it makes it exciting to read. Even though I already know the outcome it doesn't matter because, as with most King stories, the joy is in the journey.
And it's obvious that King himself was aware of this when he chose the way in which to tell his story. The narrative jumps back and forth between a third person omnipotent narrator, that King uses frequently, and eyewitness accounts and excerpts from text about the events in the story. We find out fairly early on in the novel that lots of people are dead and that there was a great catastrophe. Even the means by which all these events are set into motion are revealed before they actually take place in the narrative. It's like the opposite of a surprise ending, yet somehow, this storytelling choice actually helps to build the tension before the blood hits the stage rather than take the air out of it.
The best thing about the book is the character of Carrie herself. She's just the kind of honest yet amped up version of a character that I love to see out of Mr. King. Every teenager that ever lived can identify with Carrie White, who is a far cry from the Hollywood beauty of Sissy Spacek. She is dumpy and awkward, painfully self-conscious, and ruled by the barriers that she creates for herself. Carrie's tale is really no different from any other coming-of-age story ever told, except, of course, for all the TK business.
The other curious thing that I observed in reading this book during it's 40th year on the planet (that's right, count 'em, Carrie has been scaring high school bullies for 40 years) is that King actually set the book five years in the future. Was it because he thought it might take that long to get it published? Or did he think events like this were inevitable? Now we think of this story as being a nostalgically dated work, a treasure from the late 70s that captured the period with stunning insight, but at the time of its publication, it was talking about events that had yet to come to pass. Weird.
Anyway, I'll probably rent the new film version and give it a day in court after I finish the book, if for nothing else than because I want to see Julianne Moore play Carrie's mom.
SB
7-23-14
I've read a lot of King's later works, from his post master-of-horror days, and it's interesting to now go back to the beginning. There is definitely more effort behind Carrie. I can tell that King wasn't as sure of his talents, he was looking to prove his storytelling ability. There's more style and flash here than in his later works. It's not necessarily a good or bad thing, it just is. I can tell he was hungry when he wrote this bad boy, and it makes it exciting to read. Even though I already know the outcome it doesn't matter because, as with most King stories, the joy is in the journey.
And it's obvious that King himself was aware of this when he chose the way in which to tell his story. The narrative jumps back and forth between a third person omnipotent narrator, that King uses frequently, and eyewitness accounts and excerpts from text about the events in the story. We find out fairly early on in the novel that lots of people are dead and that there was a great catastrophe. Even the means by which all these events are set into motion are revealed before they actually take place in the narrative. It's like the opposite of a surprise ending, yet somehow, this storytelling choice actually helps to build the tension before the blood hits the stage rather than take the air out of it.
The best thing about the book is the character of Carrie herself. She's just the kind of honest yet amped up version of a character that I love to see out of Mr. King. Every teenager that ever lived can identify with Carrie White, who is a far cry from the Hollywood beauty of Sissy Spacek. She is dumpy and awkward, painfully self-conscious, and ruled by the barriers that she creates for herself. Carrie's tale is really no different from any other coming-of-age story ever told, except, of course, for all the TK business.
The other curious thing that I observed in reading this book during it's 40th year on the planet (that's right, count 'em, Carrie has been scaring high school bullies for 40 years) is that King actually set the book five years in the future. Was it because he thought it might take that long to get it published? Or did he think events like this were inevitable? Now we think of this story as being a nostalgically dated work, a treasure from the late 70s that captured the period with stunning insight, but at the time of its publication, it was talking about events that had yet to come to pass. Weird.
Anyway, I'll probably rent the new film version and give it a day in court after I finish the book, if for nothing else than because I want to see Julianne Moore play Carrie's mom.
SB
7-23-14
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Introduction
Okay, so I've been a long time King fan, but my fandom has been gaining ground in the last year or so, basically since I started reading The Dark Tower Series. I have always been fascinated by King, from the times in my youth that I struggled to make it though his larger tombs, to sitting and watching made-for-TV miniseries that didn't turn out so well. Now, I feel that I've reached a point, that many King fans reach, where I need to examine the entire body of work. Hey, he took the time to create it, right? I might as well do him the courtesy of reading it all.
I realized that I was at this point when I became aware of several volumes of King's work being thrown out at a local business. Without second thought, I found myself 'dumpster diving' to dig out the discarded works. So, needless to say, I've accumulated quite a few of the older books and I feel that the best way to make my way through them is just to start at the beginning, with Carrie.
Also, I've always been a creative writer, but I've found that I'm most interested in my writing when I'm discussing someone else's creation. I love talking about other's art work. And I love discussing it with others, as well. So, that's what I plan to do with this blog!
I'm already halfway through King's first novel and will be reporting on it soon.
SB
7-22
I realized that I was at this point when I became aware of several volumes of King's work being thrown out at a local business. Without second thought, I found myself 'dumpster diving' to dig out the discarded works. So, needless to say, I've accumulated quite a few of the older books and I feel that the best way to make my way through them is just to start at the beginning, with Carrie.
Also, I've always been a creative writer, but I've found that I'm most interested in my writing when I'm discussing someone else's creation. I love talking about other's art work. And I love discussing it with others, as well. So, that's what I plan to do with this blog!
I'm already halfway through King's first novel and will be reporting on it soon.
SB
7-22
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)