Episode 21 - Stephen King's Night Shift: The Movies

THIS EPISODE CONTAINS ONLY MILD SPOILERS

In this episode, Val looks back at Stephen King's first collection of short stories, "Night Shift" published in 1978.

This slim volume contained enough material to inspire movies, sequels, tv show episodes, segments in anthologies and even a Bollywood movie!

Val will look at seven of the feature film adaptations in turn before talking about the great man's awesome Dollar Baby programme which encourages young film-makers to adapt his work.

We'll feature one of those very film-makers - Julia Marchese. She has recently taken Stephen King up on this amazing opportunity. And we'll be providing you Willing Participants with the chance to help with her audacious venture!

SHOW NOTES:
Julia's indiegogo campaign to raise money for the film is now closed but she is still working hard, raising the remainder of the budget.

If you wish to contribute to the budget for "I Know What You Need",  you can Tweet Julia @juliacmarchese. She can also be found on Instagram and Facebook.

And if you want to know more, you can view Julia's original campaign and update videos here -  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/i-know-what-you-need-a-stephen-king-adaptation?create_edit=true#/updates/all

Transcript

Before I start, a couple of items of housekeeping:

First of all, I was delighted by the enthusiasm a lot of you showed when I Tweeted the next podcast would be on Stephen King. So thanks very much to Richard, and also to Jeff and the rest of the gang at the At The Flicks podcast for all your tips and suggestions. Thanks At The Flicks! Subscribe to their podcast right this minute!

Secondly, I recorded the this episode while I was just ROTTEN with cold. I did my very best to edit out the worst of it, but if you should hear me refer to “Stephend King’s short story collectiond ‘Bight Shift”, please do be kind.

And with that out of the way, I hope you enjoy this episode. [NOSE BLOWING SOUND EFFECT]

Every horror podcast has to do a Stephen King episode. It is the law.

For example, if you listen to a podcast named “Horror Movie Survival Guide” – and I recommend you do – you will hear the host Julia Marchese corrupting her best friend Teri every week by exposing her to films about CHAINSAWS, POSSESSIONS and BLOODY ENTRAILS.

It is a heaps of fun.

Julia LOVES Stephen King. To the point where the writer gets referenced in just about every other episode. As a result, I come at my Stephen King episode with nothing. Julia and Teri have covered just about every novel and left me with nothing original or witty to say. Which is just BLOODY SELFISH of them, I am sure you’ll agree.

But. However. Ha-ha! What if I were to attempt to review all of the films which are based from short stories in his 1978 collection “Night Shift”? 

The rules to this game is that I shall be covering only those short stories which were turned into a film. Not one segment in an anthology. So I’m sorry, but Creepshow 2 and Cat’s Eye are out. I shall also eschew sequels, remakes and tv episodes on the grounds that I also need to eat and sleep occasionally.

However, that still leaves us with seven films. SEVEN of them. So DO come along, Willing Participants. We must BUSTLE!

[THEME]

My Dear Willing Participants,

I hit 10 years old just at the right time, when VCRs started to appear in living rooms across Britain, eliminating arguments about whether to watch “Happy Days” or the early evening news from the BBC. Awwww, dad!!

I became a film-nerd almost overnight. And I was OBSESSED with John Carpenter who – I soon found out – directed all of my favourite films. Those early days of video classics like Halloween, Escape from New York and The Thing. 

And then I heard the news. John Carpenter was to direct a film called “Christine” by someone called Stephen King. I was so excited I went out and bought the paperback. 

And everything changed.

I read that hefty book over the course of a weekend, not emerging from it until the tale was done.  

The book did indeed contain disturbing images and horrific scenes, but that is not why I loved it. What drew me in and intensified the terror was the fact that I liked these characters. I enjoyed spending time with Arnie, Dennis and Leigh. Even the side characters.

I remember there’s a passage in the book where Arnie’s mother – a character who has been just despicable and domineering throughout – gets to tell her story. And suddenly you realise there’s a reason and a sadness as to why she is who she is.

There’s an empathy and warmth to Stephen King’s writing. These are not words you expect to hear, of an author who writes about killer clowns. But it is true. 

And it is deliberate. Stephen King says he wants you to love his characters. He wants you to care about them.

“And THAT’S when you can SQUEEZE them,” he explains with a devious chuckle.

It works for me. As “Christine” progressed, the horror tightened its grip – and Arnie’s soul begins to be consumed by the spirit of a bitter, hateful old man. I felt for him. And as the book neared its conclusion I really wanted everything to turn out all right for the friends.

I shall not spoil it for you, my dear friends, by revealing if it did. Or did not.

I do remember when I reached the last page, I emerged dazed, and wishing it could go on and on. For a few days afterward, I felt a bit dislocated. As if I wanted to drift back into that world. 

Fortunately for me, Stephen King is just a little bit prolific. In quick succession, I read The Dead Zone, Firestarter and Cujo. And there was a reason for this. I was trying to stay ahead of the film-makers. Film adaptations of those novels were all announced at around the same time as John Carpenter’s “Christine”. 

Some of these adaptations were successful, some less so. 

I think the big problem with adapting Stephen King is that so much of his writing is introspective. He’ll slip into italics and we’ll see inside the head of a character. And oftentimes, that’s where the real, painful horror lies. Whether it is in Louis Creed’s grief or Carrie White’s isolation or Jack Torrance’s madness. The actual monsters in King’s novels – the possessed car, the rabid dog, the killer clown – are, to my mind, secondary to the demons of the mind.

