Okay, sure. He might've once had some good ideas. "The Shining", "IT", "Misery" and Pet Semetary all had thier spooky and original moments... and the novella "Rage" was quite fun to read. But overall, Stephen King has gotten soft. He uses the same formula for almost every model: some child or young person encounters some sort of terrifying evil, then has to face it when he/she/they become grownups or has to act like a grownup in order to face it. Or the adult has to be reduced to fear so intense s/he acts like a child. This "evil" takes many forms- the shapeshifting pennywise, spirits haunting a hotel, resurrected pets, or psychic forces that plague the protagonists themselves, leaving the reader unsure over who to root for. While it may seem that I am being voerly critical (you may be thinking- wht else is one to write about?) keep in mind that every story has the same feel to me. I'm not talking about King's personal "style". I'm talking about... okay, have any of you ever had a nightmare, and gotten a distinct "flavor: from it, and then had another nightmare some weeks later that had a few things changed but basically felt the same? That's what King is lately. He doesn't frighten me anymore. But what's really turned me off is the movies he puts hi name to. "The Dark Zone" was pitiful but worse lay ahead for me.

"Tommy Knockers" was cheesy as hell, almost too cheesy to describe, and "sleep walkers" had me in fits...laughing. I swear to god "The Langoliers" actually struck me as a Mad comedy. Not only did the acting totally suck "it sounded like they were reading from scripts and they totally overacted thier fear and confusion) but the special effects were horrendous. The Langoliers themselves looked like tribbles with teeth, and that blind girl was annoying. I was happy when she died. If these movies had the same cheesy quality as Nightmare on Elm Street flicks or the Texas Chainsaw Massacres, I could maybe stomach them... but they are glossy, polished, presented in Hollywood blockbuster format. In order to be kitsch they need wise cracking murderers and creative deaths...and not so much hilairous melodrama. I don't know. They arent kitsch, except maybe at the lowest (or is it highest?) level. I recently bought the 6-hour long 1997 version of the ABC mini series "The Shining" on DVD. What a waste of 26 dollars that was. True, the mini series did have a lot of scenes that the Stanley Kubrick version didn't, but I found the scenes superfluous and annoying. The hedge-animals-coming-to-life scene could've been good if they had used long lenses and shot the animals moving so slightly you'd have to second guess yourself, and only once ro twice. The makeup effects were awful- I could do better makeup when I was 8! Just like Donny Wahlberg's "Didditz" makeup in "Dream Catcher"... utterly bad. You could see the black grease paint under the ghouls (and Didditz's) eyes but it isn't supposed to be grease paint, it's supposed to be sickness. Okay, hint number one |black under the eyes| is just an expression. It's never actually pitch black! And the discoloration blends into the face, doesn't appear like football paint. The cyanotic lips on the ghouls in the miniseries looked more like some new goth trend than true cyanosis, and Im glad I didnt see any blood in this movie cause it probably wouldnt have been the right consistency, eithe... like in Wes Craven's "People under the stairs" when Fool stabs Prince and the blood looks like cherry cough syrup. GET IT RIGHT PEOPLE! YOU MAKE ENOUGH MONEY! If you want to see what real blood looks like, prick your finger. Then work at it till the color is right. arterial blood is bright red, capillary blood is bright red but blood oozing from a vein is darker. It's not water thin but it doesn't congeal in seconds either (blood starts to congeal within about 1-4 minutes). Hmm...as for DreamCatcher. All I can say is I'm glad I didnt waste money on it. The story itself was stupid, the lines were stupid "be a god boy, Didditz, now go an save the world." "Pick up the phone and dial 1-800-Henry".... I can't condemn this movie enough. Morgan Freeman plays a "blue team" commander (special division that deals with aliens) who is losing his grasp on reality. He has a pistol which was apparently given to him by John Wayne and there is a tracking device in it. Dudditz is a red haired retarded kid which grows up to be a leukemia-ridden Wahlbery who morphs into a space alien to keep "Mr. Gray" (his rival alien, who has possessed the also-red-haired 'Jonesy') from contaminating Boston's water supply. I can't for the life of me remember how this movie ends. The water supply scene is the last bit I remember. But I've had it with tephen King movies... Kubrick, on the other hand, was much spookier, as is Guy Madden (Canadian director of Tales from Gimli hospital). Both know how to build unease and Kubrick makes each scene dark and eerie without SCREAMING it. Subtley is the name of the game (or was) with him. He took a good novel and turned it into a master piece (The Shining)- the casting was perfect, Danny wasn't affected and saturated wiht cheap hollywood children's "tricks", Shelly Duval was appropriately deferential and meek and the hotel itself was creepier in every respect... the pastels and poder blue paisely walls were great, the use fo twin girls in matching blue dresses to symbolize the "twin deaths" of Grady's 8 and 10 year old daughters is creepy as Hell and the blood, ghouls, and teeth were kept to a minimum. We never see "Tony" in the Kubrick version and this was more effective as it allowed the viewer to imagine Tony... but more importantly, Tony himself is a mysterious character.

Even to Danny. In the book, Danny never sees Tony close up, and I find the mysterious Kubrick Tony (and the creaky little voice Danny effects when he "becomes" Tony much more appelaing than the bespectacled, glamor shots of Will Horneff (born to be wild). The computer animated teeth on the fire hose in the 1997 version were hokey and unappealing. They ruined what, if done right, couldve been a blood curdling scene. I like computers, dont get me wrong, but you can overuse ANYTHING- you can overuse caro syrup blood, screams, stabs, ghosts, and computer animation. The digital effects in star wars ep 1 and 2 ruined, in my opinion, what would've been much closer to the original star wars trilogy, and now puters are ruining othe rmovies. The reason is that computer graphics, while fancy and impressive, dont look real. When I saw that firehouse snake, I felt likeI was watching a cheesy version of R. L. Stine's "Goosebumps"... but Hollywood does this all the time. "X-Files" started out dark and spooky, underplayed and underacted (to it's benefit)... then it became popular and they made leather wearing super heroes out of Mulder and Scully and turned it into a Sunday night soap opera. People always go over board with the gloss, with the cutsie remarks ("kissin, kissin, that's what I'VE been missin'") with the slack-jawed children (innocence droools, apparently) with the conspiracies and then wonder what's wrong... you CAN poison yourself with too much of a good thing, and I think King has forgotten this.