Horror Week 2016: “The Boogeyman” by Stephen King

While I'm not a huge horror or scary-movie fan, as in a fanatic, I did love watching the Nightmare in Elm Street series, American Werewolf in London, and a number of other movies back in the 80s and 90s. The scariest movie I've experienced was 1979's Alien. I watched that movie, ill-advisedly in hindsight, with my younger siblings back in 1985 in my basement bedroom. That night, after my siblings went upstairs to go to bed, I found myself alone in my room. I then realized what a stupid thing I had just done. Needless to say, I didn't sleep the whole night because of the sheer terror I experienced watching Alien. To this day I remember that night and how terrified I was and how impossible it was for me to sleep in the basement, alone, with the darkness in the room and just beyond my bedroom door. The slightest sound would jolt me from the bed so I ended up cowering in a corner of my room just praying for the sun to come up.

I haven't watched a proper horror movie in many, many years. As I've gotten older the genre just doesn't appeal to me anymore. The most recent "horror" movie I saw was Tucker & Dale vs Evil. It was just enough to remind me of the experiences I was missing out on -- watching horror movies -- but not too much to keep me awake at night. These days I need only to look at my bank account statements or bills, but I digress. Tucker & Dale vs Evil was a beautifully well-executed movie that is a perfect example of its genre, i.e., horror-comedy.

Horror Week 2016: Exorcising the Shame and Guilt – How I Learned to Love Horror

Regular readers of the blog (if there is such a thing here at SUR) will know that I’m not a huge horror fan. It’s something I’ve actively avoided in my fiction for years. There are a few reasons for this. I’m generally not too keen on the esthetics of the genre. Slasher films as a whole and specific film series of the “torture porn” variety like Saw and Hostel where the examples of the genre that popped up in my head when I thought of horror. The biggest reason for my dismissal of the whole thing is that I came to it with preconceived notions of what any given book or movie would be when it’s labelled as horror. I watched those movies and attempted to read those books with the intent of finding those things I didn’t like as a way to prove that yes, indeed, horror as a genre is a piece of shit and it is best avoided.

I’ve reconciled with a lot of that thanks to Stephen King, particularly thanks to one of his most famous books Salem’s Lot. I mentioned some of that in my review of the book and there was certainly something cathartic bout the whole admission of guilt and wrongdoing towards the genre. It’s still occasionally difficult to admit that I was so dismissive. I dismissed it all, regardless of when or where a piece of horror fiction came from, it all ended up in the same space in my brain: the trash bin.

Short Story Sunday 05: Halloween Edition - George R. R. Martin and Stephen King

It’s time for another special edition of Short Story Sunday. It seemed like a no-brainer to use Halloween as an excuse to read horror short stories. I decided to check out a collection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from George R. R. Martin and well as explore the earliest stories of Stephen King. I enjoyed myself so much I might just do this every year.

“The Pear-Shaped Man” by George R. R. Martin

Read in Dreamsongs volume 1 (2007), a collection of works by George R. R. Martin

Originally published in Omni (October 1987)

“The Pear-Shaped Man” is a very creepy story. I was pretty grossed out while reading it and I have to admit it’s going to be a really long time until I ever eat cheezies again. The story is about the titular Pear-Shaped Man. You know who I’m talking about, you’ve seen him. He’s very odd and Martin describes him exceedingly well. Even without a description you can probably get a sense of the kind of character the story refers to. In essence, he’s noticeably strange while also appearing rather harmless. Martin conveys the banality of the man while also convincing the reader of his unnatural creepiness. You, as the reader, want to get to the bottom of it. Who is the Pear-Shaped Man and why is he so damn eerie?

The Long Walk by Stephen King Review (Unread 020)

I continue to be rather amazed by Stephen King. At the same time, I continue to be rather ashamed of my ignorant and juvenile dismissal of the man and his impressive body of work in my youth. Impressive, I’m discovering one book at a time, not only in number of books he’s written but also in the quality of those books. The Long Walk, arguably the earliest book by King, written when he was still attending the University of Main in the mid-sixties, is a short book when compared to a lot of his other novels. It’s also very simple, very direct, but this little book packs a mean punch and I took the beating willingly.