Of course, it is hard to squish that stuff into a screenplay. For example, in the film adaptation of “Christine”, the writers biffed most of that introspective stuff into the bin. 

Despite my love of John Carpenter, I was disappointed. It’s a good film and everything. But I really missed that other stuff.

Perhaps this is why the most successful adaptations are of his shorter works. His shortest novel is “Carrie” which made a great film. And two of his most beloved films are “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Stand by Me”, based on novellas from his “Different Seasons” collection.

But what about his short stories? In this episode I’ll be looking at seven films based on stories from his “Night Shift” collection. Published in 1978, but including tales that he wrote as a struggling young writer from the early 1970’s. 

And maybe it’s that background that gives these tales their edgy, nihilistic energy. Or maybe it’s because these stories have to make an impact quick that they feel more like a literary stiletto under the ribs than the unsettling, hypnotic whispers of King’s novels. 

You’ll see what I mean, when I get to adaptation number one: 

GRAVEYARD SHIFT

Warwick stepped forward, walking under the place where the mill ended above them. Hall flashed his light about and felt a cold satisfaction – premonition fulfilled. 

The rats had closed in around them, silent as death. Crowded in, rank on rank. Thousands of eyes looked greedily back at him. In ranks to the wall, some fully as high as a man’s shin.

The short story concerns Hall, an educated man who nevertheless drifts from meaningless job to meaningless job. He works the late shift at a woollen yarn mill, where he enjoys the solitude and puts up with the petty annoyances of his officious boss Warwick and the hordes of rats who emerge at night. 

Over the fourth of July weekend, Hall and some of the other workers are offered additional pay to clean out the lower levels of the mill. And soon a power-play emerges between the obnoxious Warwick and the increasingly bitter Hall as they descend and descend down stairs and through trap doors – some of which pre-date even the mill itself. 

The lower levels are infested with huge, ugly beetles and bats as big as crows. And the rats keep getting bigger… and bigger… More hideous, bloated and blind… 

And maybe a good way to rid yourself of an enemy is to feed the voracious creatures that lurk in the depths…

I cannot pretend to be an expert on Stephen King, but he is a very forthcoming fellow, and has been known to share details about his life in interviews and articles. It’s well-documented that, after achieving a bachelor of arts in English, he struggled, really struggled. With a new, young family and unable to get a teaching job, Stephen and his wife Tabatha worked low-paying, tough jobs to keep the lights on and the kids fed. Occasionally, King would sell one of his stories – mostly to Cavalier magazine. And this would typically pay off an outstanding utility bill, or go toward medicine for one of the kids’ ear infections.

“I remember the ages of 18 months to 4 years of my kids lives as one LONG ear infection,” recalls.

In desperation, he even turned to writing erotic fiction – or trying to, at any rate. For those of you who think he just bangs out stories and novels like a butcher churning out sausages, you need to know this is not true. He has to believe what he is writing. Seeing that he could make about $750 dollars to write an erotic novel, he turned his hand to it. How hard could it be? “It was all thrusting hardness and moist deep caves,” as he put it.

Unfortunately, at about 40 pages in, and he had exhausted all of the elicit permutations he could think of. He got to a scene involving twin sisters in the birdbath and realised he couldn’t go on. With tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks, he threw his one attempt at pornography in the bin.

I think that’s relevant, because that’s the background to which a lot of these stories were written. And while I know authors hate to be psychoanalysed, it’s not hard to imagine that leeching through into this story, in which Hall, the college boy, resentfully leads his boss into the darkness, partly because he wants to prove he’s every bit as masculine as the blue-collars who mock him, and partly because he’s got nothing left to lose. 

The movie loses that energy, almost completely. It is just a standard monster movie in which our protagonists come up against giant rats and man-eating bats. The circumstances are roughly the same, but in this instance it’s Hall’s boss Warwick who insists that his team go deep into the abyss to clear out the vermin. Hall is much more heroic, and of course he’s given a female sidekick to save. 

This film feels like a really weak cup of tea. Like, if Stephen King were the tea-bag, then he’s barely dunked in the hot water. Maybe two dips at most. And then a ton of milk. That isn’t to say it is a wholly bad film, but it looks like a 90 minute version of “Tale of the Darkside”. And it feels strangely safe, compared to the mean-spirited nastiness of the short story.

On the plus side, the creatures are really not bad for a low-budget horror movie, but most importantly we get BRAD DOURIF as a rodent exterminator. Brad always makes everything better. For that reason, I shall give Graveyard Shift a 2 as a film and a two as a horror film. 
 
 

THE MANGLER

It tried to fold everything, he said to Jackson, tasting bile in his throat. “But a person isn’t a sheet, Mark. What I saw… What was left of her...” Like Stanner, the hapless foreman, he could not finish. “They took her out in a basket,” he said softly.

Stephen King really did work in a laundry. In fact, he did a lot of his early writing in that laundry. I suppose it is unsurprising that a mangler – an automatic folding machine – should make its way into his fiction. The way he describes it in the story, “…belts hurrying through the darkness, cogs meeting and meshing and grinding, heavy pulverising rollers, running on and on…” makes it sound like some medieval monster, transformed into an industrial beast.

In his original tale, a cop named Hunton investigates what appears to be an industrial accident at the laundry, when an elderly employee is sucked into a demonic folding machine called “the mangler”. She’s not just torn to pieces, she’s ripped apart, squashed and… folded. As Hunton continues his investigations, he comes to believe that the machine has become possessed – and that it demands regular sacrifice. 

