The Horror of the Printed Page

[Tonight I bring you a special contribution from award-winning book blogger Katiebabs of Babbling About Books, and More. So let's shut off the DVD players for a minute and think about the books that really scare us, shall we?]

The horror! The horror! Quick, can anyone tell me where that line is from? And no, I’m not talking about one of the most famous movie lines muttered from Marlon Brando in the Francis Ford Coppola classic, Apocalypse Now.

It may seem unfortunate that most of the screams and thrills people find are in movies. I’m a true horror movie buff and I love having the ever loving shit scared out of me as I watch some poor sap die a horrible death from some maniac or supernatural monster. But it may come as a surprise that you can feel these same emotions in books. One of my favorite genres is horror. There has been many times where I have been sitting in my bedroom late at night all alone and scare myself to death by what I am reading.

There are hundreds of books I could recommend that can send chills up and down your spine but since I have limited space, I will give you some of my all time favorite tales of terror. You may find yourself surprised that these books will give you nightmares.

Many of the horror stories I have love are short tales of murder, mayhem and death. One of my all time favorite horror authors is Edgar Allen Poe. My appreciation for Poe began when I watched Vincent Price starring in many screen adaptations of Poe’s work. Two Poe stories that always give me the willies are The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death. The Tell-Tale Heart is a chilling telling by the narrator as he tells about a murder he committed and how he got rid of the body. The police come to him to ask him questions about the missing person. They have no clue that he is the killer, and he is about to get away with the murder. But as the police interview him, he begins to hear a noise, a sound that won’t go away. The sound becomes louder to his ears, till he is near insanity, wanting it to stop:

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

The Masque of the Red Death takes place during a masquerade ball where the guests are murdered by some unknown killer. The question is, who is this killer and why is he targeting these people? The ways they die are very gruesome. But no one is safe because the Red Death is actually a terrible plague that has swept across the land.

Don’t Look Now by Daphne de Maurier is another short story that was made into a cult classic movie in 1973 with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. A married couple are on vacation, trying to get pass their grief over the death of their little girl who drowned. The husband begins to see a little blonde girl in a red coat everywhere. He starts to believe she is his daughter because his daughter had drowned in the same type of coat this strange little girl is wearing. When he finally catches up to the little girl, the twist will shock the ever loving crap out of you. The ending to the story gave me nightmares for weeks. And if you decide to see the movie, don’t be surprised if the last two minutes makes you piss your pants from fright.

The one type of creature, that makes me want to hide in a closet and pray for a quick death if they find me are zombies. I blame George Romero for that lifelong fear. But without Richard Matheson there would be no Night of the Living Dead. Matheson wrote a story in 1954 that has influenced many horror authors and Hollywood filmmakers. I Am Legend helped develop the vampire and zombie genre by building upon the idea of an apocalypse of disease that will destroy the world. This story is the reason Stephen King wanted to write horror and responsible for flesh eating zombies becoming such a cultural phenomenon in movies and literature. It is about the one soul survivor left on Earth after a virus has turned humans into undead mindless zombies. The reader goes through the experience alongside Robert as he tries not to go crazy because every night he is stalked by these creatures. Imagine if you were the last person on Earth with no where to turn to for help, only you own thoughts to keep you company as you try to stay alive or become food.

Speaking of Stephen King, he is my idol, my reason for reading and wanting to write like he does. He has shaped the horror, science fiction and fantasy genre alike. It is so hard to choose his best work. The three that come to mind are The Stand, It and The Shining. With The Shining, King is able to tap into a person’s inner demons and the eventual break down of a person’s mind because of those demons. Part psychological thriller, part ghost story, this is one of the finest books I have ever read. It gave me an intense dislike of clowns and the underground sewage system, and The Stand is my number one favorite book of all time. The Stand taps into the desolation and fear in people of what is right and wrong and how one would survive if an epidemic such as a virus wiping out the world did occur.