Originally released as The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, a pseudonym of King’s, this novel surprisingly doesn’t represent an unpolished or unskilled attempt at crafting a story. It’s actually surprisingly engrossing and masterful in its focus and execution. I wasn’t sure this book would be any good at all considering just how simple the plot is and considering there is but a single point of view to sustain the reader from cover to cover. It’s putting it mildly to say that the book surprised me.

Miscellaneous Reviews 12: Dragon Ball Z Viz Big 01 and Skeleton Crew

Dragon Ball Z Viz Big volume 1 by Akira Toriyama:

I was introduced to Dragon Ball Z before ever being aware of Dragon Ball. Nowadays I consider both series to be one long series as it originally way in Japan. The popular series by creator Akira Toriyama was split into two different series in North America. The first series chronicles Goku’s childhood and rise to becoming the most powerful fighter on the planet. The second series tells of Goku’s ever-increasing strength caused by the necessity of regularly saving his adopted home planet of Earth and sometimes the entire universe. I suspect that even if the series had not been split in two we would still consider these volumes of Dragon Ball Z (volumes 1, 2 and 3 collected together in this edition) as a clear departure from the earlier Dragon Ball volumes.

At this point in the series the story has pulled away from the collection of Dragon Balls which was more of an adventure story with a focus on martial arts. The whole thing was also a vehicle for Toriyama’s sense of humour which dominated his first manga series, Dr. Slump. Dragon Ball Z focused much more on the fighting component and saw characters becoming increasingly, even ridiculously powerful during its publication. Even in the first volume you notice that loveable characters from Goku’s younger years will be playing a much smaller role during his years as Earth’s champion simply because they’re not strong enough to fight along with him against their new enemies. They still maintain a key role in the series but it’s mostly to provide additional character interactions, character development, and comic relief.

The most noteworthy change though is that Toriyama provides one of the most incredible retcon, or retroactive continuity, that I can remember so clearly. He did a radical change in Goku’s backstory by making him an alien. We learn that he’s native of planet Vegeta and he’s a Saiyan, a race of bloodthirsty warriors who completely eradicate planets of their sentient life forms in order to sell off the planets to rich clients. This is where the series attains its vast scope; from now on the outcome of Goku and the Z-Fighters battles will have consequences on the intergalactic scale. There are a few other retcons aside from Goku’s heritage but they all fall under the same category of the story’s overall expansion. We learn that the Demon King Piccolo and his god-like counterpart Kami are not mythological or supernatural beings, they too are aliens. Namekians, to be precise. In Dragon Ball Kami was thought to be one of the higher rankings of celestial officials but we quickly learn that there are other guardians above him with the introduction of King Kay who watches over the north quadrant of the galaxy.

The first three volumes of Dragon Ball Z are very impressive. Toriyama manages to completely change his story from an adventure, quest and coming of age story to a grand scale fighting extravaganza on the intergalactic level. The most impressive thing about this change in direction is that he did it without losing the main elements of the 16 volumes that preceded the arrival of Saiyans on Earth. Indeed, many of the characters from Dragon Ball will be present until the very last chapters of Dragon Ball Z. It’s all very different but also quite familiar, allowing fans of young Goku to join up with new fans of adult Goku in enjoying one of the most popular and loved action manga of all time.

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King:

In an effort to get over my unfounded prejudice against Stephen King and his massive body of work, I’m been sampling some of his books. Even though this is my second attempt to read Skeleton Crew the results have been pretty positive so far. The first time I read this collection of short stories and one novella, I couldn’t get past “The Monkey”. I really enjoyed “The Mist”, so much in fact that I wrote a review of just that story, but everything I read after it didn’t work for me. I wasn’t entirely surprised by this since I’ve found that collections of stories tend to vary greatly in quality and this is true of Skeleton Crew. Some stories were simply bad while other’s had a tone or style that didn’t particularly grab me. That’s not to say there aren’t any good stories. There are but I’m not able to recommended Skeleton Crew in its entirety. Instead, I would recommend the stories I think are the best or at least the most interesting thing and then let the reader decide if they’d like to read the rest. Here are a few quick thoughts on the stories I liked the most.