It sounds sort of silly. But King’s talent can make even this scenario compelling and scary. All the same, when I heard that Tobe Hooper would be directing an adaptation of this film, my first thought was… really??

The film version of this story is remarkably faithful to the source material. However, it is just expanded and filled out with additional layers of plot. Some of which make sense, and some which really do not. The original tale contains a side-story about a possessed abandoned fridge that sucks in animals and children and SUFFOCATES them to death. 

So this movie even includes the FRIDGE. Shoe-horns it in, clumsily, and makes it essential to the plot. You have to give screenwriter credit for trying, but in the context of this wider tale, it really doesn’t make sense. And whereas Stephen King’s story skates over the silliness of the idea, Tobe Hooper’s film exposes it and made me think about other possessed household appliances.

TOASTER: I am an eeee-ville TOASTER! Ha ha ha ha! I shall hold on to your muffins and BURN them! Yes! Yes! I shall! Go on! Poke at me with cutlery! I dare you!

In the story, and in the film, Hunton attempts to exorcise the deadly machine, deducing the machine became possessed after tasting the blood of a virgin. But – and this is stressed heavily in the movie – at least the machine never got exposed to belladonna. Because if the machine had been exposed to belladonna – boy that would be a whole different thing. So PHEW. It definitely did not get belladonna because if it had got belladonna it would be SOOOOO bad and not at all good if it got belladonna, which is MOST DEFINITELY did not get.

I didn’t really know what to say to the screenwriter at this point. Except, “Thank you Mr. Subtlety.”

However, with Tobe Hooper at the helm, and Robert Englund playing the villain of the piece, The Mangler is never NOT entertaining. Englund really puts his back into it. He plays the owner of the Blue Ribbon Laundry as a slithery, whispering, bellowing, nasty piece of work. With one bad eye and a darting, lustful tongue. He is absolutely fucking vile and completely over the top. But with material like this, what else can you do except go to Vincent Price level 10?

[ROBERT ENGLUND PERFORMANCE]

It was Robert who made this film for me. His moments of stomping about in leg-braces, snarling and hissing like a rabid version of Jack Nicholson, were when I think Tobe Hooper came the closest to showing his talent too. It’s only a vague, distant echo of his best work, probably more reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 than the original – but I could just about see it. 

The eventual conclusion to all of this madness is – sadly – a whole bunch of bad special effects, but this is still an passable horror film. And the epilogue is nastily cynical. I would give this film a 2 and a half as a film and a 2 and a half as a horror film.

Stephen King himself is not as kind. Understandably, he has stronger feelings about what Hooper and Englund did with his story. I haven’t been able to find the exact quotation but as I recall, Stephen King said something along the lines of – when it comes to adaptations of his work, it’s like sending your kids down to the docks to make money doing favours for sailors. 

Obviously, that is just Mr. King’s puckish humour at work but it belies some of the REALLY bad experiences he has had at the hands of Hollywood. So you really can’t blame him for wanting to have a bit of a go himself. Which brings us to his one and only film as director. Stephen King’s: MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE

It didn’t drag him under. As things turned out, it would have been better if it had. Instead it drove him up and out, the way a punter kicks a football. For a moment he was silhouetted against the hot afternoon sky like a crippled scarecrow, and then he was gone into the drainage ditch. The big truck’s brakes hissed like dragon’s breath, its front wheels locked, digging grooves into the gravel skin of the lot, and it stopped inches from jackknifing in. The bastard.

The thing we love about Stephen King is that he feels like he’s one of us. Sure, he may be a big high-falutin’ writer. But he’s also a regular guy who has worked numerous regular guy jobs. In interviews and on Twitter, he comes over as a down-to-earth sort, not above recounting tales about how he once signed a book while suffering from sudden onset diarrhoea after eating a plate of bad chicken.   

He loves cars and rock music. He even played in the celebrity author rock band (The Rock Bottom Remainders – they even put out an album on the “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” label). And like all decent, intelligent people everywhere. He enjoys a good willy joke. 

In his book “Danse Macabre”, he describes the difference between fine horror writing and low-brown drive-in movies, as the difference between the delicate “ting” of fine crystal and the plunk of bluegrass fiddle. But he goes on to say that sometimes he’s just in the MOOD for bluegrass fiddle. 

I bring this all up regarding “Maximum Overdrive” because it seems to me that this was his ambition. To make a bluegrass fiddle movie. A “moron movie” as he put it. Just something quick, dumb, exciting and funny. Maybe he didn’t want to take on too much for his directorial debut. Maybe he just wanted to make a movie that could accompany a soundtrack by his favourite band AC/DC. Really, who knows? 

The thing you need to know about Maximum Overdrive is this: it makes no fucking sense. Whatsoever. Even within the internal world of the movie, where machines have turned against mankind, it doesn’t make sense. Because some machines are FINE and some just aren’t. For reasons. Which are never explained. 

But – and here’s what you need to know. There’s no such thing as bad drive-in horror movies. There are only drive-in movies WITH beer, and drive-in movies with ADDITIONAL beer. 

So… if you’ll pardon me for a moment…

(Bottle opening, drinking sounds)

I am ready.

If you don’t take it too seriously, Maximum Overdrive really IS fun. It starts with a series of sketches, in which people are victimised by machines. Including Stephen King himself, getting called an asshole by a rogue ATM machine. 

[STEPHEN KING]

And then a baseball coach gets WHACKED right in the swingers when a vending machine hits his family jewels bang on target. 

Willy joke! It’s a willy joke everybody! Mexican Wave!

