The Thread of Stephen King

Bit of both I think. He seems quite a naturally cynical kind of person.

I just read Misery. And... how can I put this mildly?

I LOVED IT! Stephen King really has a talent for making such loathsome, memorable villains, but he really hit it out of the park with Annie Wilkes. She's downright terrifying, yet oddly sympathetic at times. But that sympathy all ends once she goes full Ax-Crazy. I mean, seriously, how more Ax-Crazy can you get compared to a woman who kills healthy newborn infants, chops off her favorite author's foot and thumb, then kills an officer with a lawnmower and traps her imprisoned author in the rat-infested basement? Soon, you think of Annie as less of a person than she is a looming presence over Paul, like the Bee Goddess she is described as. But the best, and scariest, part is that Annie seems mundane compared to King's other monsters, like shapeshifting interdimensional entities, repulsive vampires, and haunting spirits that drive people mad. But she still terrifies me more than anyone of those creatures, because she seems like someone that could be a real person.

Even the much tamer film version is amazing, mainly due to the almost Hitchcockian sense of suspense and the Oscar-winning performance by Kathy Bates. All in all, one of my favorite King novels.

I've been listening to Mr. Mercedes lately. I just got to the part where Brady's mother dies from the poisoned meat and we get Brady's backstory. It's probably some of the most horrible, stomach-churning stuff I've ever heard from an audiobook.

indeed while at times I dislike some stuff like treating misery as fat bastard and describe in a very unconfortable way, almost like a golem, it become better in how more a presence misery become, specially because it look she cant be killed.....

goddess....

So, I just read Christine and also watched the John Carpenter adaptation of the novel. Well, I have to say, I liked the movie more...

I'm not saying the King book was garbage though. It's still a gripping story, and I think Arnie is my favorite, best written character of the book, definitely in my Top 10 Favorite Stephen King Characters. King takes a story about a killer car, a plot which would be rendered corny and more unintentionally hilarious in the hands of a lesser author, and turns it into a thrilling ride of the toxic relationship between a boy and his Plymouth Fury, but leaves something to be desired for me.

Now, about the John Carpenter film. The man is considered to be "The Master of Horror". He can juggle slashers and sci-fi horror both with ease. One change was that the evil force was much more concealed in the 1983 film. In the novel, its clear that Lebay is the one possessing the car and Arnie, but this version makes the titular car into a more vague evil. It's debated as to whether Arnie not fighting off Christine's influence is a good change from to the ending of book. Personally, I think it attests as to how toxic and manipulative Christine is when it is revealed that Arnie is the one originally fighting off Leigh and Dennis. And then, with one forceful crash, Arnie is sent out of the windshield and dies, touching Christine for the last time. The rock'n'roll soundtrack is yet another factor that makes this movie great to me.

TL;DR- Both versions of Christine are wonderful, but the visuals and artistic changes make the film version more enjoyable to me

Whenever I hear that damn song "Itty Bitty Pretty one" the scene from Christine comes to mind.

I want that car. That is the dream car. I can't promise I won't use it for murder, but I can promise to be playing that song as I hang out in view of random strangers.

Going back a few: The character you're thinking of is Greg Stillson, the antagonist from The Dead Zone.

Edited by Willbyr on Oct 10th 2020 at 5:56:20 AM

The page description for Desperation seems to be a recap of the plot. Is anyone here knowledgable enough about it to write a better one? (I'm not looking too closely at it because I might read it someday.)

Has it ever been stated if Pennywise actually needs to eat people to survive, or because it's an Eldritch Abomination it just does it because it's a two-dimensional evil elemental who does so For the Evulz

It's never been stated but you can infer from the text, I think it's a combination of all those things.

Edited by Wabbawabbajack on Nov 16th 2020 at 6:07:59 AM

I wanted to add this to the Institute YMMV page but was told by the editor of another thread that I need a second opinion on it. Also, I was thinking about saying at least one of the cops who gets killed in that book is another wasted character. While I couldst' think of a specific one to really single out who much of the fanbase might feel the same way about, I really liked that bunch and it felt that they got killed even more abruptly and offhandedly than the Asshole Victim focus from Under the Dome and the Mauve Shirt prison guards in Sleeping Beauties).

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Angsty Surviving Twin Gerda feels like she could have had a strong presence in the revolt due to her strong motivation and implied high power level but just disappears from the plot well before the halfway point.

Could you please PM with any replies? I don't have time to check most threads as often as I like.

Edited by Melinda on Apr 2nd 2021 at 5:24:31 AM

You can pin threads at the top of the page, and they'll show up on your thread watchlist.

I read If It Bleeds today and really enjoyed it. Mr. Harrigan's Phone and The Life of Chuck were easily the best stories; If It Bleeds was a good follow-up to The Outsider but not quite as good as the others, and Rat was a solid but pretty bog-standard tale with some interesting insights into the handicaps of the writing process.

I wonder why it is that Stephen King seems to hate the Evil Is Cool trope. I don't think there's a single Magnificent Bastard in his line of work

I dunno. Randall Flagg in The Stand comes off as at least superficially cool. Thing is, King doesn't himself believe that Evil Is Cool; he thinks evil is serious business, and doesn't really want to present it as attractive.

Edited by Robbery on Sep 22nd 2021 at 12:23:19 PM

So I've reading through some of King's early short stories and I finished 'Sometimes They Come Back'

out of nowhere he reads up on how to summon a demon and defeats the undead killers!Clearly the guy has a some warlock blood in him somewhere

Yeah, stephen king evil is threating but not cool at all.

The exception is Andres Linoge from Storm of the Century. Man has swag.

I think King is of the opinion that "cool" is a completely amoral thing. Reminds me of one of the themes from the musical Into the Woods, that "nice is different from good."

By the way,read the original short story for 'The Lawnmower man'

I promise you it's nothing like the dumb movie they made.

Yeah, the movie was a completely separate screenplay (originally titled Cybergod) that was essentially "Flowers for Algernon" (or Charly if you'd prefer) done as a horror movie. They just gave it the title from the Stephen King story so they could attach his name to it.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 13th 2022 at 5:10:27 AM

And he later sued them to remove his name,it was New Line Cinemas

I had a two-week training trip last week for work, and spent the flights to CA and part of my down time in the first week finishing Billy Summers. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, especially the not-really-a-twist ending. The downplaying of the supernatural elements was a nice touch, also.

I've been reading The Long Walk and I think it's possibly the most messed up story from Stephen King

One of my favorite "dystopian death sports" stories.