                                                                                                                                        

"The Mist"

Similarly to ‘Salem’s Lot what makes this story shine is the villagers and how they interact. The core of the story is surviving an invasion on inter-dimensional monsters but the monsters aren’t the focus of the story. It’s a character piece at heart and at just over a 100 pages it pretty powerfully condensed.

"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut"

This is a fun story that also deals with other dimensions. One woman’s passion for finding shortcuts leads her to speeding down roads that few or none others have travelled down before. It has a build but the entire thing is just off kilter enough to work well, even if you know how the story will end by the time you reach the halfway point. I’d like to read more stories like these. There is a definitive supernatural bent but there’s not real horror in sight.

"The Jaunt"

“The Jaunt”, is another story that can’t be described simply as horror though there is a clear horror element to it. It’s one of King’s few (so I’m told) science fiction stories. A father tells his family of the history of Jaunting, a form of teleportation that has been popularized in the future. During the telling he struggles to provide a complete narrative while also hiding some of the more unpleasant truths about Jaunting. He fails by leaving his listeners more curious than informed and the consequence is unsettling.

"The Raft"

This is probably the purest dose of horror in this collection. It’s incredibly straightforward but that simplicity helps it work. Four students go swimming out to the raft in the middle of a lake at midnight. It’s their last time swimming before the raft gets put away for the winter. They’re met by a dark oil slick on the surface of the water which proceeds to terrorize and attack them. It’s a chilling and gory story that completely captivated me. It’s probably the story that engaged me the most from all the other stories in Skeleton Crew.

"The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands"

I like this story more for the bookends than the story of the title. Again, it’s a story told within a story. King creates a gentlemen’s club with a never-aging butler and patrons that all seem to have dark secrets. The telling of “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands” is one of those secret stories. While anybody with a bit of imagination can figure out why he doesn’t shake hands, the atmospheric tone of the storytelling made it a worthwhile read for me.

"Beachworld"

I found King’s second science fiction story in Skeleton Crew to be a disappointment but it was a good disappointing story. The story is too simple and even though I’ve only read a very small amount of stories by King, it has a pretty common structure amongst his work. Characters come face to face with an incarnation of evil, in this case a desert planet that appears to be sentient, and one of them stares into the abyss and is unable to look away, resulting in his destruction. It’s the one story I would have liked to see further developed as it could have been better or at least more interesting than how it is now.

"Survivor Type"

A man finds himself the lone survivor of a sunken cruise ship. He’s on an island with no food and a large amount of heroin. The story is told through his diary entries which become increasingly disjointed and strange as he slips into insanity. The best thing about this story is that King takes it to its natural conclusion and I appreciated that.

King’s ideas for short stories are generally pretty straight forward with the occasional twist ending. The problem with that is he takes time with his stories. He doesn’t rush to the end and he doesn’t drop the entire idea on the reader in just a few pages. This has the unfortunate consequence of making quite a few stories in this book slow to read and difficult to get through, not because of their difficulty but because it doesn’t successfully engage the reader. On the other hand, his better stories are a delight to read. Even some of the longer ones or those that have a simple idea that doesn’t hide away from the reader or is revealed in a twist ending. Reading “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” it was clear that she would find a shortcut but what wasn’t obvious is the nature of that shortcut. Add to that a good style and an enjoyable pace and the result is one of the better stories. Likewise, “Survivor Type” and “The Raft” are very simple stories but King’s commitment to taking the story to their just conclusion is what makes them compulsively readable and enjoyable (well, a specific kind of enjoyable – they are pretty gruesome) stories.

                                                             

‘Salem’s Lot: A Reader’s Confession

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been aware of Stephen King and his impressive (in more than one way) body of work. I can also remember disliking him for just as long. I’m not sure exactly what it is about him and his books that didn’t sit well with me, especially since I didn’t finish my first of his stories until last year when I read The Mist. So where the hell did my dislike come from? I can’t answer that in any great detail but I will say that I tried to read one of his books at one point. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which but my reaction was that it described a great many things but nothing really happened. I also didn’t like horror. I’m still not really a fan of the genre though I will fully admit that there are some very good horror stories out there, in various mediums. I remember watching a few of his non-horror movies. The Green Mile is still a favourite of mine. I remember being stunned by the immensely powerful story of The Shawshank Redemption when I first saw it at the recommendation of my aunt and uncle. Aside from those two movies, I didn’t like King.