I remember Stephen King saying that the original inspiration for Creepshow was Monty Python. And that he envisaged a horror movie sketch show, where each sketch would end with a scream instead of a laugh, and then move onto something completely different. Whenever I watch the beginning of Maximum Overdrive, I always wonder if that idea influenced this film too?

From there, I feel it slows down a little, once everyone is at the truck stop, being menaced by a whole bunch of homicidal big rigs. Definitely a more experienced director could have made the scenes in which the truck stop is under siege more tense and exciting, but Stephen King does a decent job. Excuse me.

(Bottle opening, drinking sounds)

Okay, I’m back.

Maximum Overdrive saw Stephen King nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for worst director. Fortunately for him, Prince was also up that year for his film, “Under the Cherry Moon”. King himself seems a bit embarrassed about it, but that may be due to his own memories of that film’s troubled shoot. From the perspective of fans, it’s way better than its reputation. It’s fast, silly, fun. 

Sober, I guess it is a 2 as a film, and as a horror film. But add beer and pizza and you can easily boost it to a three on both counts.

Incidentally, this film was also remade as a TV film called “Trucks”. But it has no AC/DC. 

Unsurprisingly, it is NOWHERE near as much fun.

I once asked a friend why he smoked and he gave me an unexpected answer. He didn’t say it was the nicotine rush, or that it gave him something to do with his hands or that it made him look like Steve McGarret. He told me it was to do with control of fire. Fire, that dangerous, murderous thing, alive, right there in his hands. 

I think about that when I think of Stephen King. He is very open and as honest as anyone can be when he discusses his art. He talks about his own fears. Of the dark. Of flying. He doesn’t like bugs. He hates attics. Basements are bad. Mirrors are bad. Elevators. The back seats of cars. Cupboards harbour boogeymen. There’s something under bed. 

And he has a longstanding fear that – just as his hand reaches for the light switch to banish the dark – another hand will close over his. 

There’s a huge list. 

“And people ask me where I get my ideas,” he says, dryly.

Maybe he writes horror for the same reason that my friend smokes. He wants to hold that dangerous thing in his hands. To control it.

The reason I bring this up now, is that I suspect this next story was informed by King’s own insecurities and fears. 

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK

After the kids were gone, something old and brooding seemed to settle over the halls and whisper in the empty rooms. Some black, noxious beast, never quite in view. Sometimes, as he walked down the Wing 4 corridor towards the parking lot with his new briefcase in one hand, Jim Norman thought he could almost hear it breathing.

Stephen King’s story has a teacher named Jim Norman returning to his home town for a teaching job. His wife begins to fear for her husband when he begins to see the ghosts of the vicious teenagers who killed his brother decades earlier. They turn up in his classroom, smirking and sneering at their teacher and insinuate that their work is far from over...  

[QUOTE]

Sometimes They Come Back is a tv movie. I mention this now. To set expectations. If you are expecting a King adaptation that will scare you out of your wits and drive you behind a sofa-cushion, it is just not going to happen.

Nevertheless, this is one of the better adaptations. It feels like some real appreciation of King’s writing is at work here. It features a great performance by Tim Matheson as Jim Norman and Brooke Adams (who also appeared in David Cronenberg’s adaptation of The Dead Zone). This movie was directed by Tom McLoughlin who directed one of the more crowd-pleasing episodes of the Friday the 13th franchise – Jason Lives.

The screenplay stays fairly faithful to the original story, up to around the halfway point. And the changes which are made, are applied in a way that feels appreciative of Stephen King’s writing. They give Jim Norman a young son which I think is a good move. It ups the stakes for the character and gives a sense of history repeating which really gives the film a sense of urgency. The school setting invokes memories of Carrie – as do the evil spirits of the dead greasers who plague Jim. They are reminiscent of the characters of Billy Nolan in Carrie or Buddy Ripperton in Christine. Which reminds me, they also hoon around town in a demonic-looking 1950’s hot-rod, with flaming exhausts. 

As for the character of Jim Norman – he can’t just leave this job and flee back to the city. There was an “incident” at his previous school, they say. It’s an echo of Jack Torrance getting into an altercation with a student in “The Shining”. I know these are all small points, but as a King reader – it made me feel like the writers understood his work and were doing what they could to open up his short story in a way that felt natural.

You could even say that this film prefigures IT, in that it features an adult plagued the demons that he previously faced in childhood. And that makes me wonder if Stephen King is still fleeing from the bullies of his high school years. 

Where the film really deviates is probably the least effective part of the film. Whereas King’s tale goes extremely dark, with Jim Norman turning, in desperation, to black magic to rid himself of his tormentors and invoking a Mephistopheles-type spirit, this film climaxes with action sequences, chase sequences and an upbeat ending in which it is Jim’s love for his family, and his resolve which saves the day. 

Well. This is a tv movie, after all. The sun always shines on tv.

With all that said, this film looks much better than some of the other adaptations. The performances are much better too. The villains aren’t as over the top and cartoonish this time. What they threaten is much more subtle, and all the more chilling for it.

This film definitely pulls back, just at the point where King’s tale went for the throat. But it’s a decent, tense horror film, built around a decades-old mystery that the hero must uncover. For that reason, it’s a three and a half as a film and a three and a half as a horror movie. 

By the early 90’s, there had been so many Stephen King adaptations, it was clear that his name above a movie title meant another few million at the box office. And it felt like we had reached the point where film-makers would buy the option for ANYTHING with his name on it, even if those stories were not remotely suited for the screen. I’m surprised we never saw STEPHEN KING’S SHOPPING LIST made into a movie…

(Scary music)

MAN: Must get sausages… must get sausages… also two tins of cat food, a box of Frosties, a bag of apples and some TOILET DUCK. Oh god, they’re out of FISH FINGERS!!