Many of the books I have listed are classics. There is one final book I would like to mention that was just released this year and you may come as a surprise because it is a Young Adult book written for the teen audience. The Forest of Hand and Teeth by Carrie Ryan is such a book that in my past twenty odd years of reading scared me to the point I was looking over my shoulder as I read, expecting the monsters from the book to be standing there. The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a cross between M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. This book has tapped deep into my fears and psyche. Imagine the world filled with zombies who want to eat you. You have no where to turn, for they are all around you, crying in hunger, waiting for the right moment to attack. Imagine the only thing that keeps you from being infected by them and becoming one of them or becoming zombie food is a fence that keeps them out. What if that fence was breached and they were able to come through? This is a book not for the faint of heart. There is death and destruction, filled with violence and fear. The fear is not surviving from the monsters whose only goal is to consume the living. But is this truly surviving? (For more on The Forest of Hands and Teeth, you can read my review here: http://kbgbabbles.blogspot.com/2009/03/forest-of-hands-and-teeth-book-review.html)

I thank B-Sol for giving me this opportunity to talk about my favorite horror reads. What are some of your favorite horror books or authors you can recommend to fellow horror fans?

Katiebabs from Babbling About Books and More! http://kbgbabbles.blogspot.com/ Twitter: @Katiebabs

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Day the Box Office Stood Still

Aliens may have descended upon the box office this weekend but it was the art house and wards contenders that brought on the major invasion. Of the three wide releases this weekend, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is the only entry that hit the ball into outer space. Meanwhile, three smaller shining stars expanded their runs into bigger galaxies to stellar results and five brand new limited releases shone brighter than most of the big boys.


Opening THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, a sci-fi remake, in the middle of December reminds me of last year when I AM LEGEND was released. I’m sure the good people at Fox were hoping for somewhere near the $70 million that I AM LEGEND opened too but Keanu Reeves is not Will Smith. Oh, and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is certainly not I AM LEGEND. And while $31 million is more than half as much, the film still opened to another $39 million internationally this weekend, putting it just $10 million away from it’s reported $80 million budget. Granted, these preliminary figures have not taken into account grosses from space, where Fox beamed the movie this past weekend as the first film in history to be beamed in its entirety to another solar system. (No, I’m not making this up). Of course, it will take about 4 billion light years to get these figures back so we’ll just stick with earth grosses for now.


Calling the next entry notable is a bit of a stretch but it’s a mega smash when you compare it to the third wide release. NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS could not draw audiences away from FOUR CHRISTMASES (which saw a scant 20%) and opened to a very mild $3.5 million. Meanwhile, Freestyle Releasing’s animated DELGO, opened to a per screen average of just $424 on over 2100 screens. DELGO’s biggest competitor, BOLT, held nicely in fourth place with a 23% decline.


Where do we start with all these amazing art house performances? How about we start the holdovers? I would ordinarily go with the new but art house hits can hit hard one weekend and disappear the next so strong holds and growth are always a testament to the strength of the film. Despite only scoring one Golden Globe nomination for its lead, Sean Penn, MILK jumped back into the Top 10 in its third week. Its aggressive expansion of 229 additional screens proved successful as the film managed the second highest per screen average in the Top 10. Meanwhile, just below the Top 10, as is always seemingly the case for this entry, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, Golden Globe nominee for Best Picture (drama), added 91 screens and brought in another per screen in the teens this weekend, settling again for the number 11 position. And finally, FROST/NIXON, added 36 key markets and saw its gross rise almost 250%. Nothing frosty about that! (Ugh.)


As the December 31 deadline for Oscar contention draws near, the prestige pictures are being unloaded in droves. The good news is that they all seem to be finding their own audiences. The most impressive showing this week goes to Clint Eastwood’s GRAN TURINO. Opening on 6 screens, the film nailed a $47K per screen average. Next on the list is the screen adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play, DOUBT. DOUBT earned an average of $35K on 15 screens. Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour epic, CHE, is playing in New York and L.A. just this week to attempt sneaking Benicio del Toro into the Best Actor race. On 2 screens, the film average just over $30K. Best Picture contender, THE READER, from Stephen Daldry, premiered on 9 screens this weekend to an average of $21K. And last but not least, WENDY & LUCY, starring Michelle Williams in a very stark performance, opened to an average of nearly $11K on just 2 screens. As previously mentioned, the true test will come when the expansion follows.