For the most part, he didn’t have much of a presence in my life while growing up but that change several years ago when my father was reading The Dark Tower series. He read them in large hardcover and trade paperback versions which had lush, captivating illustrations by various skilled artists. I remember asking him if it was horror as I incorrectly believed that King only wrote horror (despite my previous viewings of non-horror films based on some of his stories). My dad responded that it was more fantasy than anything else. Damn. How dare he? Fantasy’s a genre I’ve enjoyed for most of my life and the idea that an author who I didn’t like (for no apparent reason) would write an entire series in my favourite genre irked me. But it also had my attention because it reminded me that King doesn’t just write horror. I would eventually read several of The Dark Tower comics which I really, really liked despite my fervent opinion that Stephen King was no good and I didn’t like it. Hypocritically, I stuck to this conviction by poorly rationalizing that King didn’t have much involvement in the comic adaptation of his series because it was written and illustrated by a creative team that he wasn’t a part of. Needless to say, my previous opinions of King were nothing short of asinine and hypocritical.

I admit I’ve always been troubled by my dislike of King. Probably because I knew that it was a dislike that wasn’t rooted in anything concrete. I realize now that it was prejudice, pure and simple. Last year I read and watched The Mist. After finishing the movie, I still wasn’t convinced I liked King. It’s was the first completed King story I read and it was clearly a horror story. I really enjoyed it but I wasn’t sold on the guy or his work. Even after that I was a disappointed in myself for feeling the way I did about King. It gave me an unpleasant feeling mostly because amidst all my confusion of like and dislike, I knew that I never really gave the guy or his work a fair chance. I gave him another shot last week. I read ‘Salem’s Lot and I realized something.

I like Stephen King. I really like him.

Don’t ask me what the fuck happened. The best explanation I can give is that I changed and grew up as a reader and King is actually good when you take the time to read one of his books (as opposed to developing an opinion out of thin air).

I didn’t just read ‘Salem’s Lot. I also read about King online. I watched interviews. I read about his work. I got to know the man and I also got to better understand his body of work. Some of the arguments I had used on myself and other people (I know what you’re thinking. I’m an ass. I’m sorry. ) to dismiss his work and importance to literature were also used by other people online. More importantly, they were directly addressed and swept aside by his fans, his supporters, his peers and many critics. Stephen King writes long and boring books. Go read one in its entirety, and then we’ll talk. Stephen King is trash fiction, his work is rubbish. Again, go read one of his books from start to finish and then we’ll talk. Stephen King only writes horror and horror sucks/is boring/is trashy/whatever. No, he also writes things in other genres and some of his horror is based on astute observations of the human condition. The guy’s written non-fiction, even! Give him a fair chance. In fact, give any writer you personally criticism and are uninformed about a chance. I did and I’m glad I did because I discovered an excellent writer whom millions of other fans have been enjoying for decades. Sure, I’m late to the party but at least I showed up in time to enjoy it.

That’s enough of that. Let’s talk about ‘Salem’s Lot.  At over 600 pages this is a large book but it has to be in order to work. In the introduction to the 1999 edition, King writes about some of the writers and stories that influenced him in his writing of this particular story. He also writes about what he wanted to accomplish with ‘Salem’s Lot and it’s because of those goals that the book is longer that what some people think it needs to be. King’s second novel can best be described as a cross between Peyton Place and Dracula. Everybody knows of Dracula but Peyton Place is a more obscure novel written by Grace Metalious. Published in 1956, the book focused on the small town life, specifically the scandalous activities that occurred behind closed doors. The book was hugely popular at the time of its release, staying on the New York Times best seller list for 59 weeks. It even inspired a TV series of the same name that ran from 1964-1969.