(Scary music climax)

All the same. I thought there were limits. And that’s why I was so surprised when I heard they were making a movie of one of Stephen King’s most BIZARRE short stories. 

THE LAWNMOWER MAN

The lawnmower man had removed his clothes – every stitch. They were folded neatly in the empty birdbath that was at the centre of the back lawn. Naked and grass-stained, he was crawling along about 5 feet behind the mower, eating the cut grass. Green juice rn down his chin and dripped on to his pendulous belly. And every time the lawnmower whirled around a corner, he rose and did an odd, skipping jump before prostrating himself again.

The most bizarre tale from Stephen King’s Nightshift collection is one he wrote at the precocious age of 15. It’s a comedic piece of a conservative Republican, humiliated by a naked, Pan-worshipping pagan lawnmower guy who eats grass clippings and any creatures that lurk in the grass. Worse still, does it in front of the Democrats across the road. But things get infinitely worse for Harold Parkette when he threatens to call the police.

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I should include this film. Stephen King does not even acknowledge it as an adaptation of his work. And he makes a good point. Although he did write a story called “The Lawnmower Man” which features a man, who has a lawnmower. 

And, to be fair to the film makers, this film also features a lawnmower, which is operated by a man.

Thhhhhhat’s about as far as it goes. Adaptation-wise. 

In this film, Jeff Fahey plays Jobe, a simple man with learning disabilities who does odd jobs for a living. He pumps petrol, mows lawns, lives in a shack on the ground of the local church and loves comic books. 

As a simple, gentle sort, he is naturally bullied. The local biker threatens him, the priest at the church whips him for even simple acts of disobedience and his best friend – a boy called Peter – is beaten by his father because of their friendship. 

But somehow, Jobe maintains his optimistic disposition and when a local scientist named Angelo – played by Pierce Brosnan – befriends him, he’s happy for the company and the attention. 

Of course, Angelo has his own reasons for fostering the relationship with Jobe. Angelo has been working on top-secret research in enhancing brain activity. Previously, he’s experimented – with disastrous results – on chimpanzees. But now he’s keen to see if he can turn innocent Jobe into a fully-fledged – dangerous – adult. 

Now. Here’s the thing. I remembered watching this film back in the 90’s. And thinking it was the cinematic equivalent of a bag of arseholes. But, re-watching for this episode, I found myself enjoying it. What WAS going on? Was the film having some sort of reverse-Jobe effect on me? Was my intellect turning into that of a Lawnmower Man?

Never fear, Willing Participants, I’m as robustly intellectual as ever I was.

(FART)

Hee hee hee. I just farted. 

Where was I? Oh yes, that’s right. Robustly intellectual.

But anyway. What had happened was that I had accidentally rented the DIRECTOR’S CUT of the film. It’s around 40 minutes longer, and – surprisingly – much, much better. Not toward the end. The ending is as shitty as it was back then. But the character development is much more compelling – in that – you know – there is some.

So we see Jobe’s intelligence increase, Flowers-for-Algernon-like, from the simple innocent to the level of a rebellious teenager, then an intelligent man, and finally a super-intelligent MONSTER. 

[QUOTE]

It's actually sort of fun seeing Jeff Fahey going through the teenager stage. Obviously, he’s a full-grown man, still quite innocent. But when a local housewife tells him, “I’m looking forward to having my lawn mowed” you can see him thinking, “Wait a minute! She’s not talking about her garden! She’s talking about her LADY garden!”

Despite the fact that this film bears no relation to Stephen King’s story, it does feel King-like. Stephen King… -ey? There are references to “The Shop” – that sinister undercover organisation from Firestarter, there are digs at religion, unpleasant greaser characters and a setting not a million miles from Derry. 

So I had a reasonable time watching this film. When The Lawnmower Man goes on his revenge spree, it’s really quite fun. And it helps that both Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan are actually good actors and help sell this bonkers shit.

However, the special effects are BLOODY AWFUL and the lawnmower attack is just silly. 

The virtual reality climax is a massive let-down after what has gone before. Some of you younger people may think, “I suppose this was awesome back in the day, audiences at that time probably thought this was amazing.”

No. Trust me on this. It wasn’t. And we didn’t. 

So I’d give The Lawnmower Man a three as a film, and just a one and a half as a horror film. It doesn’t even really try to be scary. 

But if I thought The Lawnmower Man was nothing like the story upon which it was based, then that was only because I had not seen “No Smoking” yet. This is an Indian film, supposedly based upon Stephen King’s short story:

QUITTERS, INC.

“Imagine,” Donatti said, smiling, “how horrible it will be for the boy. He wouldn’t understand it even if someone explained. He’ll only know someone is hurting him because Daddy was bad. He’ll be very frightened.”

In Stephen King’s original story, a businessman named Morrison signs up with a mysterious agency which promises to help him stop smoking. However, the agency’s motivational methods are – unorthodox – to say the least. Intimidation, torture and mutilation follow swiftly, should Morrison take even one puff from a cigarette, he risks the well-being – the very lives – of himself and his family.

In Stephen King’s hands, this is a taut, tough thriller, that escalates just when you think it’s about to end. And climaxes with a brilliantly NASTY sting in the tale. It was also filmed as a segment within the anthology film “Cat’s Eye”, starring James Woods. That version stayed pretty close to the tone of the original tale. But 

“No Smoking”… “ This is something else.

