I can pinpoint my love of horror, and heck, my passion to writing, back to the very first horror film I ever watched-- "Children of the Corn". I was only five at the time, and aside from scaring the pants off of me, it opened me up to a whole new world of story telling. Looking back all these years later, the movie hardly holds the test of time, but I think it gets enough right, especially for its time, that I don't think I'm remiss in still holding fond memories for it.
During my preteen years, I developed a full on obsession with "The Shining". I remember catching the original Kubrick version on T.V., and it was the first time I really started to look at the art of film-making itself, paying attention to things like camera angles and lighting, and really noticing how the score of a film ties things together and sets the ambiance. (And I think that the score to the original "Shining" is perhaps one of the greatest in horror-film history) Just after I had finished reading the book, I was thrilled to see in T.V. Guide that ABC was producing and airing redux of "The Shining". I collected every T.V. Guide special that featured a making of story, and read, and re-read interviews with the King about his distaste for the original (today, it's one of my favorite movies of all time), and how he liked that this time they were going to be more faithful to the source material. While I find the remake abysmal now, I loved it at the time, recording all three parts on VHS, and watching them so much the tape stopped playing.
I went threw a phase where I would rent a new King-adapted film every chance I could from the video store. And though the majority rank somewhere just below b-movie status, I gobbled them up, and cherished them just the same. Watching "Pet Cemetery", I remember falling in love with Fred Gwynne's performance as Jud Crandall, being hypnotized by the slow, melodious tone of his voice.
The first Stephen King movie I watched in theaters was "Delores Claiborne". It expanded my expectations for what King, and the "horror" genera could deliver. It was after watching that one that I tracked down "Misery", and learned what a brilliant actress could bring to a marvelous character. After that, I'd never look at acting in those types of movies the same.
Stephen King is one of the authors that inspired me to want to write, to want to tell stories, and his film adaptations gave me a curiosity into wanting to translate that visually. I know this may seem like a somewhat random posting, but this is a random blog, so bear with. As I work more on the stories and scripts of my own, sometimes it's nice to reminisce and take a look back where it all started. And for me, it was following in the footsteps of "He Who Walks Behind the Rows"...
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