The idea King had for a story was to incorporate the arrival of vampires in the small New England town of Jerusalem’s Lot. Though ‘Salem’s Lot is fictional, it’s based on very real little towns. It was the first instance where King wrote about a town as if it was a character all its own. The first 200 pages of the book are nearly entirely focused on setting up the various characters along with their peaceful and simple lives. This slow build has put off some people form the novel and likely I would have found it rather boring at a younger age but I really appreciated the set up. I got to know the people before the tragedy of their situation became apparent. At that point it was too late for me to backup or read without concern for Ben, Susan, Mark, Father Callahan and Matt. I was emotionally invested, King worked his spell on me.

The second third of the book concerns itself with the discovery of the dreadful situation the townspeople are in. The final third is all about setting up the final confrontation with the original vampires and the dozens and dozens of people they’ve turned. At the time of its original release the vampires were not openly marketed in order to keep it a surprise for the reader. It was a suggestion of King’s editor. King was dubious that people wouldn’t be able to put the pieces together but he played along. Today, due in great part because of King’s popularity, it’s widely known that ‘Salem’s Lot is a vampire novel. Some covers even announced it proudly, such as the cover of the edition I read. The vampire “surprise” isn’t what makes this a good book. The pacing, the characters and the way King doesn’t shy away from portraying a vampiric invasion with fanboy glee and a surprising amount of realism. As you can imagine from a book by the Master of Horror, things don’t really end well for the characters though the ending is ambiguous enough to keep readers wondering about the final fate of Jerusalem’s Lot far after they’ve finished the book.

Reading ‘Salem’s Lot was a cathartic experience for me. It helped me become at peace with one of the most popular writers in North America. For several years I was waging a war with him inside my head and all it did was cause uncomfortable feelings about popular fiction, my dislike of horror, and an unappealing, obnoxious and incompletely unfounded sense of superiority that I, unlike millions of other people, didn’t read books by Stephen King. In many ways it’s fascinating that ‘Salem’s Lot is the book that made me change my mind about all this negativity. My thoughts and feelings about King and his work were a kind of negative energy or a type of evil that invaded the quite small town life of my usually open and receptive brain. ‘Salem’s Lot is the stake and the holy water used on me to kill those evil (vampiric) thoughts. Now I’m free to enjoy King’s stories to my heart’s content even if it results in occasionally sleeping with the lights on.

The Mist review

The Mist written by Stephen King

This is the first book by Stephen King that I’ve actually read. I’ve dismissed him for a long time because he’s known primarily for his works in the horror genre. I have a tendency to dismiss horror as a whole even though I’ve experience some good horror entertainment (in various mediums) and I have some favourite horror stories. I'm glad I took another chance with King and I’ve got to admit that the comic adaptations and prequel comics of King’s famous Dark Tower series played a big part in that decision.  

What I liked the most about King’s writing in The Mist was the way he had his main character, David, observe his surroundings. King has been a writer his entire life and one of the things that clearly influence his writing are the observations he makes. In the story, David is an artist and he too makes very interesting and sometimes enlightened observations. The way he puzzles things about his situation is fascinating and has, perhaps, depending how you interpret the ending, saved his life and that of his son. 

The Mist is horror story I which a secretive science facility, the Arrowhead Project, opens a portal to another dimension. A thick mist inhabited by strange, terrifying and predatory creatures. It’s clearly a horror story but the focus is squarely placed on the characters. The story is quite mysteries as to what is actually happening. The answers King provides regarding the mist, its origin and the creatures that hide within it are limited to the origins of its appearance in the city where most of the story takes place: the Arrowhead Project.

Throughout the story King provides the reader with glimpses of the monster hidden in the mist. You have fragments of what happened to the people outside the grocery store. The only things you know about some of the characters are what David has been able to read from their behaviour. Most I the conversations deal with the situation that is happening. He characters aren't asking each other about their lives or their loved ones. They focus on what is happening or they fade away in the deepest recesses of their mind.

Some of the characters kept busy with meaningless or meaningful tasks from taking turns on sentry duty or preparing food for the others. Many other characters were happy to do the minimum requirement of thinking and barely acknowledge the presence of others. David, he observed. He observed and based on what he saw, he acted for the benefit of A) his son, Billy, B) his own survival, and C) the survival of others. His surviving instinct are directly linked to how he views and interprets his surroundings.