It stars John Abraham, Bollywood star and most handsome man alive, who also starred in “Dostana” and played the villain in the first “Dhoom” movie. What’s that? You haven’t SEEN the first “Dhoom” movie? I think it’s time for a Bollywood Break!

BOLLYWOOD BREAK MUSIC

Indian Willing Participants are probably rolling their eyes at me right now, but I bloody LOVED “Dhoom 1”. How to describe it? It’s like a cross between The Matrix, The Fast and The Furious, Mission Impossible and The Eurovision Song Contest. 

Starring Abischek Bachchan and Uday Chopra, Dhoom is action-packed. The songs are great. The jokes are funny. The stunts are amazing. It’s also abso-bloody-lutely ridiculous but I didn’t care. I was too busy having fun.

I would like to add that Dhoom 2 features the Queen of England getting onto a board and sandboarding behind a speeding train going through the desert. 

I’m just saying. For a fun evening. You. A pizza. A bottle of wine. Dhoom 1 and Dhoom 2. 

You can thank me later.

And that ends this Bollywood Break

BOLLYWOOD BREAK MUSIC

“No Smoking” is a strange, surreal film. It may be the most experimental Indian film I’ve ever seen. It takes the kernel of Stephen King’s story and turns it into an intense, dreamlike nightmare about conformity and individualism. 

What I thought was going to be a simple fable about the dangers of smoking turns into a journey for K, John Abraham’s character. He’s a successful, self-centred businessman, with an unhappy wife and a severely asthmatic brother on a ventilator.

John Abraham gets to have great fun being a complete dickhead. He actually sounds like a lovely fellow in real life, campaigning for animal rights. But in this movie he gets to throw a little old lady out of a lift, because she complains about his cigarette. “Take the stairs,” he says, blowing smoke in her face. It’s loads of fun.

Incidentally, Kay Kay Menon and Shah Rukh Khan both both turned down the role of K. Poor old John Abraham had just quit smoking before the film started – and took it up again to get back in character.

Back to the film. Curious about an organisation known as “The Laboratory” which claims it can stop the smoking habit, he descends down a dingy shaft at the back of a carpet shop, only to find a strange cult led by Baba Bengali, a sinister mystic who appears to know everything about him.

“He’ll turn your life into a living nightmare. You won’t know the difference between when you are living and when you are dreaming,” warns another customer of The Laboratory.

Baba Bengali has spies and cameras everywhere. And he lets K know that if he smokes just one cigarette, they will take his brother and put him in a gas chamber filled with cigarette smoke. “Enough to make the healthiest of lungs burst,” he smiles. “And I believe your brother is one-lunged.”

If it doesn’t sound too strange so far, I should mention the weird switches into comedy, the  cartoon sound effects. It’s odd in the middle of a thriller. And a strange thing where thought-bubbles occasionally appear above the heads of the characters. Sometimes it feels almost like an Indian version of the Patrick McGoohan series, “The Prisoner”. 

There’s also the look of this film, which switches from glamorous and colourful to bleak, dingy and oppressive. A little like Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” at times.

And yes, there are a couple of musical numbers. But none of them feel inappropriate, under the circumstances.

I don’t know if Stephen King has seen this film. I can’t help but feel he would be bemused by it. But I think he’d also really like it. It takes only the bare bones of his story and takes it somewhere else. Somewhere surreal and magical. Nightmarish and stunning. It looks really great and it definitely left me thinking. As a film, I’d give it a four out of five. But as a horror film just a one. To be honest, even King’s original tale wasn’t trying to scare you.

Stephen King often bemoans the fact that he is a famous writer in a country where people don’t really read. He says that most of the times he is recognised, it is not for his novels or stories, but from the cinema adaptations of them. He recounts one tale of a time his wife sent him to the supermarket to pick up some bits and pieces. 

“Normally she goes, but as it was only for a couple of things she figured I couldn’t fuck it up too bad,” he commented, sourly.

While he was in the store, a woman on a mobility scooter approached him. “I always worry about those things,” he said. “I worry that the elderly driver might fall alseep at the wheel and the scooter will go all Maximum Overdrive on me.”

But the woman had him in her sights, “You’re that Stephen King! You write all those scary movies!” she said in an accusing manner.

He had to admit that he did.

“Well, some people like them I suppose,” she sniffed. “But I prefer uplifting stories. Like that Shawshank Redemption,” she continued.

“Errrr… I wrote that too,” King pointed out.

The old lady thought about that for a moment. 

“YOU DID NOT!” she bellowed, turning her scooter around and puttering off before he could correct her. 

But the old lady was not alone. Apparently people often ask for his autograph, while apologising that, “I’ve never read your books but I’ve seen ALL your movies.”

“And I always think, ‘You poor sap’,” says Stephen King. “Really? All of ‘em? Even The Mangler? And all those Children of the Corn sequels?”

There ARE a lot of them. “I’m still waiting for Children of the Corn Meet The Leprechaun” says King. 

There are even two remakes of the original movie. I’m trying to retain the will to live here, so we shall focus solely on the original.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN

They came from the side streets, from the town green, through the gate in the chain-link fence around the school playground a block further east. Some of them glanced indifferently at Burt, standing frozen on the church steps, and some nudged each other and pointed and smiled… the sweet smiles of children.

The movie Children of the Corn follows King’s original short story quite faithfully in terms of plot, but not so much in spirit. His original tale starts on the downbeat, with a couple named Alice and Burt arguing, petty, getting on each other’s nerves. 