NEXT WEEK: With only one week to go before the big holiday, studios will cram more big names on to your wish list while they still can. Will Smith goes dark and hopes for gold with SEVEN POUNDS. He’ll have a lot of competition with Jim Carrey’s YES MAN though. I have a feeling people might opt for a positing Jim Carrey over a morose Will Smith. Or maybe both will be sent home by a little mouse that isn’t afraid of anything, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX. Meanwhile, Darren Aronofsky’s much buzzed about THE WRESTLER, opens on four screens before expanding in the new year.

Will Smith on Future of I Am Legend Franchise

There's been a lot of speculation and rumors flying around lately as to whether there will be a follow-up to Will Smith's smash hit I Am Legend. Most recently, an unconfirmed rumor had it that a direct sequel was in the works. However, Smith himself recently spoke out at a press conference for his new movie Seven Pounds, and here's what he had to say on the matter:

"We have a fantastic prequel idea…we’re still trying to work through a couple of bumps in the story. It’s essentially the fall of the last city – the last stand of Manhattan. The movie would be…within the body of the movie D.C. and then Manhattan would fall as the last city. It’s a really cool idea trying to figure it out…there’s a reason why we have to take a small band and we have to get into D.C. So we have to make our way from New York to D.C. and then back to New York."

So it looks like it will, in fact, be a prequel, which, I have to admit, makes a lot more sense, and has a little more appeal to it. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the first one (I much prefer the Vincent Price version), I'm a bit intrigued at exploring territory that was previously only hinted at in Richard Matheson's novel and previous film incarnations.

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I'd also like to report that my interview with Victor Miller, screenwriter of the original Friday the 13th, went extremely well yesterday, and you can look forward to it in the very near future (most likely in blogcast form). Miller talks about everything from admittedly ripping off Halloween, the origin of the name Jason Voorhees, and Friday the 13th's indebtedness to Psycho, to his refusal to watch any of the sequels, his falling out with Sean Cunningham, and his thoughts on the upcoming remake. Very interesting stuff. Stay tuned.

BLACK SHEEP'S NEWS WRANGLE

MOORE GETS PEOPLE OFF THE COUCH ...
... and hopefully into the polling booths. Everyone's favorite documentarian, Michael Moore, has put together a new film called, SLACKER UPRISING, and has made it available to you the people ... for free! All you need to do is visit the film's website (link below) to download the film. You can also order a hard copy for 10 dollars. The film essentially follows Moore on his 60-college trek to help encourage young people to vote. The last time he tried to influence an impending election (with the releases of FARENHEIT 9/11 months before the vote), he didn't make enough of a dent but he's hoping that giving the goods away this time out will do the trick.
Source: Slacker Uprising

IRON MAN DISASTER AVERTED
Back before THE DARK KNIGHT broke every record this summer and changed the face of superhero films, a little movie called IRON MAN surpassed all expectations to become the 2nd biggest hit of the year while wowing audiences and critics alike, a rare feat as we all know. Paramount had set a DVD/Blu-Ray release date for September 30, expecting a huge response but then they ran right into a wall. The blu-ray discs were not functioning properly and at the last second a recall went into effect. There was even talk of, gasp, postponing! Do not fret though, Paramount has confirmed that retailers will be sufficiently stocked with functional copies and Iron Man will live on!
Source: Blu-Ray.com

I WAS LEGEND
Will Smith has signed on to reprise his role as Dr. Robert Neville in Warner Brothers' prequel to last year's zombie success story, I AM LEGEND. The bleak ending left no room for a sequel but the $584 million global box office take left no argument against a franchise. The new film, which is expected to be directed by Francis Lawrence, the helmer of the first flick, will focus on the days leading up to the first film, in which the plague devastated humanity. Sounds cheerful!
Source: ComicMix