One of the weakest elements of the story has to be the ending. It’s ambiguous and we only get to see a part of it and the rest is left wide open for interpretation. Although I didn’t enjoy it, it fit with the tone of the story and with everything else that was previously established. Overall, King provided few answers and he doesn’t give any more answers with the ending. The most upsetting thing about the end is how King makes fun of it. The story was written by David and he mentions himself that he’s run out of paper and the “end” is not actually the end. He continues to travel and heads towards what is hopefully the end of the mist. He specifically mentions how a lack of ending is frustrating and he even describes it as “Hitchcockian”. I get the feeling King wasn’t sure how to end it and this is the best he could come up with. Still, it fits with what came before but it lacks any real emotional punch. It’s no real surprise that he’s been so vocal in his appreciation of the movie’s ending which differs quite a bit from what King wrote.

Before talking about the movie adaptation of The Mist, I have two side notes I want to address. The first is that there was a surprising amount of references, mostly to household products and pop culture. I’m not sure if the quantity is a lot compare to other non-genre fiction (I read mostly fantasy and science fiction). It did seem to be a lot to me personally. Maybe the main setting of the story, a grocery store, is to blame for this.

The second side note has to do with survival fiction. When I write survival fiction I mean survival stories that occur after post-apocalyptic events or other cataclysmic changes. It’s interesting how there are locations that seems to provide much better grounds for survival than others. King addressed this a bit in The Mist when he has some of his characters check out a pharmacy next door occupying space in the same plaza as the grocery store. The pharmacy could have been an equally effective stronghold against the creatures in the mist except for one minor detail which resulted in the death of all the people who were sheltered there.  

The Mist adapted by Frank Darabont

Overall the movie doesn’t work as well as the novella. The pacing feels rushed. The acting is wooden. I attribute the blame mostly towards the pacing and not so much the acting but it’s important to know that there are no amazing performances here. The simple reasons why the movie doesn’t live up to the book has to do with the two most important elements in the novella’s success are absent from the movies. That is, the sense of near absolute uncertainty and David’s surprisingly engrossing observations. The movie just doesn’t seem to have enough room to breathe to allow for those two important elements to be present. The movie is just above two hours in length and it begins in the second chapters of the novella. It skips the whole storm that sets off the events in King’s story.

The movie excels in two other aspects though. The first is the creatures in the mist. The creatures are very well done. This is a double edged sword since what made the novella so good was the characters and how they interacted with each other. The monsters are set dressing. They provide a potentially fatal and very threatening setting in which the story of the survivors can take place. The characters in the movie feel one-dimensional and drab. The monsters on the other hand are superbly designed and very, very gross.

The other problem with the monsters in the movie is that we see them but we know nothing about them. David’s theories and observations of the creatures is an essential part of the story. The movie limits itself to showing the monsters and scarring us and the survivors with their grotesque appearance instead of engaging us in the mystery surrounding them. The book took its time to think about what was happening. The movie does allow for any thoughts to be had. It’s too quick and it focuses on extended action sequences involving the monsters in the mist. On the other hand, the book focused on the study of characters, creatures and events as seen and understood by David.

The second aspect in which the movie excels is the ending. I won’t spoil it here but Darabont clearly thought about it. Much like myself, he must not have been satisfied with King’s original ending and so he rewrote it. Although King has expressed how much he loved the ending, I think Darabont rushed it. Another minute or two could have been used to give us a real feeling of what their situation really was. The characters agreed to easily to such a big decision. Props must be given to the actor playing David, Thomas Jane, because that was the most moving scene in the entire movie.

It saddens me that a filmmaker like Darabont chose to focus on the monsters instead of the characters in The Mist. He’s demonstrated his skills with dramatics stories in both The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile (both also adaptations of stories by King). It’s particularly frustrating when King’s story seemed to focus on characters more than the monsters. In the novella, the monsters are little more than set dressing. They give the characters something to be deathly frightened of and the mist gives them a reason to think of the worst possible outcome their situation could have. What really matters though is David’s fight for survival and the protection of his son and what he does to try and achieve those goals. What he’s willing to risk is far more frightening than any tentacles or giant bugs, no matter how many pop out of the mist.