Author Topic: Best Horror Movie Ever Poll - Group 1 of 10  (Read 16564 times)

Effie Collins

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Reply #25 on: April 15, 2010, 07:00:26 PM
*nods* This is true. :) The film just made me so mad. The Shining was my very first horror novel that I read, at the tender age of 9. I am a little biased to the book; But I do understand that not everyone has read the book. But if you haven't... I implore you to read it. You'll know then why the film just holds no candle. If I didn't love that book so, I'd offer you one of my copies (yes, I admittedly have more than one), but... mine, mine, mine!

I finally got 700 monkeys. Now all I need is 700 typewriters and some way to live for 700 years...


Fenrix

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Reply #26 on: April 30, 2010, 10:28:22 PM
I finally reconciled my issues with The Shining after I accepted that Kubrick made a great movie called The Shining and King wrote a great book called The Shining. Although one might make a (wrong) argument that they are related, they are two entirely different pieces of work for two different mediums and one cannot be used to judge the other. 

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Effie Collins

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Reply #27 on: May 06, 2010, 02:32:10 PM
Excepting the fact that the film was based on the novel. Which I can't do. Why? Because it was marketed as a King film adaptation... King's name is all over the darn thing and they bastardized it to the highest degree. If it were made as two separate entities, I might have been okay with that approach. But I even have a paperback copy of the novel with stills from the Kubrick film in it, which was released around the same time as the film as a promotional venture. The two were advertised as related, and sadly, Kubrick's film does nothing for the novel and doesn't even resemble the book on any level. *shrug* It's a film I'll never reconcile with. I think it's sad hackwork and shameful.

I finally got 700 monkeys. Now all I need is 700 typewriters and some way to live for 700 years...


Bdoomed

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Reply #28 on: May 06, 2010, 04:27:35 PM
For my one of the english classes I took this year I read Linda Seger's "The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction Into Film".  What was revealed to me, and should be revealed to everyone, is that literature inherently resists film in multiple ways, mostly concerning the flow of time, etc.
The other thing, and in my opinion the most important thing, to consider is that the point of a film adaptation is to create a 'second original'.  The idea is to use the material that is already there to make something that will be enjoyable, not to stay true to the book.  You want to keep the same themes while editing the plot and directionality to better suit a movie.  Now, I haven't read The Shining, but I'm guessing that's what they did.  After all, it IS a highly successful movie.  Another thing an adapter has to consider is feasibility.  What can be shown and not shown due to budget.  Also, you have to try to fit every theme into the movie while still maintaining a fairly simple plot if you want to hold most audiences.
I guess what I'm trying to really say is that you shouldn't base opinions on a movie or even really consider a movie in relation to it's original form, be it book or older movie.  You have to consider it as a 'second original'.  Nowadays, adaptations are trying to be too much like their original material, and they are hurt for it.  And even when they stay true to the material, people STILL complain about the differences.  It's aggravating.  Love the book for the book, love the movie for the movie.  Don't try to love the movie for the book.


Oh, and OF COURSE they'd advertise the film and novel together!  Why wouldn't King want some extra book sales out of that?  An awesome movie would definitely help, so why not package them together?  It's all about money in the end.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2010, 04:31:04 PM by Bdoomed »

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Darwinist

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Reply #29 on: May 07, 2010, 11:32:18 AM
The Amityville Horror was scary to me at the time because I think it was advertised as "based on true events".  Now that we know it was fiction it just isn't as scary. 

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.    -  Carl Sagan