The fact that they appear to be lost, driving through endless fields of corn, while a holy-roller, religious nutcase freaks out on the car radio in the background is secondary to their passive-aggressive and then overtly-aggressive sniping.

It’s funny to me to counterpoint that with Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton, the movie version of the couple. Linda is just adorable, singing “School is Out” along with her screen husband. In the car, they remain in good spirits even though they are lost, laughing at that same holy-roller. “NO ROOM!” they roar with laughter as they drive through the densely-packed fields of corn. 

[NO ROOM!]

In the film, the couple do get into a little bit of a fight, over directions. Typically, it’s Linda Hamilton as Alice who has the right idea, and her husband Burt who’s the idiot. You need that in horror movies though. If men listened to their wives in films they would be really short… and DULL:

Stephen King apparently said he thought the writer of the screenplay didn’t understand his story. And I wonder if that difference in the relationship dynamics is what he meant? Certainly in this version, the fact that Alice and Burt are a coherent unit – that they support each other does lessen the terror in King’s tale. In King’s story, Burt is soon separated from Alice and finds himself being hunted alone by a pack of corn-worshipping children. There’s a real sense of hopelessness. And – if I wanted to get really wanky about it – the subtext that the American family is falling apart and destroying itself.

What both the film and the story have in common are the oppressive religious overtones however. King says he was brought up in a very religious area – and it is a common motif running through a lot of his work. Surprisingly, he says he’s against religion – despite the fact it often appears in a negative light. He says it is more that he is fascinated by it, and can see the appeal of religious certainty.

In the story and the film, religion has become wholly perverted. Twisted by some sort of ancient demon of the fields, which has got into the minds of the children. They repeat and repeat altered Biblical texts and perform rites of sacrifice to appease the spirit they refer to as “He Who Walks Behind The Rows”. In the story, this builds to a climax that feels like a cross between “The Wicker Man” and a sermon from a Bible belt megachurch.

In the film, it’s a more conventional affair – with Linda Hamilton being kidnapped and readied for sacrifice and Peter Horton forming an alliance with two heretic children to try and save her. Elevating the film a great deal is a wonderful performance from John Franklin as Isaac, the prophet of “He Who Walks Behind The Rows” and the leader of the homicidal children. He really is just terrific delivering lines like “Down on your KNEES heretic!” and “Question me not Malachai. I act according to his will.” 

And then there’s this:

[QUOTE]

These are not easy lines to deliver without prompting unprovoked laughter. But John Franklin really pulls it off. He was 23 years old when he made this film, but has a growth hormone deficiency which is why can play the part of a 12 year old boy realistically. He explains that he had come to this project straight from playing a Vulcan for “Star Trek”. The film-makers looked at his Vulcan hair and said, “That’s great. Really creepy hair,” let’s keep it.

In fact, it’s mainly the casting that puts this film over the top, Linda Hamilton, Peter Horton, John Franklin and Courtney Gains as the maniacal henchman Malachai are all just terrific. The movie was made on just a $800k budget, but the director Franz Kiersch pulls off a minor miracle and makes it look so much better than that. They realise Stephen King’s setting – the creepy, ghost town, the oppressive rows of corn, the crucified remnants of the townfolk incredibly well and this raises the level of this short-story adaptation over the others. 

On the negative side, the special effects in this film are kind of crappy – even for a mid-80’s horror movie, they’re not good. I think they might have been better not showing “He Who Walks Behind The Rows” at all. We just don’t need to see it. I also have issues with the character of Burt. To put it bluntly, Burt is an absolute nob. He’s just rubbish at everything, constantly telling other people to “STAY BACK!” and then stuffing things up and having to be rescued. 

I mean. He’s with LINDA FUCKING HAMILTON for Christ’s sake. HE should stay in the car. She can sort that shit out herself, thank you very much.

So as a film, this is a four out of five, but just a three as a horror film. It’s pretty creepy, but not really scary. 

DOLLAR BABIES

That’s it for full-length feature-film adaptations of Stephen King’s Night Shift stories. But, as it happens, there are also HEAPS of short-film adaptations as well. Children of the Corn is reinterpreted as “Disciples of the Crow” in a short movie you can find on YouTube. 

There’s also an adaptation of “The Boogeyman” which opens the story up somewhat – it has to really, the short story is a monologue from a patient to his psychiatrist. But the short film I found most effective – and is also on YouTube – is a film based on his story - 

THE WOMAN IN THE ROOM

Perhaps it is his fault anyway. He is the only child to be have been nurtured inside her, a change-of-life baby. His brother was adopted when another smiling doctor told her she would never have any children of her own. And of course, the cancer now in her began in the womb like a second child, his own darker twin. His life and her death began in the same place.

The Woman in the Room is the final story in the Night Shift collection. It has a distinctly different tone to the rest of the stories. It’s the painful tale of a man visiting his mother in hospital. She is dying, slowly, painfully and the man reflects on his love for her, and if he has the courage to end her suffering.

The writer/director of this short film takes that tale and compliments it with a sensitive script and some great acting. He also adds a couple of new scenes – a dream sequence that tips its cap toward horror – and a scene involving a Vietnam veteran on death row. 

[QUOTE]

Neither of the new scenes would be out of place in the fiction of Stephen King. They feel entirely appropriate. And so they should. They were written by Frank Darabont, whose film this is. Pre-dating his amazing collaborations with Stephen King on “The Mist”, “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption”, this was the start of Frank Darabont’s movie career, and a brilliant calling-card from a film-maker who really understands the source material. 