DISNEY MANIA!
The house that Mickey built has announced a number of exciting developments for film fans. I could personally care less but Nicolas Cage will be back for a third installment in the NATIONAL TREASURE series. Oprah Winfrey will be voicing the mother of the princess in their first 2D animation in ages, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (coincidentally also featuring Disney's first black princess). Given that CARS keeps bringing in the merchandising moolah, Pixar will be unveling their sequel a year earlier than planned in 2011. The new release date coincides with the opening of the theme park ride. And apparently, Johnny Depp and Disney are an old married couple now. Depp has signed on for three upcoming Disney features. The first is perfect (or at least potentially perfect); he will play the Madhatter in Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The second is odd; he will play the role of Tonto in a LONE RANGER adaptation. The third is downright disappointing; Depp will reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a fourth PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN adventure. Yeah, I'm sure there is a lot more he can do with that character.
Source: Variety

HANCOCK

Written by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan
Directed by Peter Berg
Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman


John Hancock: Call me an asshole one more time.

It isn’t fair to write a film off in the first few minutes but you can sometimes get a pretty good sense as to what you’re in store for from the way the film introduces itself. The film opens on an L.A. freeway, where four punks are being chased in their van by countless police cruisers while they fire their semi-automatic weapons into the air. Where’s Spider-Man when you need him? (Right, I forgot – Spidey’s a New Yorker.) Cut to a passed out bum on a park bench. Who is this man? Of course, we know it’s our hero, Hancock (Will Smith), because we know a thing or two about the film before sitting down to watch it. Director, Peter Berg, takes this for granted though and it soon becomes apparent that convention and presumption will drive this unconventional tale. In HANCOCK, Berg, and Smith team up with writers, Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan, to debunk superhero iconography as well as the genre itself. The goal, and a noble and exciting one it is, is to rip the superhero out of the sky, strip him of his glory and send him hurdling toward the earth. Only Hancock is pulled down to an earth that is an awful lot more like a movie than the world I know.


It wouldn’t be so terrible to set this enormous Hollywood action film in typical scenarios if Berg weren’t trying so hard to give the film a decidedly un-Hollywood look. The aesthetic is often shaky and unstill, crossing back and forth between odd close-ups and frames finding their focus. Berg seems bent on giving HANCOCK a gritty, guerilla filmmaking tone but the erratic style is at odds with the predictability of the plot. The borrowed independent style works in its original context because independent films are, ordinarily, about something deeper. Removing the gloss from a Hollywood feature only allows the viewer to see how little there is underneath it all. In HANCOCK’s case, the man beneath the lacking luster is a reluctant hero who would rather waste his days drunk in a dive than diving into the action itself to save the day. There is some loose discourse on realizing your destiny but little else. Again reluctantly, Hancock agrees to some help from a struggling public relations person (Jason Bateman) and is set on the path to making the most of his life and abilities. Hancock is such a complex character (lonely, disinterested, depressed) that it would seem ripe with possibility but this is mostly squandered in favor of half funny humour and sometimes hokey special effects that it feels at times like a over produced Nike ad.


Luckily for HANCOCK, the film is still somewhat enjoyable thanks to the strong performances of all its leads. Smith continues his streak for picking complicated characters with broad appeal and he also continues his streak of pulling them off. After a heartbreaking turn that pushed his dramatic abilities in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS and his commanding yet vulnerable turn that pushed his presence in I AM LEGEND, Smith plays a character we don’t ordinarily see him as. His impossible-not-to-like face is covered in stubble and his physique is hidden by baggy, dirty clothes but his eyes are what give away his disenfranchised soul that shows his hurt for being shunned by society and disinterest in placating to that same society. Smith is joined by the modern master of comedic timing, Bateman and Charlize Theron, as Bateman’s wife, who is simultaneously frightened and intimidating. This trio of talent is HANCOCK’s salvation. Their grasp of their characters in unfailing and they pull the elements of the film together despite how flimsy the elements are to begin with.


