10 more days
Oct. 21st, 2003 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiWith ten days left until Halloween, the official countdown can begin. TV channels will finally start showing horror-themed content, more horror movies will get aired than in any other ten days during the year, and, if we're really lucky, there will be a very special episode of Everybody Love Raymond in which the entire cast gets dismembered.
Okay, two out of three ain't bad.
The point is, for horror fans, this is like the Twelve Days of Christmas, only with more beheadings.
So I figure I'll ramble about horror flicks a little bit each day.
Today's topic: The worst post-Hammer film adaptation of a good horror novel.
And if your answer isn't Relic, justify it.
Seriously, I can't remember any adaptation (including Vampire$) that I anticipated so much, and which sucked so badly on the screen. The book was damned good, bordering on great, and the movie was an almost deliberately bad piece of shit.
Okay, two out of three ain't bad.
The point is, for horror fans, this is like the Twelve Days of Christmas, only with more beheadings.
So I figure I'll ramble about horror flicks a little bit each day.
Today's topic: The worst post-Hammer film adaptation of a good horror novel.
And if your answer isn't Relic, justify it.
Seriously, I can't remember any adaptation (including Vampire$) that I anticipated so much, and which sucked so badly on the screen. The book was damned good, bordering on great, and the movie was an almost deliberately bad piece of shit.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:55 am (UTC)And in a surprising and different way!
I'm thinking that straight-to-DVD version of Clegg's Bad Karma, which fails to hold together even as a basic exercise in filmmaking, is worse than either Queen or Relic though.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:58 am (UTC)Also, what would you call post-Hammer? Would Omega Man count?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:20 am (UTC)Omega Man is borderline. I consider the movie ok camp, but such a loose adaptation, it barely qualifies (and name changes make thing trickier, anyway). Post-Hammer is pretty relative, as the '70s had a horror transition period as folks with actual vision (Cronenberg, Carpenter, Romero) gained prominence. I'd say, go with whatever works for you.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:57 am (UTC)Hear hear! I liked that show for about a minute. Now I really don't understand why people like it.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 10:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:29 am (UTC)I never saw MO or Tommyknockers.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:23 am (UTC)Hammer films! yay!
Date: 2003-10-21 11:22 am (UTC)Incidentally, I was psyched about Vampire$ coming out, and then groaned in pain at the increasingly bad movie as I watched it. If I recall correctly, they made a sequel to it, as well. Hoo boy.
Re: Hammer films! yay!
Date: 2003-10-21 11:30 am (UTC)As for Vampire$, they didn't just make a sequel. They made a sequel starring Jon Bon Jovi.
Re: Hammer films! yay!
Date: 2003-10-21 11:41 am (UTC)*hides head in shame*
Re: Hammer films! yay!
Date: 2003-10-21 12:58 pm (UTC)*shudders*
Re: Hammer films! yay!
Date: 2003-10-21 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:27 am (UTC)Mostly I just wanted to show you that I do still read here now and then, and show some Yendi-love!
*MWAH*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 12:12 pm (UTC)But yay for getting a comment from you! :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 01:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 12:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 12:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 12:36 pm (UTC)That made me laugh out loud. I'm not a huge horror movie fan, so I can't discuss the relative quality (or lack thereof), but I'll have to check the TV listings and see if there are any movies on I'd like to see...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 01:43 pm (UTC)I blushingly confess, I had nightmares for MONTHS... I was so terrified, I didn't sleep in the dark for a very long time, and I reaaallly still hate the metal domes they use as plate covers in hotels!
I watched Silence of the Lambs which I actually enjoyed. However, anything Jason, Kruger, Friday the 13th, Hack and chop, blood and guts, absolutely freaks me out.
Just when I thought I had recovered, my husband dragged me to the movie SEVEN... I was four months pregnant. BAD CHOICE! So... if you have a suggestion to horror that will make me laugh, and get me over this, let me know... Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm just going to be chicken-poop for the rest of my life!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 06:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 06:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 03:26 pm (UTC)Manhunter: Which I love simply because it has William Petersen in it, but is still an awful, awful movie but a terrifying book, or;
Sleepy Hollow: Which I also loved but was inanely cheesy. Great special effects (got to love a bleeding tree) and casting, but...still. I groaned the entire time I watched it, and not in a good way. (Oh! I'm talking about the version with Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken and Christina Ricci.)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 05:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 06:37 am (UTC)Sleepy Hollow was such a loose adaptation, that I barely count it.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 08:13 am (UTC)*grins*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 04:40 pm (UTC)I love Hammer movies. My first vampire/horror movie was a Hammer movie. I was 4 (same year I discovered Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, btw).
Anyway, I didn't actuallly read Relic, but as soon as I saw Penelope Ann Miller was in it, I knew it was in trouble. She's often a bad actress (although I admit to enjoying Cast a Deadly Spell). There have indeed been a lot of lame adaptations of Stephen King books, but some of those books were pretty lame (Cujo, for instance). And I like Stephen King.
So I'm not sure what gets my vote yet. Then again, I am *really* tired today (couldn't sleep worth a damn last night), so my thoughts are very jumbled (as if that isn't evident).
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 06:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 09:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 08:24 pm (UTC)Cause they named it!
Not one of Lovecraft's better stories (more of a sustained ponder on the nature of fear) but the movie completely screwed up even that!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-21 11:25 pm (UTC)Clearly, you have not seen Brian Yuzna's Faust, based on the popular naughty horror comic. That was the worst movie EVER, bar none, based on preexisting material or not. EVER. I mean it. WORST EVER. No qualifiers. Never saw a worse horror movie, even when watching MST3k. Made Matango, Fungus of Terror look like Masterpiece Theater. I wanted to trepan myself to remove the very memory. I wanted to trepan strangers, but that's normal for me. Bad movie. Bad, bad movie.
Although Vampire$ ran a close second.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 06:31 am (UTC)I had no idea Yuzna had done anything since the two Dentist movies. Sounds like I can miss this one.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-22 01:20 pm (UTC)I can't say it was a completely horrible movie. It wasn't. It was beautiful to watch and some of the lighting, effects, fades, etc... pure genius.
But it was in no way the book.
They changed what read like a rape into a seduction. Overtones of sensuality were turned to softcore porn. Don't give me that crap about just showing what the author Really meant. It was offensive. They kept the scenery, changed the feel, mood, theme and ending for crying out loud, mangled characters and cast Keanu Reeves, who I do enjoy as an actor, but not as Jonathan Harker.
Thus endeth the rant.
Peace.