And it all started with one dollar. Because that’s how much Stephen King charges enthusiastic young film-makers to adapt his work. His “dollar baby” programme stipulates that – for the princely sum of one dollar US – film students or inexperienced directors – can have the rights to adapt one of his short stories. “Over my accountant’s moans and head-clutching protests,” adds King with a devious smirk.

The rules are that the film cannot be shown for commercial gain without King’s permission and that the film-maker must send a copy of the finished work for Stephen King to view.

Frank Darabont must have been one of the first “Dollar Babies”. He wrote his inquiry letter to Stephen King in 1980, who was happy to be given a chance to give something back. In fact, a lot of his career has been spent giving back. He gives his time to support literacy programmes in the US, and typically he donates the fees from his speaking engagements toward college scholarships. 

As for Darabont, he didn’t realise what he was letting himself in for. It took him three years to make his film, with most of that effort going toward raising the money. But in the end, his efforts paid off – not just for him, but for all of us.

At least twenty young directors have become dollar babies since then. The latest of which is Julia Marchese. Remember her?

I didn’t mention her at the start of this episode for no reason. I had an agenda. I needed you know that this programme is open to people just like us. People who love movies, people who love Stephen King. Creative, enthusiastic, genuinely talented women like Julia. 

She has previously expressed her love of the genre and of cinema generally with her fantastic documentary “Out of Print”. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a love-letter to revival cinema, featuring contributions from Rian Johnson, Edgar Wright, Kevin Smith and Joe Dante amongst others. You can find it on Amazon Prime, and if you love independent cinemas run by people who are passionate about movies, you really should check it out.

And now she has sent her dollar to Mr. King and has the rights to make a movie out another Night Shift story:

I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED

“Please,” Alice said. “Please, Liz, listen. I don’t know how he can do those things. I doubt if he knows for sure. He might not mean to do you any harm, but he already has. He’s made you love him by knowing every secret thing you want and need, and that’s not love at all. That’s rape.” 

I Know What You Need is the story of Liz, a college student who is bright, funny and well-liked. She has a boyfriend, Tony who loves her and a best friend and room-mate in Alice, to look out for her. She doesn’t need anything. 

Until she meets Edward, a loner with unkempt hair and scruffy clothes. Socially awkward and just… strange. Yet somehow he knows EXACTLY what she needs… all the time. And when you’re given a gift like that – do you question it? Or do you accept it?

I can see why Julia wanted this story. Stephen King’s tale of transactional relationships seems more relevant now than ever. 

What’s especially exciting about this project is that authenticity is really important to Julia. Which is why she’ll be shooting her short film at the actual locations specified in Stephen King’s story, including the University of Maine where Stephen King attended. It will also be a period piece, set in the 1976, the year the story was originally published in Cosmopolitan. 

But perhaps the thing that intrigues me most of all is that Julia Marchese is a Stephen King fan. Does this mean she will be able to interpret his material as well as Frank Darabont? I do not know. But I should like very much to find out.

Like Frank Darabont, Julia’s biggest challenge is raising the $50k she needs for her movie. She’s about halfway there. I contributed what I could. Not that the New Zealand peso is worth a heck of a lot, but I do what I can because we’re all in this together, we horror movie fans. 

If you would like to donate to Julia’s “Make An Awesome Short Stephen King Movie” fund, you can contact her on all the social media platforms – Instagram, Facebook or on Twitter where she is Julia C Marchese. I’ll post links to all of these in the show notes and on my own Twitter account @PodcastMassacre. 

And remember that Stephen King views all these films – so as well as doing a talented writer/director/podcaster a solid – you’ll be associated with – or even have your name on – a movie viewed by the King of Horror himself.

But, most importantly, if you’re listening to this as a young gorehound, or a student with a wall of Stephen King books – I hope you’re inspired by Julia’s plan. She could be you. She could be any one of us.

As for me, it makes me happy to think that, maybe in a few years time, when Julia is making her version of “The Breathing Method” or “The Long Walk” or… “Children of the Corn Meet The Leprechaun” I’ll be able to say, “I produced her first movie”.

And wouldn’t that be something?

Looking back at this episode, I realise I’ve been unfair to Stephen King. The films based on his Night Shift collection are not the best cinematic representations of his work. Although, interestingly, “Carrie”, “Gerald’s Game” and “Misery” are among the best – and all three of those tales started life as short stories – which later rampaged out of control to become novels. 

Of course, he doesn’t think of himself as a horror writer at all. The way he tells it, it was kind of an accident. He had two novels ready to go after “Carrie” – one of which was a kidnap thriller called “Blaze”, the other was called “Second Coming”. His publisher preferred “Second Coming”. There was just one problem with it.

“They’ll typecast you as a horror writer,” he was told. “If you follow up the story about the telekinetic girl with a story about vampires in a small town, you’ll be known as a horror writer.”

He thought about this. He too preferred the vampire tale, although he was thinking about changing that title.

There are worse things to be known as than a horror writer, he thought.

And regardless of how he sees himself, he does have a gift for fear. My mind goes back to his fear of reaching for that light switch, when a hand closes over yours, moving you away from that switch.

I wonder if he knows that, to his readers, his is that hand. Unsettling, of course, scary, often. But guiding us through the darkness, nevertheless. 

If you have not had the chance to read his stories thus far, I encourage you join us there.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

Good night.

[THEME]

[BEER OPENING]

Okay, who wants to watch “Graveyard Shift”? S’an awesome film! Aw c’mon! Anyone? I’ll order pizza!