HANCOCK is occasionally astounding but mostly mundane. Above all, it is a disappointment. This original premise has been sloppily slapped together and most of its potential was squandered in the process. It didn’t show me that superheroes are people too. If anything, it just made me miss the real deal. If the goal was to truly bring the superhero down to earth, then there was still a long, long way to go before this guy would have touched the ground.

My "I Am Legend" Experiment

I must confess that I have never read Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (an oversight I hope soon to correct). In fact, I had never even seen any of its cinematic incarnations until a few months ago. Once the newest Will Smith version hit theaters, I took it upon myself to watch the previous two adaptations before venturing out to see the latest.

And so, thanks to Netflix, I was able to see The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price, and The Omega Man (1973) with Charlton Heston. Of course, I wasn't the only one with this bright idea, and a months-long delay in acquiring the latter film caused me to forgo the Will Smith vehicle during its theatrical run. Instead, I waited until it hit DVD and immediately plopped it at the top of my queue.

The idea, naturally, was to compare and contrast all three versions. And now that I've seen all three I can do that. So where do they rank?

All in all, I'd have to say that I definitely enjoyed The Last Man on Earth the most, and The Omega Man the least. I Am Legend falls somewhere in the middle.

Maybe it's because Last Man worked the best for me as a pure horror movie. Granted, it couldn't be made today, as in a post-Night of the Living Dead world it would seem far too derivative. But there was something about Vincent Price's classic performance, as well as the zombie-like creatures, that made that picture a very chilling experience. The sequence in which Price watches his daughter and wife slowly succumb to the disease is heartwrenching, and the scene in which he buries his wife, only to have her return home from the grave is downright bloodcurdling. Compare that to the much weaker flashback sequence in which Will Smith's family is summarily wiped out.

As for Omega Man, I just couldn't get into it. I know the film has a much greater cult status, but it didn't compare favorably to me at all. For one, the decision to turn it into an action movie took away a lot of the impact. The creatures are the most human-like of all three versions, speaking, thinking, and even eating regular food. This was a major disappointment. And while the camp value does give the film a certain "guilty pleasure" quality, it doesn't hold up well.

Smith's version is a cut above Heston's, returning some of the emotional impact of Last Man on Earth, as well as some of the horror elements. I may be wrong, but I got the impression that the creatures were depicted the most faithfully to Matheson's novel in this latest version as well. That said, the CGI work was terrible, and took me right out of it. Human facial expressions and movement remains the Achilles heel of CGI--and besides, there was no reason they couldn't have been depicted with mostly practical effects.

Unfortunately, Will Smith is the least memorable of all three leading men, lacking both the chops and the gravitas. Particularly, it speaks volumes to how much our culture has devolved when in The Omega Man we have a Neville who collects rare art masterpieces, plays chess with a bust of Ceasar and quotes T.S. Eliot; and in I Am Legend we have a Neville who hits the video store every day, thinks Bob Marley is the height of Western music, and quotes Shrek.

Still, Smith did a much better job than I expected, and the film was better than I expected it to be. But don't get me started on the pat Hollywood ending. Perhaps I'd have a higher opinion of it all if it had been the first adaptation made.

In closing, it's about time I read I Am Legend. For any book to inspire such a varied series of adaptations is quite a feat, and speaks to a healthy dose of textual richness that is no doubt present in the source material.

Original Ending of I Am Legend Surfaces Online

I have to preface this by saying that I still haven't seen the newest remake of I Am Legend (hoping to catch it on IMAX in the next couple weeks). So I'm not entirely sure how it ends, although I have seen the Vincent Price adaptation. But for those who have seen Will Smith's version, this is the original ending of the film that got the Warner Bros. suits in an uproar and led to all those reshoots, courtesy of FirstShowing.Net:



Despite not having seen the movie, I found this to be powerful, gritty stuff, and I'm kind of sad it wasn't used. Even though Neville fails to save the vampires in the end, the ending still gives us a glimmer of hope. But alas, not the Hollywood ending they were looking for. I always find it funny how sci-fi/fantasy/horror often gets a bad rap as being unrealistic and escapist, yet whenever it deals with something seriously and realistically it gets the studios all nervous. There's a terrific book called J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century which makes the argument that in spite of its metaphoric trappings, speculative fiction often deals with harsh realities even more head-on than mainstream fiction, and this would be a perfect example of just that.

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Some quicks things I wanted to touch on today:

First off, kudos to Karl Hungus on a terrific post yesterday. This is a rather spacious Vault, with more than enough room for fine guest writers.


Secondly, I wanted to announce that The Vault of Horror was honored with its very first blog award earlier this week:



Thanks to the one and only Horror Guy for bestowing this accolade upon me. Now, according to the rules of this particular award, I must now pass it along to ten blogs I consider worthy of it. Therefore, I will be handing these out to the following excellent sites:

Dove's Discourse

End with an Ellipsis

Frankensteinia

Gnolad

Horror-Movie-a-Day

Karlhungus.com

Tales to Astonish

The Horror Blog

The Horrors of It All

Zombo's Closet of Horror

Spread the love, people!

Box Office Legend

I don't usually like to go ga-ga over box office news (I'm more the high-minded aesthetic type...) but it's worth a mention that Will Smith's I Am Legend raked in an astronomical $76.5 million over the weekend. It's the biggest December opener of all time, topping 2003's The Return of the King. Critical and fan opinion may be divided on the flick, but it is nice to see a horror piece at the top of the heap in such a big way. For those who couldn't get out to the theater, you can check out the opening scene of the movie right here. By the way, in case you were wondering, that is a shot of one of the vampires in the film. Hmmm.....

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Thanks to all who voted in the '80s horror icon poll. The Vault of Horror would like to congratulate the one and only Jason Voorhees, who trounced the competition with 37% of the vote. Fellow stalker Michael Myers trailed in second with 24%, followed by the incomparable Pinhead with 20%. And in a shocker, poor Freddy Kreuger--who would've gotten my vote--floundered in last place with a mere 18%. Be sure to vote in the new poll, which continues the theme, as you can see.

Vincent Price Spinning in His Grave Over I Am Legend?

In a very insightful article published a couple days ago at the Fort Worth Business Press, author Michael H. Price--distant cousin of the legendary Vincent Price--speculates as to how his famous relative might have felt about the upcoming re-telling of I Am Legend, due in theaters a week from tomorrow. And the speculation is not positive.
Price, of course, appeared in 1964's The Last Man on Earth, the original film version of Richard Matheson's novel. Interestingly, the writer partly bases his speculation on the fact that Price spoke out against the 1986 remake of another of his films, The Fly, feeling that they had "done it right the first time." Apparently, Price did not rail against the first I Am Legend remake, 1971's The Omega Man, because his buddy Charlton Heston was the star.
So would Vinny P. have condemned the new Will Smith vehicle? Well, if we're to put any stock in the pre-release buzz, come December 14, pretty much everyone will.

Behind the Scenes of Will Smith's I Am Legend

It's the next big horror release, and it's only two weeks away. And while you'll forgive me if memories of Wild, Wild West and I, Robot cause me to be a tad skeptical on this one, I still thought I'd share this little sneak peek that was posted today on ETonline.

I Am Legend - Version 1.0

A rare treat today for horror fans with a little time to kill...While perusing Karswell's excellent blog The Horrors of It All, I stumbled across a link to Vincent Price's 1964 classic The Last Man on Earth. It's the first filmic adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, the latest version of which is set to hit theaters on December 14. Anyone who is so inclined can check out the original flick in its entirety right here to prepare for next month's Will Smith blockbuster. If you have a chance to kick back a bit, it's more than worth it. Enjoy!